LD Trains, Most Popular Stops/City Pairs

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

For each train, I list the five most popular city pairs (by ridership) as well as the five busiest stops where applicable (Western trains other than the CS don't have the data available). All data is courtesy of the NARP 2015 ridership report: https://www.narprail.org/site/assets/files/1038/trains_2015.pdf. I'm skipping the Auto Train because it has only one city pair and two destinations. Please correct errors.

Silver Meteor:

1. New York, NY - Orlando, FL 1127 mi

2. Orlando, FL - Washington, DC 902 mi

3. Miami, FL - Orlando, FL 262 mi

4. Orlando, FL - West Palm Beach, FL 198 mi

5. New York, NY - Richmond, VA 333 mi

1. NYP: 91,924

2. ORL: 90,281

3. WAS: 41,440

4. JAX: 39,222

5. MIA: 35,875

Silver Star:

1. Tampa, FL - West Palm Beach, FL 192 mi

2. Miami, FL - Tampa, FL 257 mi

3. Orlando, FL - Tampa, FL 56 mi

4. Fort Lauderdale, FL - Tampa, FL 235 mi

5. New York, NY - Richmond, VA 334 mi

1. TPA: 117,401

2. NYP: 64,093

3. ORL: 52,486

4. Raleigh: 41,442

5. WAS: 35,010

Palmetto: (2016 will probably be different due to allowing for intra-NEC traffic)

1. Richmond, VA - Washington, DC 109 mi

2. Fayetteville, NC - New York, NY 550 mi

3. Florence, SC - New York, NY 633 mi

4. New York, NY - North Charleston, SC 728 mi

5. New York, NY - Wilson, NC 476 mi

1. NYP: 46,185

2. WAS: 42,994

3. Richmond, VA: 40,554

4. North Charleston, SC: 36,475

5. Fayetteville, NC: 34,954

Lake Shore Limited:

1. Chicago, IL - New York, NY 959 mi

2. Albany-Rensselaer, NY - Chicago, IL 818 mi

3. Buffalo, NY - Chicago, IL 528 mi

4. Chicago, IL - Syracuse, NY 668 mi

5. Albany-Rensselaer, NY - Boston, MA 199 mi

1. CHI: 164,470

2. NYP: 101,480

3. ALB: 78,435

4. SYR: 45,178

5. ROC: 41,872

Capitol Limited:

1. Chicago, IL - Washington, DC 764 mi

2. Chicago, IL - Pittsburgh, PA 481 mi

3. Toledo, OH - Washington, DC 530 mi

4. Pittsburgh, PA - Washington, DC 283 mi

5. Chicago, IL - Cleveland, OH 341 mi

1. CHI: 143,411

2. WAS: 123,599

3. PGH: 53,441

4. TOL: 28,027

5. CLE: 18,214

Cardinal:

1. Chicago, IL - Indianapolis, IN 196 mi

2. Chicago, IL - Lafayette, IN 122 mi

3. Chicago, IL - Cincinnati, OH 319 mi

4. Charlottesville, VA - Washington, DC 114 mi

5. Charlottesville, VA - New York, NY 339 mi

1. CHI: 45,495

2. Charlottesville: 21,399

3, WAS: 18,567

4. IND: 15,274

5. NYP: 13,482

Crescent:

1. Birmingham, AL - New Orleans, LA 354 mi

2. Atlanta, GA - New York, NY 859 mi

3. Atlanta, GA - Washington, DC 634 mi

4. Charlottesville, VA - New York, NY 337 mi
5. Atlanta, GA - New Orleans, LA 518 mi

1. ATL: 83,762

2. NYP: 72,754

3. NOL: 64,672

4. Birmingham: 44,212

5. WAS: 44,051

City of New Orleans:

1. Memphis, TN - New Orleans, LA 406 mi

2. Champaign, IL - Chicago, IL 129 mi

3. Jackson, MS - New Orleans, LA 185 mi

4. Chicago, IL - New Orleans, LA 926 mi

5. Chicago, IL - Memphis, TN 520 mi

1. CHI: 133,520

2. NOL: 96,336

3. Memphis: 71,033

4. Jackson, MS: 47,355

5. Champaign, IL: 37,339

Texas Eagle:

