The future of Amtrak and the long distance trains

[tonys96]

Aging ridership on the long distance trains is a statistical reality, especially in the sleepers.

No, it isn't. You're pulling this claim out of your ***.
Unless you actually have statistical data by age for each individual train -- which you don't -- you can't claim that it's a "statistical reality". You don't have those statistics. Amtrak has never published them.

From the PIPs:

Crescent:

Age of Adult Passengers (children not included)

18-34 8%

35-54 23%

55+ 69%

Average Age 58

Employment

Employed 49%

Retired 41%

Lake Shore Limited

Age of Adult Passengers

(children not included)

18-34 11%

35-54 34%

55+ 55%

Average Age 54

Employment

Employed 53%

Retired 32%

Silver Star:

Age of Adult Passengers(children not included)

18-34 6%

35-54 26%

55+ 68%

Average Age 57

Employment

Employed 47%

Retired 41%

Silver Meteor:

Age of Adult Passengers(children not included)

18-34 6%

35-54 25%

55+ 69%

Average Age 58

Employment

Employed 43%

Retired 43%

Palmetto

Age of Adult Passengers (children not included)

18-34 9%

35-54 29%

55+ 62%

Average Age 56

Employment

Employed 50%

Retired 38%

Haven't seen any for the other long distance trains, but the corridor trains are available here, though you'll need to scroll aways down. It's immediately obvious that the long distance trains are significantly grayer than the corridors. Heck, look at the Empire Service, Route A. You claim the Lake Shore Limited "seems to retain a thriving younger clientele," with 11% of passengers being 18-35, while the corridor it runs over is 28% and the US census has 35% of the population in that range. 55% is 55 or older when only a third of the populace is and only 39% of the Empire Service.

Now, Chicago-Carbondale? 51% of that train is 18-34. That's a thriving younger clientele.

Care to share a link where you got this info?

 

[retired CPA]

hhaloerider: This is a good point. You can't estimate staffing per train, you have to count. I managed to dig out train staffing information from various people's comments: the "blue book" gives sleeping car attendants, coach attendants, cafe attendants; others have given the union rules for allocation of assistant conductors and the exact number of dining car staff in use at any given time on a particular train.

The station support staff is much harder to figure -- I think you'd have to stop at each station and assess its staffing.

The maintenance staff *isn't actually assigned to specific trains*, meaning it's impossible to *really* figure out how much is appropriately allocated to a particular train. The same staff in Chicago does running maintenance on the Hoosier State and the Cardinal and the Empire Builder and the Hiawatha and the Southwest Chief and the Wolverine.

Amtrak seems to use a particularly half-assed method to wildly guess how much of their time is spent on the long-distance trains, but there's no *good* method, without knowing a great deal of the internals of the staffing procedures. But given what's come out about operations at Chicago, with workers slacking off and lying to their bosses, it doesn't make sense to penalize ANY of the trains for the high cost of running maintenance at Chicago; this is a problem of Chicago yard operations, period!

Which is why I have said in other places that the overhead -- including things like Chicago yard operations -- needs to be simply broken out separately, NOT allocated to trains. It doesn't go away if you cancel the trains, unless you shut down ALL the trains (LD and corridor alike), which won't happen.

Overhead allocation is a *pricing* tool used by companies which have third-party contracts in order to attempt to make enough profits to cover overhead, and as such it can be a useful tool. It has nothing to do with the real cost of running an operation, and should NEVER be used as a tool for deciding what services to start or cancel; that way lies madness. Unfortunately, for decades Amtrak has been using this madness in all of its reports.

If you're trying to determine "how much route X costs to run", allocation of capital expenses to specific routes (which so far has not really been done) is a substantially more legitimate accounting maneuver than allocation of overhead.

Thankfully, Amtrak has given us actual direct costs for trains, two or three times. See below.

---

GML:

Page 69 of Amtrak's recent mega-report gives (revenue - costs) for the LD trains as a group, on a "direct costs" basis, in the middle of the page -- before loading them up with largely arbitrary allocations of overhead on the bottom half of the page.

http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/458/748/FY14-Budget-Business-Plan-FY15-Budget-Justification-FY14-18-Five-Year-Financial-Plan.pdf

The cost of the entire LD system is estimated at $142.8 million for FY2014. The joke numbers of 600 million or more are all from overhead allocation.

The PIPs gave direct costs numbers in some cases as well.

---

Thanks for the link. I can use that to update some of my costs. I got $688 mil for op costs in 2013. They show $719 for 2014. I have not updated my numbers lately, mainly because I get trashed every time I post something here. I don't make this stuff up. It comes from Amtrak's own reports. You can see from their report that the biggest costs are labor with T&E leading the pack. The rest of the big costs are fuel, rent to the host RR's, car and locomotive maintenance. Revenue is little changed from 2013. I don't estimate OBS or T&E personnel, I use actual counts per train and I use the actual equipment count also for maintenance costs and the route miles for fuel. The shared costs are listed as $507 million. That's just bogus for most of these 15 trains. It's just an allocation. There are a lot of changes to operations that can be made and you and the rest are touching on some of those. I read it with interest.

 

[Paulus]

Anyone can figure out that a station with more than one route will cost less per train..........

