Time to sell Amtrak to FedEx and UPS?

[NAVYBLUE]

Man, don't ever bring up stuff like this again. These "fanatics" will have you hung from the nearest signal post. I guess there are all kinds of "fanatics". It depends on whose ox is being gored. Being as some have made "political" statements, I will make mine and I won't even use the dreaded "G" word. I wouldn't want anyone to wet their pants again.

NAVYBLUE

Whatever. I don't recall anyone before you getting all excited with name calling. Bar code jokes aside, why would FedEx or UPS go into the passenger business? Charity? My day job is in finance, and I crunch numbers on projects every day. No rational CEO on planet Earth would want to enter passenger rail unless they were absolutely guaranteed big profits. So if Amtrak is break even at $X loss per passenger, then an outside business would charge $X plus overhead. My question is, why would any rational government pay overhead on something they can do cheaper?

I just love it when someone comes into my office and announces a third party service provider can drive instant costs. (and I'm in private sector). Typically, the way it goes, someone comes in and announces that they can cut labor costs by some whopping amount, double throughput, and generate a terrific product. Great, I say. Prove it. Then we get into contract negotiations. The contractor won't stand by quality terms, too risky. Surcharges for rush / non standard / new / old products. The lists go on. The new employees are lower quality, so we have to build in extras for attrition / firings. It's distant from our core operation, so there's extra inventory, redundant capital, and the like. By the time we're done, we're spending anywhere from 20 - 40% more to gain these "savings". Sure, private vendors will be drooling to run trains in California where returns are good, equipment is newer, and subsidies are predictable. Good luck outsourcing the Texas Eagle.

But back to your observation of surcharges on every passenger ticket. That's a wonderful idea, truly is. People who can choose to spend $50 on a passenger train vs. $75 on a bus, add $45 to their ticket, and do you think they stay on the train. Nope. They bail to the bus. Which, coincidently,is subsidized by the government by fuel taxes below the cost of highway maintenance, driver salaries which in many cases include inadequate benefits (ergo, the government and hospitals pick up health care costs), and which through the miracle of government regulations have far less stringent safety requirements than passenger trains. Or they could fly, which receives all sorts of hidden subsidies, from TSA spend and capital for airports, to direct subsidies in many smaller markets to maintain core air service, not to mention the environmental costs of greater pollution.

Which raises another interesting point. Do fixed costs ring a bell? No? Well, they're called fixed costs for a reason. If there's fewer passengers on the train, the costs don't drop. Still have to maintain the passenger cars, staff stations and repair bases, pay the light bills and the mortgages. Drive demand down through higher prices, unit costs go up. Costs the same to run a full coach as one with one passenger.

So sorry you feel persecuted by the mean ol' train fans. Perhaps in the future you can offer productive thoughts to us "kiddies".

What you said is true! Raise the price point above bus travel, and BOOM......bus travel spikes while rail suffers lower ridership. That would in turn cause routes to be cut, ridership again suffers, and eventually pax rail dies. That puts folks back into cars/buses that use more fuel per pax mile and cost more in subsidies, fuel and pollution. Yeah, that's the way to go.

I got a kick out of the logic you quoted from other poster.... "Airports have brought down their subsidy fees ratio down from $62/passenger (15) years ago due to actions by the airports NOT the airlines. Rent a car at Phoenix Airport and if the the car is say a full size car, a week rental is about $163 weekly base rate PLUS $103 of facility/user/recovery/yada/yada/yada fees."

Sure.....I agree with the prior poster!! Anytime a car is rented at an Amtrak station there should be a " facility/user/recovery/yada/yada/yada fee" added to the price. ABSOLUTELY. That will take care of all of Amtrak's woes.

You are quite welcome. :hi:

OK, I explained it to MikeM and now I am going to try to explain it to you.

I am talking about LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG DISTANCE trains. You know, the ones they call LD. Did YOU read my initial post ? Please go read it again. I said LEAVE COMMUTER TRAINS ALONE. They are the ones that usually compete with Greyhound on shorter runs.

My ticket from LA(SWC/CARD/CL/SWC) to BWI for 12/11 and 1/8 cost me $1,935 for roomettes on all (4) segments.

I just went to Greyhound. The same (2) cities round trip for (2) adults(seniors) for the same time frame is a total of $887 round trip.

Now are you going to sit there and tell me if AMTRAK raises that fare by $45 per person (for me $90) I am going to say "You know what, I am going to ride the DOG instead for 2 days/18 hours instead because you know I really enjoy sitting with 60+ people who haven't bathed for (2) days, with little room to stretch out and the scenery of the interstate.