1. Chicago, IL - St. Louis, MO 284 mi

2. Chicago, IL - Normal, IL 124 mi

3. Chicago, IL - Springfield, IL 185 mi

4. Austin, TX - Fort Worth, TX 201 mi

5. Chicago, IL - Longview, TX 864 mi

Southwest Chief:

1. Chicago, IL - Kansas City, MO 437 mi

2. Chicago, IL - Los Angeles, CA 2256 mi

3. Albuquerque, NM - Los Angeles, CA 924 mi

4. Flagstaff, AZ - Los Angeles, CA 565 mi

5. Chicago, IL - Galesburg, IL 162 mi

California Zephyr:

1. Chicago, IL - Denver, CO 1038 mi

2. Denver, CO - Glenwood Springs, CO 185 mi

3. Chicago, IL - Emeryville, CA 2438 mi

4. Chicago, IL - Sacramento, CA 2353 mi

5. Reno, NV - Sacramento, CA 151 mi

Empire Builder:

1. Chicago, IL - St. Paul, MN 418 mi

2. Chicago, IL - Seattle, WA 2205 mi

3. Chicago, IL - La Crosse, WI 281 mi

4. Pasco, WA - Portland, OR 231 mi

5. Portland, OR - Spokane, WA 377 mi

Sunset Limited:

1. Los Angeles, CA - Tucson, AZ 502 mi

2. Los Angeles, CA - New Orleans, LA 1995 mi

3. Los Angeles, CA - San Antonio, TX 1423 mi

4. Houston, TX - New Orleans, LA 362 mi

5. Los Angeles, CA - Maricopa, AZ 416 mi

Coast Starlight:

1. Portland, OR - Seattle, WA 187 mi

2. Los Angeles, CA - Oakland, CA 464 mi

3. Los Angeles, CA - Seattle, WA 1377 mi

4. Los Angeles, CA - Santa Barbara, CA 103 mi

5. Los Angeles, CA - San Jose, CA 423 mi

1. LAX: 111,625

2. PDX: 109,557

3. SEA: 96,666

4. SAC: 63,131

5. Eugene: 48,933

Large cities (> 30,000 ridership) that have only one LD train whose city data is not in the routes file:

https://www.narprail.org/site/assets/files/1038/cities_2015.pdf

TE: (CHI can't be figured out), STL: 71,180, FTW: 49,558. DAL: 44,619, Bloomington, IL: 34,271, AUS: 32,920, Longview, TX: 31,813, Springfield, IL: 31,327

SWC: (CHI, LAX can't be figured out), Albuquerque: 77,532, KCY: 71,972, Flagstaff, AZ: 40,209

CZ: (CHI can't be figured out), DEN: 122,554, Reno, NV: 56,318, Emeryville, CA: 54,707 (92,496 - 37,789), SAC: 51,173 (114,304 - 63,131), Glenwood Springs, CO: 39,056, SLC: 37,065

EB: (CHI can't be figured out), MSP: 90,650, SEA: 63,570 (160,236 - 96,666), PDX: 58,370 (167,927 - 109,557), Spokane, WA: 49,588, Whitefish, MT: 47,337, Willston, ND: 38,477, Minot, ND: 31,827

SL: None over 30,000 (NOL has (25,628 (186,636 - 64,672 - 96,336), Houston has 19,857)

SAS has 54,502, split between the TE and SL.

 

[saxman]

I'm glad NARP updated this. I loved pouring through the stats of different cities. It's interesting to not that not the LD aren't just used for end point to end point service. But then again, for trains like the LSL and CL, the most popular city pair IS end to end. I also wouldn't have guessed that for the West Coast trains, that the second most popular city pair is end to end, such as CHI-LAX and CHI-SEA.

To expand further, I'd like to see connecting data. Such as what are the most popular connections for people coming in on the Empire Builder into Chicago. The last data I saw was most went to Michigan trains while another high amount continues to other LD trains.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

This report includes connecting data for the Capitol Limited: https://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/873/180/Chicago-Gateway-Amtrak-Blue-Ribbon-Panel-Final-Report.pdf

There are plenty of passengers connecting in CHI, WAS, and PGH (see p. 35).