Also has to do with the fact that if it is shared, the cost is not a direct cost and has to be allocated. So if you are only looking at direct costs, and there are few to no exclusive stations on a route, that route is going to look a lot better.

 

[haolerider]

Actually, the last time I looked at the Auto Train figures, it had an allocation for shared stations, which it doesn't have. No other train uses Lorton or Sanford, although they do make a stop in Florence, SC for fuel and water & staff.

 

[Paulus]

Actually, the last time I looked at the Auto Train figures, it had an allocation for shared stations, which it doesn't have. No other train uses Lorton or Sanford, although they do make a stop in Florence, SC for fuel and water & staff.

And where did you see that allocation because I don't recall seeing it broken out on anything for the particular routes like that.

Edit: And when was it? They may have combined both Sanford stations into a single item for costs.

 

[neroden]

From the PIPs:

Woo hoo, data!
It's odd that they only did this data for some of the trains in the PIPs.

Several of the other PIPs don't have this data. I checked.

Lake Shore Limited

Age of Adult Passengers

(children not included)

18-34 11%

35-54 34%

55+ 55%

Average Age 54

Employment

Employed 53%

Retired 32%

Population demographics for upstate New York (as a percentage of the 18+ population):

18-34 ~27%

35-54 ~37%

55+ ~35%

OK, so there's roughly a 17-20% bias towards older people. I don't see this as indicative of a trend, because we don't have any trendlines. This is a single datapoint from 2010. For all *you* know, the ridership is getting younger over time.

In 2010, 35 == born in 1975, while 55 = born in 1955. Convenient numbers: most of the over-55 population (except for the youngest 10 years' worth) grew up with significant train service. The under-35 population grew up with nothing available, and would like some -- but is not interested in nostalgia and wants trains which run on time.

It's clear that sleeper ridership is biased wealthier, and being wealthy is biased older. It's also clear that ridership on trains which don't run on time is biased towards those with more free time. So I don't think the 17-20% bias on the LSL is significant, unless it constitutes a trend.

Does it constitute a trend? I don't know. Anecdotes indicate that there was an even *greater* bias toward aged ridership earlier in Amtrak's history, but I'd love to see some statistics. I remember riding the San Diegan as a kid, and my forty-year-old mother was probably the second youngest person on the train after me, but that's just an anecdote.

The southern-bound trains clearly bias even older than the LSL -- and much more retired, as well. Given the extremely aged population of Florida I'm not sure this is really that far off from the population distribution on the Silver Service routes.

But the Crescent/Palmetto demographic pattern is truly bad. Of course, these trains go to the states where there seems to be no youth rail advocacy whatsoever, and the stations are still decrepit shacks.

Haven't seen any for the other long distance trains, but the corridor trains are available here, though you'll need to scroll aways down. It's immediately obvious that the long distance trains are significantly grayer than the corridors.

I won't argue with that. Longer, slower, less reliable trains are less attractive to people who are poorer and have less free time, and right now, that's correlated with "younger".
And right now, "longer, slower, and less reliable" is correlated with so-called "long-distance"... though it's far from a perfect correlation.

But that does NOT mean that the ridership is "getting older". How old was the ridership of these trains 20 years ago, or 30 years ago?

Heck, look at the Empire Service, Route A. You claim the Lake Shore Limited "seems to retain a thriving younger clientele," with 11% of passengers being 18-35, while the corridor it runs over is 28% and the US census has 35% of the population in that range. 55% is 55 or older when only a third of the populace is and only 39% of the Empire Service.

OK, fine, it's a mild bias, but there's (a) no evidence as to what direction this is moving in, and (b) it's not honestly that large a bias, and is small enough to be explained by the usual things (younger people are poorer, older people are richer, younger people are more sensitive to on-time performance, etc.).

Empire Service is actually biasing old as well, with 46% in the over-55 range, at the expense of the 35-55 generation.

On the other hand, which one is corridor route Y, which also has 11% under age 34 and 60% over age 55? This could give us a better clue as to what's really going on. That's the Heartland Flyer, isn't it? And I can't think of any youth train advocacy in Oklahoma, either. Oklahoma and Texas also have *more youth* than average, unlike the Rust Belt, making this particularly noticeable.

That chart from LOSSAN is really annoying now that I don't have a copy of the 2012 data to figure out which route is which.

I'd like to find the Wolverines in the chart, given their horrible OTP in FY2012. Is that route H (28% under 35, 49% over 55)?

It would also be worth finding the Buffalo-Albany trains (which are treated as a separate corridor by Amtrak). Is that route G (35% under 35, 41% over 55)? This is a better point of comparison with the LSL than the "Empire Service" (NY-Albany), and it's interesting if I've found the right line, which I might not have.

Nearly all the routes are biasing old -- including the corridor routes.

Now, Chicago-Carbondale? 51% of that train is 18-34. That's a thriving younger clientele.

It is. It's largely college students (including grad students), AFAICT.

 

[andersone]

No matter how hard I try to read this topic, all I hear is an argument in a pet shop about a dead parrot :giggle:

I thought it was my pet fish Eric? Or do we just usher in the lumberjacks?

