The company that runs most of the long-distance passenger trains in the US saw passenger numbers drop by 5 per cent in the year to September 30 after falling business traffic on the key Boston-Washington corridor cancelled out growth elsewhere.

However, government-backed Amtrak insisted that prospects for passenger rail remained strong. The 27.2m passengers it carried in the year to September 30 constituted the second highest total in the organisation’s 38-year history, second only to the record-breaking year to September 30 2008.