For each one of the three stations, around 41% of passengers transfer.

 

[west point]

These stats are OK but IMHO Grouping of the stats would enable us to be more understanding. Examples that would include all stations between.

1. silver service routes NEC - to Savannah = JAX, = Tampa. Then Winter Park KIS, Tampa -- West palm to MIA.

2. Crescent NEC - CLT, ATL, BHM: ATL =BHM to NOL

3. Cardinal NEC to CVS = IND,

4. CHI = STL to DAL = SAS

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

LD Trains where endpoints are in the top five:

LSL: CHI-NYP #1

CL: CHI-WAS #1

SWC: CHI-LAX #2

EB: CHI-SEA #2

SL: NOL-LAX #2

CS: LAX-SEA #3

CZ: CHI-Emeryville #3

CONO: CHI-NOL #4

The SM's #1 is NYP-ORL which is a large portion of the trip (81% of miles). ORL-WAS (65% of miles) is 2nd.

Meanwhile, the SS seems to be a local train centered on Tampa (top 4 city pairs include TPA). Raleigh is the 2nd largest unique market. But they provide Florida with a lot of visitors (although Raleigh passengers could be heading north as well).

Ridership on Florida bound trains for non Florida cities:

NYP: 156,017 (91,924 + 64,093)

WAS: 76,450 (41,440 + 35,010)

Richmond: 50,183 (20,047 + 30,136)

PHL: 48,307 (25,230 + 23,077)

Raleigh: 41,442

With the northbound arrival into Richmond in the middle of the night, the SS is more popular for them.

I'm surprised the most popular Texas city from Chicago is Longview as opposed to Dallas or San Antonio. They do have Thruway service from Longview to Houston/Galveston and to Shreveport. If most of the Longview passengers are heading to Houston, maybe they should try a through branch to Houston splitting off the TE like they did in the 90's.

The Crescent seems to be a split between north of Atlanta (to NYP/WAS) and south of it (to NOL, BHM-NOL). According to the 2011 PRIIA (https://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/570/756/2011%20PRIIA%20210%20Report%2009-26-11_final.pdf) only 23% travel through ATL.

 

[JoeBas]

Atlanta to New Orleans in the top 5 for the Crescent? I thought NOBODY rode that route... :giggle:

 

[saxman]

I think routing and speed play a factor too. The Texas Eagle kind of take a curvy route once it gets to Texas. 10 hours from DAL to SAS is not exactly a good selling point when you can drive it in 5. However, FTW to AUS is a top five city pair and that is about a 4 hour trip which is very competitive with driving. But those living on the Dallas side of the Metroplex would rather drive. They would take the train if it didn't detour through FTW first. Same goes for connections to OKC.

Now after skimming through some of the city data, I've seen some interesting tidbits. I especially looked at some of the smaller towns. You'd think the most popular city from a small town would be it's nearest big city, but this isn't always the case. Provo, UT most popular destination is Grand Junction. It's second most popular is Sacramento. Obviously Salt Lake City is very close to Provo but they have the choice of Front Runner or driving.

But then I happened across Laurel, MS. My first guess was that most of it's passengers would be going to New Orleans or Birmingham. Nope! It's Hattiesburg, a mere 30 miles away. So I'm trying to figure out why people would take a once a day train only 30 miles with almost no transit options available between each.

Grand Forks and Minot has lost a lot of riders, probably due to significantly late trains and now cheap gas. But other middle of the night stations, like Holdredge, Hastings, Dodge City, and Lawrence have either gained or held steady in ridership. All of those are middle of the night stops too.

 

[neroden]

This data doesn't surprise me, perhaps because I've looked at similar data from past years.

The LSL is a Chicago-New York State train; after CHI-NYP, you have CHI-ALB, CHI-BUF, CHI-SYR, and I believe CHI-ROC comes in sixth after ALB-BOS, though that wasn't in your dataset. Obviously the BUF/ROC/SYR/ALB traffic to NYP gets on Empire Service trains, which kind of skews the data. In my opinion (and Philly's no doubt!) there should be a second NYP-CHI train to relieve the pressure on the LSL and allow it to carry more upstate NY - Chicago passengers.