 

[Green Maned Lion]

In my opinion, and it is just that, you have to separate the operation of these trains from the whole of Amtrak. Why? Because Amtrak is pre-occupied with running the NEC and always will be. It’s a busy railroad and takes most of their time and effort and incurs most of their overhead expenses. Amtrak is three very different animals. The NEC, the State operated corridor services and the long distance trains. Once the LD trains are under different management that is dedicated to only those trains, you will get better reports, evaluations, service and results. And this may be where Boardman is trying to take Amtrak, who knows. In conjunction with this re-organization you would have to remove the Superliners from the CONO and the Capitol and replace them with single level equipment and make the other changes I have recommended. That frees up enough superliner equipment to serve the remaining western trains and make the Sunset daily without having to order any new equipment for the immediate future. Since most of these train operate out of Chicago, I would move the main maintenance base to some western suburb there or perhaps to a non-union, right to work state. The Eastern trains would have their own maintenance base somewhere else, maybe where it is now. If the demographics are deteriorating as you state, then you will have to start advertising to attract younger people. I never see an Amtrak add in this area. Congress will have to fund these changes for some time, so getting them on board is important. However, with dedicated management these trains can be successful and if they are the route structure could even be expanded. As for the trains themselves, surely you can see that each train is different. They have to be designed to cater to the market they serve and the markets can be very different. This discussion could go on forever. But the first step is to separate operation of these 15 trains from the rest of Amtrak. To trash these trains you are talking about throwing away almost $570 million in revenue and laying off thousands of employees. I believe that is unacceptable to even a tea party congress.

I see your reasoning, and ask you to back it up with statistics, once again. That being said I think you don't understand the dogmatic stupidity of the tea party, for one thing.

Finally, any suggestion to take Superliners off of ANY train on which they can be run is an indication you have no idea about cost recovery. Trainsets will be freed up in a few years when the Sunset Limited gets put out of its misery. The Sunset Limited has been a perpetual thorn in Amtrak's side, and its useful life ended the day Union Pacific asked for three quarter's of a billion dollars to make the thing daily. It is run by Amtrak and their crew in a fashion that indicates none of them have much appreciation for the train (or their jobs, quite frankly). Its operation culture is toxic, and excluding Houston, San Antonio, and New Orleans, it serves no significant destinations. Of those destinations, Houston doesn't even count. Its a waste of taxpayer dollars, and always has been.

I believe that asking for Amtrak to be profitable is ridiculous, since we don't ask for the roads to be profitable. Or the airports (my local one is sucking up more and more tax money every year, money straight down the drain).

Asking Amtrak to be overall profitable is ridiculous. Asking Amtrak to be operationally profitable is not so ridiculous. With expanded consist lengths to certain trains, decreased labor expenses in certain areas, and careful modulation of amenities and so forth, operational profitability on the LD trains at the current loss of $146 million is not unreasonable.

THOUGHT ONE.
The LD trains are not the biggest problem at Amtrak. The biggest financial problem is, in fact.... the overhead!

Or, to be more accurate, the problem is that the fixed overhead is spread over *too few services*. In short, Amtrak needs to expand.

Specifically, Amtrak needs to expand those services which (after expansion) make a profit before overhead. At the moment, Amtrak doesn't even know which services make a profit before overhead, because Amtrak has no system of assigning capital costs or real depreciation on a route level. (!!!!) However, Amtrak is working on developing such a system, and it should be useful.

How to expand? Well, given our assumption that Congress is going to be unhelpful for the next few years, I see four ways to expand:

(1) State and local funding

(2) Borrowing money

(3) Competitive executive-branch grants (TIGER, etc.)

(4) Reassign equipment from cancelled segments of routes (I don't like this option)

Due to the many, many economies of scale in railroading, it is actually quite likely that one train a day will lose money before overhead, but two trains a day will make money before overhead. (Going from 1 train to 2 trains usually more-than-doubles ridership *and* increases ticket yields.)

I agree with you entirely. But the idea of managing to come up with the capital investment and railroad operating agreements needed to actually achieve what you have in mind... I'm doubtful its possible.

THOUGHT TWO.
The so-called long-distance services provide connectivity -- if you sever the New York-Chicago link, you lose ticket sales on the "corridor trains" on both the New York and the Chicago ends. Accordingly, the "direct costs" profitability *understates* the degree to which these trains benefit Amtrak's bottom line: there is revenue which is not from tickets on the Lake Shore Limited, but if the Lake Shore Limited was cancelled, that revenue would go away.

While I agree with you in principle, I'm not really sure just how much that connectivity really improves the bottom line. I would tend to think (pure opinion, backed up by some common wisdom, which I know is not always accurate) that once a connection is made

THOUGHT THREE.

I have previously described the reroutes and service additions which I think would make for a better network. There are a number of characteristics of the current network which are historical artifacts and don't make sense.

- There are not nearly enough services in the NEC-Chicago region. Detroit-NYC is a glaring gap, as is Chicago-Philadelphia, and of course the lack of service to Columbus OH, and the three-a-week (should be daily) service to Cincy...

- Minneapolis - Chicago needs more frequencies and should stop in Madison (damn Scott Walker)...

- the SW Chief is on the wrong route and should be going via Wichita and Amarillo... and the Heartland Flyer should connect to Wichita... I do think that LA-Chicago is worth keeping for connectivity, but let's have some more connectivity there!

