Bostontoallpoints
Service Attendant
The capital improvements are over several years rewarded by the U.S. government. So that wouldn't be accounted for as a loss.
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I don't really see how that could work, unless you're charging substantially higher per-mile fares for shorter trips. Let's consider a hypothetical train route running from Point "A" to Point "D." If a non-stop train leaves Point A" 100% full, it will be 100% full for its entire trip. But if a full train leaving Point A stops at point B to drop off ten passengers and pick up five passengers, it will have five empty seats until it stops at point C. And even if it picks up five new passengers at Point C and arrives at Point D 100% full, it will have generated fewer passenger miles than a non-stop train because of the empty seats between Point B and Point C. All other factors being equal, more passenger miles = more revenue.
JamesWhitcombRiley
Lead Service Attendant
Guess it makes a profit on the cars & trucks.
Capital expenses are amortized over years. You're looking for cash flow maybe. I am not an accountant.
Also remember that passengers on the Auto Train are also paying a stiff charge to transport their car, which may offset the additional expenses involved with the autoracks.
Yes, but Amtrak requests similar grants for the Northeast Corridor every year (I believe it's asking for $1.5 billion for fiscal 2025.) If capital costs exceed operating profits every year, that's a net loss.
Bostontoallpoints
Service Attendant
On the NEC Amtrak charges higher per-mile fares for shorter trips. It is driven by demand using dynamic pricing. In fact Amtrak uses dynamic pricing for their sleepers across the whole system. So say unloading 10 passenger paying $100 a piece but picking up 5 passengers at $300 a piece you can make more money. If you take the NEC from end to end you see this phenomena repeated over and over. Trains empty out at points in Phil and NYP but gain more passengers many of whom are paying higher ticket rates.
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Bostontoallpoints
Service Attendant
Capitol expenses are actually amortized out over several years depending on the expense. So if the $1.5 billion is amortized out over 10 years that would make it a net profit.
Bostontoallpoints
Service Attendant
It is $285 for a standard vehicle.
jis
Permanent Way Inspector
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It does. Actually the Autorack part of the Auto Train operation is probably the most profitable.
The fact that Auto Train carries way more Sleepers than any other train also helps.
west point
Engineer
iT IS ALL about revenue passenger miles not riders.. Auto train averages exactly the RPMs for auto train's length. Not the Star.
There are still plenty of empty seats and rooms all over the network. The corridor trains aren't as capacity constrained as the LD ones.
Well, I think fairly few people in a location served by good corridor service would jump to an LD sleeper as their first rail experience. They'd take a corridor train, then maybe think "that was good, why not a longer trip?". If they encountered high sleeper prices, I doubt it would dissuade them from continuing to use corridor services. So I consider high sleeper prices dissuading passengers from taking corridor services to be a somewhat absurd argument.
As to empty rooms, I've already said a significant number of empty rooms indicate a failure of yield management. If that's the case, improving yield management practices and attention to sales and demand should solve it. BTW, good yield management should have a few rooms going out empty. If things are consistently sold out over a significant period, it indicates prices are too low for maximum yield.
But my original point was that fares don't need to be that high as to reach "maximum yield". Empty rooms being a good thing is not the thinking Amtrak should be following. Amtrak should not be in the business of making a profit at the expense of ridership.
Where did I say that? Corridor prices can sometimes be extremely high too; if a potential first-time rider looks at taking one and is priced out, they may be discouraged from looking again. That's a lost rider.
1. I said a few rooms across a period of time, which indicates that pricing is optimized. I also said that if any significant number of rooms go out empty it represents a failure of yield management and things need to be adjusted. Implicitly that means lowering prices to overcome price resistance and increase demand.
2. Again, assuming rational yield management, high prices for corridor seats are a result of high demand for an inherently finite capacity (how many cars can you have on a train?). If demand is high, somebody else will buy the seat instead of the dissuaded individual. This seems to play out in reality. The per mile prices on the NEC, where demand is established, strong, and consistent, seem much higher than the per mile prices on, say, the Cascades, where demand is less established and is still being built. Coach, on the Cascades, can be dead cheap. My November 3rd trip from Everett to Vancouver is $22.50 for a Senior Flexible fare. That is 123 miles at 18.3 cents per mile. Is it unfair that an 8:23 am Flexible ticket between New York and Philly on a Regional in a couple weeks is $50, 91 miles at 55 cents a mile?