The Silver Meteor is primarily the Orlando train. The Silver Star is primarily the Tampa train. It is what it is. If the Tampa-Orlando HSR had been built, the Silver Star would have lost most of its rationale and a rescheduling would have been appropriate to spread out the departures more.

The Capitol Limited has extremely heavy connecting traffic, and is arguably substantially a "bridge line". It should not be evaluated on its own, since it's clearly feeding traffic between other trains. It does, however, have solid Toledo and Cleveland ridership; the LSL does too but it's dwarfed by the upstate NY numbers. An Ohio-East Coast overnight route, running daytime west of Cleveland to Chicago, would make business sense as an additional service if it could be arranged.

The Cardinal is a strong route west of Cincy and east of Charlottesville, and riding through West Virginia isn't very popular. Sorry, fans of the New River Gorge, you're in a minority even on the Cardinal...

Chicago-Kansas City is busy enough that it needs a cutoff coach. Chicago-St Paul is busy enough it needs a second train.

Honestly, so is Chicago-Denver. (Denver Zephyr?) But it would be way better if all the Denver-Chicago trains were rerouted through the major cities in Iowa. (Sigh. Iowa DOT had a plan. But they elected know-nothings who don't want to fund it.)

 

[neroden]

Grand Forks and Minot has lost a lot of riders, probably due to significantly late trains and now cheap gas.

I'm guessing it's the consequences of the oil boom going bust. They had elevated ridership during the oil boom, probably crashing now that it's over.

 

[afigg]

LD Trains where endpoints are in the top five:

LSL: CHI-NYP #1

CL: CHI-WAS #1

SWC: CHI-LAX #2

EB: CHI-SEA #2

SL: NOL-LAX #2

CS: LAX-SEA #3

CZ: CHI-Emeryville #3

CONO: CHI-NOL #4

The SM's #1 is NYP-ORL which is a large portion of the trip (81% of miles). ORL-WAS (65% of miles) is 2nd.

The NARP stats only show ranking of the top city pairs, they don't show by how much. The 2010 to 2012 Performance Improvement Reports provided city pair ridership stats in percentages and on a pie chart for most of the LD trains for the previous fiscal year. The percentages for the top city pairs likely have not changed that much since then.

For the LSL in FY2010, CHI-NYP was 11% of the ridership, CHI-BUF 5%, CHI-Syracuse 5%, and so on.

For the CONO in FY2011, MEM-NOL was 12%, Jackson-NOL 10%, CHI-NOL 10%, CHI-MEM 9%.

For the CZ in FY2009, CHI-DEN was 9.1% of the ridership, and at #4, CHI-EMY was 4.3% of ridership

So the endpoints may be in the top city pairs, but they don't necessarily represent a large percentage of the trips taken on the LD train.

The exception to this is the CL, where the 3 top city pairs were 60% of the ridership trips for FY2009: CHI-WAS was 39%, CHI-PGH 14%, PGH-WAS 7%. As Nerodon noted, the CL gets a lot of connecting traffic from other trains.

 

[jis]

As a matter of cat the CL would find it very hard to survive without the connecting traffic. That is the reason to some extent that some ask, why not provide direct service to those that now have to connect via the CL? Pre-Amtrak and early days of Amtrak that was the case and that is why the CL in early Amtrak days was just a section of a Chicago east coast train. The overall travel pattern has not changed. It is just that Amtrak for various reasons has chosen to can both the Chicago - Florida train and the Chicago - New Yor via Pittsburgh trains. And still the CL is not one of the hottest performers. Bad route planning on part of Amtrak? I am shocked....

 

[afigg]

Grand Forks and Minot has lost a lot of riders, probably due to significantly late trains and now cheap gas.

I'm guessing it's the consequences of the oil boom going bust. They had elevated ridership during the oil boom, probably crashing now that it's over.

I would attribute the recent decline in Grand Forks and Minot to both the extended period of severe delays and the bust in the Bakken field oil drilling boom. The EB ridership in 2015 was below the levels of 2009 and 2010, before the Bakken field boom caused so much freight traffic congestion. So are the passenger numbers for Minot and Grand Forks.