- The Sunset Limited needs to go daily or be cancelled, and it needs to stop in Phoenix, and arguably it should run directly from El Paso to Odessa/Abilene/Ft. Worth rather than via empty towns to San Antonio...

- there are a lot of routes which ought to exist in Texas...

- the ski service on the CZ ought to be separate from the service to Salt Lake City (which is much faster via Wyoming) and the Denver-Chicago service probably should be separate from both (to avoid delays), and the Denver-Chicago service runs on the wrong route through Iowa (which might be fixed if the Iowa legislature ever stops being run by anti-train lunatics)... and I doubt that service from Salt Lake to Reno makes sense at *all*. It's the biggest operational funds bleed in the system and it doesn't seem to be possible to drum up ridership.

- There are even more glaringly absent services in the Southeast and the Appalachians, but I don't think I'll go into that in detail now...

-Detroit is over served as it is. Its a dead city, servicing the moribund traditional domestic car industry. GM and Ford are quite clearly not reading the writing Elon Musk sprayed on the wall, and when those two companies inevitably die, what is left of that city will make Rochester look like an overpopulated city. Northern Michigan is underserved, as are the communities in Michigan that are not depending on the former Big Two.

-Philadephia-Chicago is vastly underserved. It should have two trains running on it (Overnight to Pittsburgh, daytime to Chicago, daylight to Pittsburgh, overnight to Chicago), just as the water level route needs an overnight to Buffalo, daytime to Chicago train.

-I agree with you about Minneapolis. There should be at least three trains a day to Minneapolis in addition to the Empire Builder and possibly a North Coast Hiawatha.

- While I think I agree with you about the Southwest Chief, the utilization of the Sunset by Houstonites makes me wonder if the population characteristics along the transcon are deceiving vs the population density. But its a lingering fear brought on by a person I am beginning to think is somewhat mentally disturbed.

- The Sunset isn't going daily and needs to be cancelled.

- Texas needs to declare its secession from the union. I will host a going away party at my house. All are invited. If it doesn't do so, I agree with you.

- I disagree with you about the CZ. I really have the feeling that the whole operational merit of the California Zephyr west of Denver IS as a land cruise, and moving it from its historical route is misguided. There SHOULD be a day train from Denver to Salt Lake City on the Overland route.

- Service needs to be run from New York to Buffalo via both the former Lackawanna and Erie lines. Actually, I think if we brought back almost every route operating on April 30th 1971, we'd have a pretty good start, with modifications to improve efficiency.

Each of these trains is an entirely different animal running through different regions with different demographics and serving different people.

That is a point lost on far too many people.

New Jersey seems to have died as far as rail service advocacy and I'm not sure why. There hasn't been a new organization replacing the moribund NJARP. Maybe the sort of young people who advocate for rail service... have moved across the border from NJ to NY or Pennsylvania. Just a hypothesis. Or maybe they're happy with what they've got; if you live on the Newark City Subway, you're probably not agitating for a lot of extra service, unless you have family in Scranton or something.

NJARP is moribund mostly because the personalities involved in the New Jersey rail scene split into various camps over a few key issues a long bloody time ago and they honestly hate each others guts. Not for any meritorious reasons, just a bunch of half senile, half crazy (or fully crazy) grumpy, crotchety old men. I could go into lists of each personality and their problems, but they are irrelevant (and generally infantile).

I've been trying to reposition the Lackawanna Coalition into a state-wide organization to catch the new generation and provide a more coherent statewide organization. I have several reasons for believing this is the right move. First of all, I've managed to get myself, at 29, elected to an officership position. Joe Clift, a person with impressive credentials (former Director of Planning for the LIRR for one thing) couldn't manage to get elected to NJ ARPs board despite the fact that this failure left some of the boards seats empty. Secondly, we have certain institutional knowledge from our time period with the late, great, and deeply lamented James T. Raleigh. And thirdly, I've found a partner for doing this job who is working tirelessly to accomplish this goal.

Well... they'll have some complaints. Perhaps not the ones you might think of, though. The sort of young people who are riding trains are often ecologically minded and often health conscious. They're not going to be offended by lack of flowers or tablecloths, but the thought of throwing out tons of plastic at every meal won't be popular.
And a bunch of people (obviously, never everyone, but always an important minority) are going to want balanced meals -- cutting side salads is a very questionable thing to do, as it forces those who want balanced meals to get only one of the menu options.

People of all ages are also budget conscious enough that the food prices will be an issue.

And the fixed mealtimes and short serving period are really bad -- younger people are used to eating when they want to eat, on their own schedule. Our society has changed: it's really abnormal for a family to "sit down to dinner" at the same time every day, and even if they do, it'll be different for different families.

That is not an issue I am qualified to argue about. I'm an unusual type who does like to sit down to dinner at a formal time and food is one of the driving forces of my existence on this planet. I recognize I am weird- the very existence of places like Subway prove that most people don't think like I do. I recognize and appreciate that- and as such I don't try to weigh in on other peoples dining preferences when I make long term suggestions.

 

[TWA904]

Lets do this with respect for everyone. I don't care about the NEC. We all know it is a money loser.

I'm more interested in the Long Distance routes.

For Long Distance routes only -

1. Can we determine a full accounting of all rolling stock and locomotive power to come up with a picture of transportation assets and availability.