That Amtrak's current sleeper capacity constraints may be in large part self inflicted do not change the fact that capacity is constrained. I do not eliminate the possibility of deliberate action to maintain high fares while cutting costs, but I also think Hanlon's Razor, "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" may apply. Amtrak management has no shortage of stupidity.
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That Amtrak's current sleeper capacity constraints may be in large part xxxx (intentional).
No one here can say 100 percent Amtrak isn’t being intentional in keeping capacity reduced and suppressing revenue in that way. Everyone see’s all the capacity and head scratching decisions like just reported V1’s to stay in mothballs.
Unfortunately there’s no true watch dog calling Amtrak out. We are in uncharted territory, Amtrak has fought for its existence its entire 50 plus years, it’s never fought a battle from within like it is now though.
I don’t see Gardner as incompetent. I see him crazy as fox. He’s a politician playing the hand dealt after seeing how him and Anderson went down in flames in 2018.
No one here can say 100 percent Amtrak isn’t being intentional in keeping capacity reduced and suppressing revenue in that way. Everyone see’s all the capacity and head scratching decisions like just reported V1’s to stay in mothballs.
Unfortunately there’s no true watch dog calling Amtrak out. We are in uncharted territory, Amtrak has fought for its existence its entire 50 plus years, it’s never fought a battle from within like it is now though.
I don’t see Gardner as incompetent. I see him crazy as fox. He’s a politician playing the hand dealt after seeing how him and Anderson went down in flames in 2018.
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Cost pre mile, at least for the EB, depends on the portion of the whole route booked as shown in the right hand column below:
Don't know if this sort of thing applies to the NEC or if this eight year old data still applies, but I suspect it does. Here, the ¢ / mile nearly doubles if only 1/5 of the route is booked.
Edit: just did a quick check on the NEC using NER 95 Business Class from BOS to WAS:
• Whole route was 65¢ per mile
• Half route averaged 88¢ per mile for a 35% increase in cost per mile.
Chart above shows a 40% increase in cost per mile for half route. Didn't bother chopping up the NEC into more segments.
Don't know if this sort of thing applies to the NEC or if this eight year old data still applies, but I suspect it does. Here, the ¢ / mile nearly doubles if only 1/5 of the route is booked.
Edit: just did a quick check on the NEC using NER 95 Business Class from BOS to WAS:
• Whole route was 65¢ per mile
• Half route averaged 88¢ per mile for a 35% increase in cost per mile.
Chart above shows a 40% increase in cost per mile for half route. Didn't bother chopping up the NEC into more segments.
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thefirewarde
Service Attendant
I have a suspicion that the VL2 fleet has recently been pulling focus and shop resources away from the VL1 reactivations.
Don’t forgot those 200-300 autos at maybe $250/vehicle.
Siegmund
OBS Chief
Much higher than anywhere else in the country (or world) that I'm aware of. The most I've ever paid for an intercity coach trip on Amtrak or on a trip to Europe was around 25 cents a mile.
Re "how many cars you can have on a train," Amtrak's traditional maximum was 18 (though I have seen photos of a late-70s or early-80s Broadway Limited with 22.) I know there are length constraints on some of the tracks in Boston South Station but it boggles my mind why Amtrak runs such short NEC trains and is buying such capacity-constrained trainsets for the future. I can't help thinking they could carry twice as many people between New York and Washington if they had the equipment and the desire, just like they could on the Florida trains and the Coast Starlight, among others.
The effect is more extreme for sleepers than for coaches.
From my home station of Whitefish, MT, I can go the 150 miles to Shelby for 15 cents a mile, the 600 miles to Portland for 14, or the 1600 to Chicago for 12, if I hunt for an un-busy day.
Bostontoallpoints
Service Attendant
I was just looking at the numbers from 2019. The year Amtrak almost broke even, ($29 million loss).
https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/...Monthly-Performance-Report-September-2019.pdf
The NEC made $569 million with 12.5 million passengers. So today, there is essentially the same amount of passengers using the NEC but revenue is down on the Acela. I suspect this because of the over all decrease in business travel. Regionals are up 1 million, while Acela is down about 600 thousand since 2019.