The EB ridership is up +3.5% over 2015 for the months of October through June, so it is making a slow recovery in ridership. The On-Time Performance has recovered with a 83.6% endpoint OTP for FY2016 year to date. But the ridership numbers will likely take years to fully recover given how bad the delays were and how long they went on.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

I guess NARP stopped listing the percentages of routes when they added the ridership per station. Ideally they'd have both. The 2014 and 2015 reports are still available at NARP but old ones aren't. Luckily I was able to save one of the files from the Three Rivers era.

The PRIIA reports 2010-12 list the % of the most popular city pairs of each LD train.

You can also use the %'s between 0-100, 100-200, etc. to approximate if there is no other popular city pair in the same range. For example, I would expect most if not all of the LSL between 900-1000 miles is CHI-NYP.

As a matter of cat the CL would find it very hard to survive without the connecting traffic. That is the reason to some extent that some ask, why not provide direct service to those that now have to connect via the CL? Pre-Amtrak and early days of Amtrak that was the case and that is why the CL in early Amtrak days was just a section of a Chicago east coast train. The overall travel pattern has not changed. It is just that Amtrak for various reasons has chosen to can both the Chicago - Florida train and the Chicago - New Yor via Pittsburgh trains. And still the CL is not one of the hottest performers. Bad route planning on part of Amtrak? I am shocked....

The one advantage of the CL is it's a faster trip between CHI-WAS than the old WAS leg of the BL (even though it serves a much lower population base). Of course the CL was supposed to replace Byrd Crap.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Grouping these by city (see first post for city/route data links):

NYP:

Total LD: 389,918

LSL: 101,480 (26%)

SM: 91,924 (24%)

Crescent: 72,754 (19%)

SS: 64,093 (16%)

Palm: 46,185 (12%)

Card: 13,482 (3%)

WAS:

Total LD: 305,661

CL:123,599 (40%)

Crescent: 44,051 (14%)

Palm: 42,994 (14%)

SM: 41,440 (14%)

SS: 35,010 (11%)

Card: 18,567 (6%)

PHL:

Total LD: 97,478

SM: 25,230 (26%)

SS: 23,077 (24%)

Palm: 22,645 (23%)

Crescent: 20,557 (21%)

Card: 5,969 (6%)

NWK:

Total LD: 60,807

Palm: 15,505 (25%)

SM:14,658 (24%)

SS: 14,190 (23%)
Crescent:14,061 (23%)
Card: 2,393 (4%)

BAL:

Total LD: 33,780

Palm: 11,970 (35%)

SS: 6,650 (20%)

SM: 6,475 (19%)

Crescent: 6,291 (19%)
Card: 2,394 (7%)

For both the LSL and CL, a CHI bound train topped the list. The CL is a much larger % of travel for WAS than the LSL is for NYP (probably because it is the transfer point between CHI and the southbound trains). Interestingly NYP has way more Florida bound traffic than WAS and for WAS the two non Florida trains topped the two Florida trains (I can't explain why BAL loves the Palmetto way more than the Florida trains).

The West Coast/Texas trains' riderships are not listed for CHI but we can look at the other trains.

CHI:

Total LD: 1,056,560

LSL: 164,470 (16%)

CL: 143,411 (14%)

CONO: 133,520 (13%)

Card: 45,495 (4%)

Total East of Mississippi: 486,896 (46%)

NOL:

Total LD: 186,636

CONO: 96,336 (52%)
Crescent: 64,672 (35%)

SL (Corrected):14,658

 

[brianpmcdonnell17]

NOL:

Total LD: 186,636

CONO: 96,336 (52%)

Crescent: 64,672 (35%)

SM:14,658

The SM doesn't go anywhere near NOL, so I assume you meant the SL.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

I was looking at PHL's 2016 data file from NARP (https://www.narprail.org/site/assets/files/2335/phl.pdf) and saw they had 157,526 LD passengers and thought that was high compared to last year. It was over 50% more than 2015 ( 97,478). I thought where was this huge gain coming from. So I looked at the route file and checked to see if there were any big gains and it's pretty much the Palmetto (https://www.narprail.org/site/assets/files/3457/48.pdf).