2. Can we determine how many pieces of equipment are now in storage, maintenance or wreck lines that can be quickly and reasonably returned to revenue service.

3. What about rollomg stock owned by other companies or individuals that could be leased for short terms until new rolling stock is available.

 

[Paulus]

That chart from LOSSAN is really annoying now that I don't have a copy of the 2012 data to figure out which route is which.

I'd like to find the Wolverines in the chart, given their horrible OTP in FY2012. Is that route H (28% under 35, 49% over 55)?

It would also be worth finding the Buffalo-Albany trains (which are treated as a separate corridor by Amtrak). Is that route G (35% under 35, 41% over 55)? This is a better point of comparison with the LSL than the "Empire Service" (NY-Albany), and it's interesting if I've found the right line, which I might not have.

Nearly all the routes are biasing old -- including the corridor routes.

Pacific Surfliner

Empire Service (Route A)

San Joaquin (Route B)

Washington-Newport News (Route C)

Keystone (Route D)

Cascades (Route E)

Capitol Corridor (Route F)

Albany-Niagra Falls-Toronto (Route G)

Carolinian (Route H)

Wolverine (Route I)

Hiawatha (Route J)

Chicago-St. Louis (Route K)

New Haven-Springfield (Route L)

Washington-Lynchburg (Route M)

Pennsylvanian (Route N)

Chicago-Carbondale (Route O)

Downeaster (Route P)

Adirondack (Route Q)

Blue Water (Route R)

Chicago-Quincy (Route S)

Kansas City-St. Louis (Route T)

Vermonter (Route U)

Pere Marquette (Route V)

Piedmont (Route W)

Ethan Allen (Route X)

Heartland Flyer (Route Y)

Hoosier State (Route Z)

 

[SarahZ]

- There are not nearly enough services in the NEC-Chicago region. Detroit-NYC is a glaring gap, as is Chicago-Philadelphia, and of course the lack of service to Columbus OH, and the three-a-week (should be daily) service to Cincy...

-Detroit is over served as it is. Its a dead city, servicing the moribund traditional domestic car industry. GM and Ford are quite clearly not reading the writing Elon Musk sprayed on the wall, and when those two companies inevitably die, what is left of that city will make Rochester look like an overpopulated city. Northern Michigan is underserved, as are the communities in Michigan that are not depending on the former Big Two.

A point, if I may.

When people refer to "Detroit", they're often including the suburbs, which contain upward of three million people. It can also include Ann Arbor (not technically metro Detroit, but close enough). Ann Arbor has the highest ridership numbers in Michigan.

By opening up a Detroit-NYC route, you're also grabbing those of us in Kalamazoo (#2 ridership in Michigan) who don't like backtracking to Chicago and spending most of a day there or the option of transferring in TOL at 3:00 AM. Besides, that transfer involves a bus, so it's actually two transfers. Some people drive, but again, that defeats the purpose.

I believe, when people say, "Detroit to NYC," they're talking about a corridor moreso than a city.

 

[jis]

That chart from LOSSAN is really annoying now that I don't have a copy of the 2012 data to figure out which route is which.

I'd like to find the Wolverines in the chart, given their horrible OTP in FY2012. Is that route H (28% under 35, 49% over 55)?

It would also be worth finding the Buffalo-Albany trains (which are treated as a separate corridor by Amtrak). Is that route G (35% under 35, 41% over 55)? This is a better point of comparison with the LSL than the "Empire Service" (NY-Albany), and it's interesting if I've found the right line, which I might not have.

Nearly all the routes are biasing old -- including the corridor routes.

Empire Service (Route A)

Albany-Niagra Falls-Toronto (Route G)

The Empire Corridor is split into two because operationally A is under NEC and G is under LD. Go figures.

 

[user 1215]

I want disagreement, yes. I want backed up disagreements and new ideas to supplement them. I'm totally and honestly serious here. Lets come up with some ideas for Amtrak's future given the actual political parameters we live in and the facts as they stand (I feel I laid them out correctly, but feel free to cite information that disputes them, and then sort it out using the facts you have found). We both have accounting backgrounds, Mr. J. I can read the data you provide. But fight with facts, not vitriol.

If my supplier and I can argue civilly over a $25,000 balance disagreement, and solve it by trading paperwork back and forth, than I see no reason why intelligent, reasonable people can't have an unemotional debate about Amtrak and back up each point with facts and citations.

That being said I think you don't understand the dogmatic stupidity of the tea party, for one thing.

ROLFOL

- A Nitwit

 

[afigg]

That chart from LOSSAN is really annoying now that I don't have a copy of the 2012 data to figure out which route is which.

I'd like to find the Wolverines in the chart, given their horrible OTP in FY2012. Is that route H (28% under 35, 49% over 55)?

It would also be worth finding the Buffalo-Albany trains (which are treated as a separate corridor by Amtrak). Is that route G (35% under 35, 41% over 55)? This is a better point of comparison with the LSL than the "Empire Service" (NY-Albany), and it's interesting if I've found the right line, which I might not have.

Nearly all the routes are biasing old -- including the corridor routes.

Pacific Surfliner

Empire Service (Route A)

...

