Conrail (reporting mark CR), formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999.

The federal government created Conrail to take over the potentially profitable lines of multiple bankrupt carriers, including the Penn Central Transportation Company and Erie Lackawanna Railway.

Following approval by the Surface Transportation Board, CSX and NS took control in August 1998, and on June 1, 1999, began operating their respective portions of Conrail.

They also make use of Conrail to perform switching and terminal services within the areas, but not as a common carrier, since contracts are signed between shippers and CSX or NS.

Conrail also retains various support facilities including maintenance-of-way and training, as well as a 51 percent share in the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad.

Although government-funded Amtrak took over intercity passenger services on May 1, 1971, railroad companies continued to lose money due to extensive government regulations, expensive labor costs, competition from other transportation modes, declining industrial business and other factors.

In 1972, Hurricane Agnes damaged the rundown Northeast railway network and threatened the solvency of other railroads, including the somewhat more solvent Erie Lackawanna (EL).

In mid-1973, officials with the bankrupt Penn Central threatened to liquidate and cease operations by year's end if they did not receive government aid by October 1.

Judge Fullam forced the Penn Central to operate into 1974, when, on January 2, after threatening a veto, President Richard Nixon signed the Regional Rail Reorganization Act of 1973 into law.

[citation needed] The 3R Act also formed the United States Railway Association (USRA), another government corporation, taking over the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission with respect to allowing the bankrupt railroads to abandon unprofitable lines.

[citation needed] Under the 3R Act, the USRA was to create a "Final System Plan" to decide which lines should be included in the new Consolidated Rail Corporation.

[5] It was approved by Congress on November 9, and on February 5, 1976, President Gerald Ford signed the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976, which included this Final System Plan, into law.

It was ruled reorganizable under Chapter 77 on April 30, 1974 (as had the Boston and Maine Railroad), but on January 9, 1975, with no end to its losses in sight, its trustees reconsidered and asked for inclusion.

The USRA hurriedly assigned large amounts of trackage rights to the Delaware and Hudson Railway, allowing it to compete in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C., markets.

Conrail's government-funded rebuilding of the dilapidated infrastructure and rolling stock it inherited from its six predecessors succeeded by the end of the 1970s in improving the physical condition of tracks, locomotives and freight cars.

Conrail began turning a profit by 1981, the result of the Staggers Act freedoms and its own managerial improvements under the leadership of L. Stanley Crane,[12] who had been chief executive officer of the Southern Railway.

[14] While the Staggers Act helped immensely in allowing all railroads to more-easily abandon unprofitable rail lines and set their own freight rates, it was under Crane's leadership that Conrail truly became a profitable operation.

Soon after Crane took office in 1981 he shed another 4,400 miles from the Conrail system in the following two years, which accounted for only 1% of the railroad's overall traffic and 2% of its profits while saving it millions of dollars in maintenance costs.

[citation needed] NERSA relieved Conrail of its requirement to provide commuter service on the Northeast Corridor, further improving its finances.

Bids were received from Alleghany Corporation, Citibank, an employee buyout, Guilford Transportation Industries, Norfolk Southern Railway and a consortium headed by J. Willard Marriott.

[35] The buyout was approved by the Surface Transportation Board (STB) (successor agency to the Interstate Commerce Commission(ICC) and took place on August 22, 1998.

[37] Conrail was the only railroad to receive EMD SD80MACs (an order from the Chicago & North Western was cancelled when that company merged with Union Pacific) and were separated evenly between CSX and NS.

As mentioned above, significant projects took place to reduce trackage, oftentimes removing double-track with automatic block signals in favor of single track with centralized traffic control (CTC).

Today, most Northeastern railroads associated with former Conrail lines have maintained standardization of all systems as vertical color light signals using NORAC rules.

The society aims to preserve and restore equipment, items pertaining to, and photographs of Conrail specifically and of American railroading in general.

The CRHS owns four pieces of on-track equipment: 86-foot boxcar 243880 (currently under development into a stand-alone Conrail museum), cabooses 21165 and 22130, and former Triple Crown RoadRailer TCSZ 463491.

[48] In August 2023, MTA Metro–North Railroad unveiled locomotive #201, a GE P32AC-DM, wrapped in a yellow and blue scheme worn by Conrail's EMD FL9 units between 1976 and 1982.