You can see ridership on the Palmetto rose from 22,645 to 85,318. In addition, NYP went from 46,185 to 123,532, and WAS went from 42,994 to 165,718. On the other hand, Charleston's and Savannah dropped from FY 2015 to FY 2016. Now eight of the nine of the most popular city pairs by ridership are exclusively NEC (exception was WAS-Richmond) and the three largest by revenue are NYP-WAS, PHL-WAS, and NYP-PHL. Essentially the Palmetto now a regional between NYP and WAS disguised as an LD train. The overall ridership went from 206,305 to 372,998 (from the lowest ridership for any daily LD train to having higher daily ridership than both Silver trains and it's pretty obvious where that gain is coming from. So if the Palmetto's ridership skyrocketed and way more than the Silver trains combined, it's not because they have any more interest in going to Charleston and Savannah. Take away the NEC traffic and the Palmetto of 2016 isn't that much better than the Palmetto of 2015.

 

[PaulM]

Atlanta to New Orleans in the top 5 for the Crescent? I thought NOBODY rode that route... :giggle:

I was always skeptical about this bit of AU wisdom. Not only was NOBODY hyperbole; but it appears to be totally false. According to post #1, it in the top ONE.

 

[Anderson]

As to last year, BAL liked the Palmetto as much as it did because (I would argue) it offers a lot of daylight pairs and the train comes through late enough in the morning (vis-a-vis NYP, PHL, and NWK) to be attractive. This was a point that Ed Ellis made in re the Hoosier State's difficulties: A train that leaves before about 0700 is going to have very real problems attracting ridership (there's a steep curve in ridership in most cities, with a spike from either 0600-0700 or 0700-0800). 0850 (BAL) is more attractive than 0732 (PHL), to say nothing of 0605 (NYP). Northbound the issue isn't quite as bad, but 2038 (BAL) is still somewhat more attractive than 2155 (PHL), and 2336 (NYP) is still going to be at least somewhat problematic.

Further evidence of this can be found in WAS' figures: The Meteor (and Crescent) get a boost from the Capitol Limited connecting there, but even still the Palmetto keeps pace with them in terms of ridership despite lacking this connection boost. I suspect if you were able to "cook out" connecting pax WAS would look more like BAL. The only station that doesn't behave like it "should" here is NWK. Likewise, the Cardinal also behaves in a similar manner: 0645 is less attractive than 0930 or 1105, so the train does somewhat better vis-a-vis the others at the southern end than the northern end. To be fair, the Cardinal is also "sandbagged" by the availability of other direct or direct-ish alternatives to CHI at the northern end, but that plays into the timing situation as well.

 

[MARC Rider]

The Texas Eagle kind of take a curvy route once it gets to Texas. 10 hours from DAL to SAS is not exactly a good selling point when you can drive it in 5.

Actually, my experience is that this is a 6-hour drive, especially if you drive through Austin on I-35 and you don't have a catheter installed in your body, and thus need to make rest stops at decent intervals. But, you're correct, driving is still faster.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Clarification on theTexas Eagle/Dallas to San Antonio:

Due to the layover in Ft Worth (Crew change and Major Service) plus the stops in Cleburne,McGregor,Temple,Taylor,Austin and San Marcos, the Actual running time for the Eagle is actually about 6 hours.(2 Meals are served,Lunch and Dinner)

As for the Infamous I-35, Major Delays occur all the way from Desoto (South of Dallas)thru Waco/Temple due to Roadwork and Georgetown to Austin is a parking lot day and night!

Suggested Driving alternate is via US281 to San Antonio,it parallels,35 to the West and is a much more pleasant drive with less traffic and better scenery, takes about 5 Hours.

 

[DesertDude]

Now after skimming through some of the city data, I've seen some interesting tidbits. I especially looked at some of the smaller towns. You'd think the most popular city from a small town would be it's nearest big city, but this isn't always the case. Provo, UT most popular destination is Grand Junction. It's second most popular is Sacramento. Obviously Salt Lake City is very close to Provo but they have the choice of Front Runner or driving.