Thanks for the explanation of the LOSSAN presentation route codes. Useful to see the variations in ridership age and *** across the corridor routes. Would be interesting to see the age distribution for the NE Regional and Acela; I would guess the Acela would be dominated by 25 to 64 blocks and the NE Regionals as more evenly distributed in age than most of the other corridors.
With the growth in ridership over the past 10 years, I think the belief posted here that the ridership is getting older may be wrong. Compared to 10 years ago, the 18-24 and 25-34 percentages are likely larger for the corridor trains than they were.

Looking at the LOSSAN presentation age distribution, looks like Route I Wolverine and Route L NHV-SPG are roughly the closest to the 2010 census age distribution.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

ROLFOL

- A Nitwit

Any group that seems to stick to their ideals no matter what information is presented to them has dogmatic stupidity. I don't call that vitriol. That's just a statement. Look up the actual definition of "stupid" and apply that to my statement literally instead of assuming the insult and what I said will make more sense.

 

[jis]

Joe Clift, a person with impressive credentials (former Director of Planning for the LIRR for one thing) couldn't manage to get elected to NJ ARPs board despite the fact that this failure left some of the boards seats empty.

The bit about Board seats being left vacant is factually incorrect. There were more candidates than there are seats and Joe just did not happen to get elected. But all seats were filled in that election.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

*shrugs* then I was misinformed and stand corrected.

 

[user 1215]

ROLFOL

- A Nitwit

Any group that seems to stick to their ideals no matter what information is presented to them has dogmatic stupidity. I don't call that vitriol. That's just a statement. Look up the actual definition of "stupid" and apply that to my statement literally instead of assuming the insult and what I said will make more sense.

An assumption that it is used as an insult is defaulted based on previous behavior. If you decide to go back to a dictionary use of the word, a notation stating such would be appropriate at the time it is made.
Finally, please quote a "neutral" publication that shows that the T.E.A. Party is dogmatically stupid with regards to the topic at hand. Something that doesn't materially fit into their platform of reducing taxes and encouraging private enterprise would be appreciated.

 

[Caesar La Rock]

I'm posting late for this, but in my opinion discontinuing any route isn't a good idea, even if it runs three times a week. Any time a route is discontinued or "suspended", it's very costly and difficult to restore. Look at the Pioneer, North Coast Hiawatha, and the cheapest one to restore the Sunset Limited's route east of New Orleans, to name a few.

Amtrak should focus on maintaining and improving the existing routes they have. When new equipment begins to arrive, then they can lengthen existing trains, add new LD trains, and re-extend routes. <Drops microphone>

 

[Paulus]

But that is assuming that all routes are worthy of continuation, no matter what, which is a questionable assumption.

 

[tonys96]

There seem to be a lot of opinions stated as 'facts' in this thread.

 

[henryj]

In my opinion, and it is just that, you have to separate the operation of these trains from the whole of Amtrak. Why? Because Amtrak is pre-occupied with running the NEC and always will be. It’s a busy railroad and takes most of their time and effort and incurs most of their overhead expenses. Amtrak is three very different animals. The NEC, the State operated corridor services and the long distance trains. Once the LD trains are under different management that is dedicated to only those trains, you will get better reports, evaluations, service and results. And this may be where Boardman is trying to take Amtrak, who knows. In conjunction with this re-organization you would have to remove the Superliners from the CONO and the Capitol and replace them with single level equipment and make the other changes I have recommended. That frees up enough superliner equipment to serve the remaining western trains and make the Sunset daily without having to order any new equipment for the immediate future. Since most of these train operate out of Chicago, I would move the main maintenance base to some western suburb there or perhaps to a non-union, right to work state. The Eastern trains would have their own maintenance base somewhere else, maybe where it is now. If the demographics are deteriorating as you state, then you will have to start advertising to attract younger people. I never see an Amtrak add in this area. Congress will have to fund these changes for some time, so getting them on board is important. However, with dedicated management these trains can be successful and if they are the route structure could even be expanded. As for the trains themselves, surely you can see that each train is different. They have to be designed to cater to the market they serve and the markets can be very different. This discussion could go on forever. But the first step is to separate operation of these 15 trains from the rest of Amtrak. To trash these trains you are talking about throwing away almost $570 million in revenue and laying off thousands of employees. I believe that is unacceptable to even a tea party congress.

I see your reasoning, and ask you to back it up with statistics, once again. That being said I think you don't understand the dogmatic stupidity of the tea party, for one thing.

Finally, any suggestion to take Superliners off of ANY train on which they can be run is an indication you have no idea about cost recovery. Trainsets will be freed up in a few years when the Sunset Limited gets put out of its misery. The Sunset Limited has been a perpetual thorn in Amtrak's side, and its useful life ended the day Union Pacific asked for three quarter's of a billion dollars to make the thing daily. It is run by Amtrak and their crew in a fashion that indicates none of them have much appreciation for the train (or their jobs, quite frankly). Its operation culture is toxic, and excluding Houston, San Antonio, and New Orleans, it serves no significant destinations. Of those destinations, Houston doesn't even count. Its a waste of taxpayer dollars, and always has been.

I believe that asking for Amtrak to be profitable is ridiculous, since we don't ask for the roads to be profitable. Or the airports (my local one is sucking up more and more tax money every year, money straight down the drain).

