Amtrak, a nationwide U.S. passenger train corporation, wholly owned by the federal government, has signed a new five-year contract with IBM, where IBM will be running most of Amtrak's IT infrastructure. This is not the first time the two companies have partnered up, having worked together since 1994, according to an IBM statement.

Under the new agreement, IBM will provide data center services such as mainframe, mid-range server and security to its partner. It will also perform asset management and help-desk and desktop support services for Amtrak's 10,000 workstations across the U.S. IBM will also support infrastructure of Amtrak's ticket reservation system and the computing infrastructure for its delivery centers.

The reservation system processes ticket purchases on the Internet, by telephone and ticket-counter channels. IBM said the system was one of largest in the industry.

IBM will be providing its services to Amtrak's 90,000 employees and more than 28.7 million customers. Amtrak carries passengers to more than 500 locations in 46 states on a 21,000-mile rail system.

Recently IBM launched its Global Rail Innovation Center, where it gathers researchers, scholars and industry leaders to develop smart rail systems around the world.