Where are you finding the information about Provo? I did a search for Provo in the linked PDF but nothing came up. IMO, Provo has a lot of untapped ridership potential. The expansion of commercial flights at Provo's airport (despite SLC International being close) suggests that it's a strong intermediate market.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Now after skimming through some of the city data, I've seen some interesting tidbits. I especially looked at some of the smaller towns. You'd think the most popular city from a small town would be it's nearest big city, but this isn't always the case. Provo, UT most popular destination is Grand Junction. It's second most popular is Sacramento. Obviously Salt Lake City is very close to Provo but they have the choice of Front Runner or driving.

Where are you finding the information about Provo? I did a search for Provo in the linked PDF but nothing came up. IMO, Provo has a lot of untapped ridership potential. The expansion of commercial flights at Provo's airport (despite SLC International being close) suggests that it's a strong intermediate market.

In the NARP stats you can now choose just one station or one route. Here's Provo and yes, Grand Junction is the #1 destination for Provo. Interestingly Chicago is 2nd, ahead of Denver which is way closer.

https://www.narprail.org/site/assets/files/2368/pro.pdf

 

[saxman]

Really glad NARP is keeping these updated now. These number really help with arguing about LD service. I often argue that people are constantly getting on and off which is true, yet I still see just about every LD train's top five city pairs as being an overnight ride. They are even higher when you look at revenue (which is what really counts).

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

In terms of riderships per city on a given train, the only trains NARP doesn't have this data for ( the SWC, CZ, TE, SL, and EB.

The NARP file separates LD ridership from state supported/NEC so you can find LD ridership for any Amtrak station. So if any station has just one LD train it will be listed.

Cities on these routes that have more than one LD train (Assume TE/SL overlap counts as one train). Please correct for errors:

SWC: CHI, Naperville, Mendota, Princeton, Galesburg, LAX

CZ: CHI, Naperville, Mendota, Princeton, Galesburg, SAC, Davis, Martinez, EMY

TE: CHI, SAS

SL: NOL, SAS, LAX

EB: CHI, SEA, PDX

Please check for any errors.

NOL's other trains are the Crescent and CONO for which the ridership per city is listed so you can find the SL's ridership from NOL (which I had posted). Since the CS's ridership per city is known, we know SAC, Davis, Martinez, EMY, SEA, and PDX on their CHI bound train. So you can find the EB's ridership out of CHI since you know everyone else's (subtract everyone else's from the total EB ridership). So the unknowns remaining would be:

SWC: CHI, Naperville, Mendota, Princeton, Galesburg, LAX

CZ: CHI, Naperville, Mendota, Princeton, Galesburg

TE: CHI, SAS

SL: SAS, LAX

CHI: SWC, CZ, TE

LAX: SWC, SL

SAS: TE, SL

Naperville, Mendota, Princeton, Galesburg: SWC, CZ

I'd love to see the ridership out of CHI for the SWC, CZ, and TE to see where they rank with the eastern LD trains and roughly see what are the popular destinations out of CHI.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

So a reasonable estimate of the EB ridership per city is attached. BTW, I forgot to coutnt Vancouver, WA (I didn't know there was a Vancouver, WA) as an EB/CS double.

CHI Ridership LSL 159,241 EB 145,527 CL 142,850 CONO 131,719 Card 45,393 Total LD 1,059,799 Remaining 580,596 Average 193,532

So the EB is a little more popular out of CHI than the CL but less than the LSL. Since there are only 3 remaining LD trains out of CHI unaccounted for and they average 193,532/train at least one of them (SWC, CZ, TE) has 193,532 or more. If they are split evenly, they all are way more popular than the EB when it comes to riders from CHI (including transfers to/from CHI, most assuming from east of CHI). For sure at least one if not more than one is. In an old report that showed CL transfers, the SWC and CZ were way ahead of the EB with the TE about even with the EB (there should be a link in this thread). If that pattern stays, you would guess well over 200,000 out of CHI for the 2 California trains. That goes with my theory that California is a more popular destination than the Pacific Northwest for passengers in CHI and east of CHI.

Empire Builder Ridership FY 2016.pdf