Asking Amtrak to be overall profitable is ridiculous. Asking Amtrak to be operationally profitable is not so ridiculous. With expanded consist lengths to certain trains, decreased labor expenses in certain areas, and careful modulation of amenities and so forth, operational profitability on the LD trains at the current loss of $146 million is not unreasonable.

THOUGHT ONE.
The LD trains are not the biggest problem at Amtrak. The biggest financial problem is, in fact.... the overhead!

Or, to be more accurate, the problem is that the fixed overhead is spread over *too few services*. In short, Amtrak needs to expand.

Specifically, Amtrak needs to expand those services which (after expansion) make a profit before overhead. At the moment, Amtrak doesn't even know which services make a profit before overhead, because Amtrak has no system of assigning capital costs or real depreciation on a route level. (!!!!) However, Amtrak is working on developing such a system, and it should be useful.

How to expand? Well, given our assumption that Congress is going to be unhelpful for the next few years, I see four ways to expand:

(1) State and local funding

(2) Borrowing money

(3) Competitive executive-branch grants (TIGER, etc.)

(4) Reassign equipment from cancelled segments of routes (I don't like this option)

Due to the many, many economies of scale in railroading, it is actually quite likely that one train a day will lose money before overhead, but two trains a day will make money before overhead. (Going from 1 train to 2 trains usually more-than-doubles ridership *and* increases ticket yields.)

I agree with you entirely. But the idea of managing to come up with the capital investment and railroad operating agreements needed to actually achieve what you have in mind... I'm doubtful its possible.

THOUGHT TWO.
The so-called long-distance services provide connectivity -- if you sever the New York-Chicago link, you lose ticket sales on the "corridor trains" on both the New York and the Chicago ends. Accordingly, the "direct costs" profitability *understates* the degree to which these trains benefit Amtrak's bottom line: there is revenue which is not from tickets on the Lake Shore Limited, but if the Lake Shore Limited was cancelled, that revenue would go away.

While I agree with you in principle, I'm not really sure just how much that connectivity really improves the bottom line. I would tend to think (pure opinion, backed up by some common wisdom, which I know is not always accurate) that once a connection is made

THOUGHT THREE.

I have previously described the reroutes and service additions which I think would make for a better network. There are a number of characteristics of the current network which are historical artifacts and don't make sense.

- There are not nearly enough services in the NEC-Chicago region. Detroit-NYC is a glaring gap, as is Chicago-Philadelphia, and of course the lack of service to Columbus OH, and the three-a-week (should be daily) service to Cincy...

- Minneapolis - Chicago needs more frequencies and should stop in Madison (damn Scott Walker)...

- the SW Chief is on the wrong route and should be going via Wichita and Amarillo... and the Heartland Flyer should connect to Wichita... I do think that LA-Chicago is worth keeping for connectivity, but let's have some more connectivity there!

- The Sunset Limited needs to go daily or be cancelled, and it needs to stop in Phoenix, and arguably it should run directly from El Paso to Odessa/Abilene/Ft. Worth rather than via empty towns to San Antonio...

- there are a lot of routes which ought to exist in Texas...

- the ski service on the CZ ought to be separate from the service to Salt Lake City (which is much faster via Wyoming) and the Denver-Chicago service probably should be separate from both (to avoid delays), and the Denver-Chicago service runs on the wrong route through Iowa (which might be fixed if the Iowa legislature ever stops being run by anti-train lunatics)... and I doubt that service from Salt Lake to Reno makes sense at *all*. It's the biggest operational funds bleed in the system and it doesn't seem to be possible to drum up ridership.

- There are even more glaringly absent services in the Southeast and the Appalachians, but I don't think I'll go into that in detail now...

-Detroit is over served as it is. Its a dead city, servicing the moribund traditional domestic car industry. GM and Ford are quite clearly not reading the writing Elon Musk sprayed on the wall, and when those two companies inevitably die, what is left of that city will make Rochester look like an overpopulated city. Northern Michigan is underserved, as are the communities in Michigan that are not depending on the former Big Two.

-Philadephia-Chicago is vastly underserved. It should have two trains running on it (Overnight to Pittsburgh, daytime to Chicago, daylight to Pittsburgh, overnight to Chicago), just as the water level route needs an overnight to Buffalo, daytime to Chicago train.

-I agree with you about Minneapolis. There should be at least three trains a day to Minneapolis in addition to the Empire Builder and possibly a North Coast Hiawatha.

- While I think I agree with you about the Southwest Chief, the utilization of the Sunset by Houstonites makes me wonder if the population characteristics along the transcon are deceiving vs the population density. But its a lingering fear brought on by a person I am beginning to think is somewhat mentally disturbed.

- The Sunset isn't going daily and needs to be cancelled.

- Texas needs to declare its secession from the union. I will host a going away party at my house. All are invited. If it doesn't do so, I agree with you.

- I disagree with you about the CZ. I really have the feeling that the whole operational merit of the California Zephyr west of Denver IS as a land cruise, and moving it from its historical route is misguided. There SHOULD be a day train from Denver to Salt Lake City on the Overland route.

- Service needs to be run from New York to Buffalo via both the former Lackawanna and Erie lines. Actually, I think if we brought back almost every route operating on April 30th 1971, we'd have a pretty good start, with modifications to improve efficiency.