Also many of the state supported routes made money with many almost at break even.
The long distance trains were still money losers although $100 million less so. The Auto Train lost $6.7 million.
I also like how they put a column for Average Load factor.
https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/...Monthly-Performance-Report-September-2019.pdf
The NEC made $569 million with 12.5 million passengers. So today, there is essentially the same amount of passengers using the NEC but revenue is down on the Acela. I suspect this because of the over all decrease in business travel. Regionals are up 1 million, while Acela is down about 600 thousand since 2019.
Also many of the state supported routes made money with many almost at break even.
The long distance trains were still money losers although $100 million less so. The Auto Train lost $6.7 million.
I also like how they put a column for Average Load factor.
jis
Permanent Way Inspector
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Beware that in accounting for state funded service, state subsidies are considered to be equivalent to revenue. So for most states, 'Breaking even" does not mean what many think it means. If federal subsidy were treated the same way then Amtrak would be break even or slightly profitable as things stand today.
Bostontoallpoints
Service Attendant
Septa9739
Lead Service Attendant
| Train | Aug | % of 2019 |
| Acela | 281,900 | 101% |
| Regional | 959,500 | 122% |
| Ethan Allen | 8,900 | 148% |
| Vermonter | 10,700 | 104% |
| Empire West | 57,300 | 133% |
| Downeaster | 56,700 | 93% |
| Springfield Shuttle | 46,200 | 142% |
| Keystone | 104,300 | 79% |
| Empire South | 123,500 | 114% |
| Great River Service | 22,300 | New |
| Lincoln Service | 53,800 | 95% |
| Hiawatha | 58,500 | 70% |
| Wolverines | 39,500 | 82% |
| Illini/Saluki | 25,900 | 117% |
| Illinois Service | 12,000 | 69% |
| Heartland Flyer | 6,600 | 106% |
| Pacific Surfliner | 201,400 | 74% |
| Cascades | 108,100 | 123% |
| Capitol Corridor | 85,400 | 56% |
| San Joquin | 76,500 | 85% |
| Adirondack | 3,300 | 22% |
| Blue Water | 18,600 | 103% |
| Roanoker | 28,700 | 144% |
| Newport News | 34,900 | 104% |
| Cannonball | 44,200 | 130% |
| Richmond | 13,800 | 142% |
| Missouri River Runner | 17,600 | 125% |
| Pennsylvanian | 22,700 | 109% |
| Pere Marquette | 9,800 | 98% |
| Carolinian | 30,300 | 221% |
| Piedmont | 29,100 | 158% |
| Silver Star | 33,700 | 99% |
| Cardinal | 7,500 | 77% |
| Silver Meteor | 26,000 | 77% |
| Empire Builder | 39,400 | 81% |
| Capitol Limited | 16,000 | 74% |
| California Zephyr | 29,700 | 81% |
| Southwest Chief | 24,400 | 75% |
| City of New Orleans | 21,000 | 122% |
| Texas Eagle | 29,900 | 106% |
| Sunset Limited | 5,900 | 81% |
| Coast Starlight | 31,300 | 75% |
| Lakeshore Limited | 36,100 | 95% |
| Palmetto | 28,200 | 97% |
| Crescent | 24,700 | 90% |
| Auto Train | 22,900 | 103% |
Here are the August monthly stats for the whole system. Most trains have been in a holding pattern for months, but there are a few exceptions. Can anyone spot them?
Also new this month, the Cascades has passed the Keystone Service to become the system’s 4th busiest route.
September data (year-end) should be here soon. Then there will be a couple different things I want to look at.
JamesWhitcombRiley
Lead Service Attendant
Cannonball's a good name for the Norfolk NER: straight alignment, express to Petersburg, and there's a cannonball in the wall of St. Paul's Church in Norfolk. Lord Dunmore shot it from a British ship on the first day of 1776. But as Miles in Transit says, "bring back flag stops!"
Thanks for posting this stuff -- definitely interesting! Wish there was a way to adjust, extract or combine to get a clearer Hiawatha picture. It has not 100% versus 2019 but now that about 15% of CHI-MKE-CHI trips (14 of 96 weekly) are under Borealis there's no solid way to know how close CHI-MKE-CHI is to full recovery.