Each of these trains is an entirely different animal running through different regions with different demographics and serving different people.

That is a point lost on far too many people.

New Jersey seems to have died as far as rail service advocacy and I'm not sure why. There hasn't been a new organization replacing the moribund NJARP. Maybe the sort of young people who advocate for rail service... have moved across the border from NJ to NY or Pennsylvania. Just a hypothesis. Or maybe they're happy with what they've got; if you live on the Newark City Subway, you're probably not agitating for a lot of extra service, unless you have family in Scranton or something.

NJARP is moribund mostly because the personalities involved in the New Jersey rail scene split into various camps over a few key issues a long bloody time ago and they honestly hate each others guts. Not for any meritorious reasons, just a bunch of half senile, half crazy (or fully crazy) grumpy, crotchety old men. I could go into lists of each personality and their problems, but they are irrelevant (and generally infantile).

I've been trying to reposition the Lackawanna Coalition into a state-wide organization to catch the new generation and provide a more coherent statewide organization. I have several reasons for believing this is the right move. First of all, I've managed to get myself, at 29, elected to an officership position. Joe Clift, a person with impressive credentials (former Director of Planning for the LIRR for one thing) couldn't manage to get elected to NJ ARPs board despite the fact that this failure left some of the boards seats empty. Secondly, we have certain institutional knowledge from our time period with the late, great, and deeply lamented James T. Raleigh. And thirdly, I've found a partner for doing this job who is working tirelessly to accomplish this goal.

Well... they'll have some complaints. Perhaps not the ones you might think of, though. The sort of young people who are riding trains are often ecologically minded and often health conscious. They're not going to be offended by lack of flowers or tablecloths, but the thought of throwing out tons of plastic at every meal won't be popular.
And a bunch of people (obviously, never everyone, but always an important minority) are going to want balanced meals -- cutting side salads is a very questionable thing to do, as it forces those who want balanced meals to get only one of the menu options.

People of all ages are also budget conscious enough that the food prices will be an issue.

And the fixed mealtimes and short serving period are really bad -- younger people are used to eating when they want to eat, on their own schedule. Our society has changed: it's really abnormal for a family to "sit down to dinner" at the same time every day, and even if they do, it'll be different for different families.

That is not an issue I am qualified to argue about. I'm an unusual type who does like to sit down to dinner at a formal time and food is one of the driving forces of my existence on this planet. I recognize I am weird- the very existence of places like Subway prove that most people don't think like I do. I recognize and appreciate that- and as such I don't try to weigh in on other peoples dining preferences when I make long term suggestions.

I get it that you don't like Texas, the Southwest, the Sunset Ltd, the western trains in general, etc. That is why I would transfer them all to another operator located out here in flyover country, away from DC. And I would take all superliners off the eastern trains including the CONO. Everything east of the Mississippi and NOL and Chicago you can just leave with Amtrak. It doesn't really count anyway. All the 'real' LD trains are out west and they deserve management that actually cares about them. Houston airports handle some 50 million people a year. Amtrak less than 20k. A three times a week train that stops at a one room station under a freeway bridge doesn't attract many riders. Florida and Texas will be the first states to start up privately owned and operated corridor services that actually pay for themselves. I am not waiting for Texas to secede, more like waiting for NY to freeze in the dark. Good luck with all these insane ideas. They will never happen. I love that five year study as it just verifies my cost studies.

 

[SarahZ]

All that response needs is a rousing version of "Dixie" and a pair of truck nuts. That would really polish off the barely-contained vitriol.

 

[rrdude]

But that is assuming that all routes are worthy of continuation, no matter what, which is a questionable assumption.

When you have nothing more than a skeletal system. virtually every route is worthy of continuation.

 

[Eric S]

I get it that you don't like Texas, the Southwest, the Sunset Ltd, the western trains in general, etc. That is why I would transfer them all to another operator located out here in flyover country, away from DC. And I would take all superliners off the eastern trains including the CONO. Everything east of the Mississippi and NOL and Chicago you can just leave with Amtrak. It doesn't really count anyway. All the 'real' LD trains are out west and they deserve management that actually cares about them. Houston airports handle some 50 million people a year. Amtrak less than 20k. A three times a week train that stops at a one room station under a freeway bridge doesn't attract many riders. Florida and Texas will be the first states to start up privately owned and operated corridor services that actually pay for themselves. I am not waiting for Texas to secede, more like waiting for NY to freeze in the dark. Good luck with all these insane ideas. They will never happen. I love that five year study as it just verifies my cost studies.

So, I'm curious, what makes the west-of-Chicago LD trains the "real" LD trains? (Or, why are the east-of-Chicago LD trains not "real" LD trains?) Is it the distinction between what are essentially overnight trains (or at least single-night trains) east of Chicago and multi-day/multi-night trains west of Chicago? I ask because I do think there are certainly some major differences among the trains grouped together by Amtrak as "Long Distance" (as neroden and GML and others have noted).

And then, based on that distinction, is that why you suggest that Superliner equipment should be restricted to the "real" LD trains? With the other (unreal? fake?) LD trains only using single-level equipment? I don't quite see why the Capitol Limited and City of New Orleans NEED to be switched to single-level equipment (particularly when that equipment needed to operate them is not available).