Are you out of your mind? AMTRAK and the DOG don't compete on LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOND DISTANCE routes.

I am talking about the fee on LD routes. The demographics are completely different.

With your "attitude" AMTRAK is doomed because you have showed me:

A. You don't understand English ie Leave commuter trains alone and only attach fee to LD trains. That is what I said

B. You don't understand economics.

c. You don't understand politics. Both parties are seeing AMTRAK as place to cut. If it doesn't get deficit neutral, I guarantee half the LDs are gone.

I wouldn't be upset if it's gone BECAUSE I would have seen it coming vs being blindsided by it.

You're welcome

NAVYBLUE

 

[jis]

As a starting hypothesis the idea of adding a surtax to tickets to cover the shortfall seems to me to be worthy of consideration. So I did a little quick BotE (Back of the Envelope) calculation.

In FY 2011 Amtrak's shortfall is $457 million on a total ticket revenue of about $1852 million. So if that shortfall has to be covered entirely by ticket revenue, ticket revenue needs to go up by about 25%. One way of achieving this is by raising fares across the board by 25%, call it surcharge or whatever fancies you. Other distributions also can be considered, but we do not have enough information to make a judgement call on the choice.

Now about half of the ticket revenue came from the NEC, and the other half from everything else. So if this shortfall is to be paid for by only non NEC then non-NEC fares have to go up 50%, actually a bit more since the NEC revenues are a bit more than half of the total.

Just to give you ballpark figures the ticket revenues were roughly as follows:

1. NEC $983 million
   
2. Short Distance $427 million
   
3. Long Distance $481 million
   

Since the total revenue from LD is in the same ballpark as the shortfall, if the shortfall has to be entirely covered by LD ticket revenue then basically LD fares have to be doubled across the board. That is, what is today a $1500 ticket will have to become a $3000 ticket. OTOH if it is covered across the board then what is today a $1500 ticket will become something like a $1875 ticket ($1500 + 25%).

Now of course, one cannot just raise fares and expect total revenues to go up by the same proportion. One has to take into consideration the demand-price elasticity curve. Amtrak has detailed validated models, and separate ones for each region and for each train category. Without access to those models it is impossible to tell (a) what the distribution of the price rise should be as a function of the price per ticket, and (b) what the actual added revenue will be as a result of such ticket pricing action.

I hasten to add that I actually have no specific training or degrees in this area. My degrees are in Physics and Computer Science, but currently I do spend a lot of time modeling financial systems, specially systems to manage such. I completely realize that my assumptions and computations may have errors in them, and I may even be reading the data wrong from the tables in the September 2011 Performance Report (PDF). I would be happy to hear about such and make amends. I really don't have a dog in this race, and would have no problem if I am proved to be entirely wrong in my analysis either. It is always a learning opportunity either way. It just caught my fancy so I thought I'd do the BotE and contribute it to the discussion.

In general based on this analysis I believe that the idea is impractical for wiping out all of Amtrak's shortfall. What is important is to judiciously take steps to maximize yield while keeping a tight check on the rate at which CASM rises. That is the best one can do under the circumstances.

 

[Ispolkom]

Amtrak has detailed validated models, and separate ones for each region and for each train category. Without access to those models it is impossible to tell (a) what the distribution of the price rise should be as a function of the price per ticket, and (b) what the actual added revenue will be as a result of such ticket pricing action.

That was a really excellent post, but I'm wondering about this point. Does Amtrak have good models for price elasticity on its routes? The reason I question this is the fact that only in the last couple of years have I seen serious revenue management from Amtrak on long-distance trains. Before it was pretty mechanical: tickets started out in low bucket at 11 months and ratcheted up in a steady fashion as tickets were purchased. Now lower buckets are often skipped, even on what would seem to me less-busy times.

Of course, I could just be wrong about this. Maybe my experience doesn't reflect Amtrak's actual practice, or perhaps demand for long-distance sleeper accommodations has increased so much in the last couple of years that sleeping cars are selling out more often, and now is revenue management a worthwhile pursuit.

 

[jis]

Amtrak has detailed validated models, and separate ones for each region and for each train category. Without access to those models it is impossible to tell (a) what the distribution of the price rise should be as a function of the price per ticket, and (b) what the actual added revenue will be as a result of such ticket pricing action.

That was a really excellent post, but I'm wondering about this point. Does Amtrak have good models for price elasticity on its routes? The reason I question this is the fact that only in the last couple of years have I seen serious revenue management from Amtrak on long-distance trains. Before it was pretty mechanical: tickets started out in low bucket at 11 months and ratcheted up in a steady fashion as tickets were purchased. Now lower buckets are often skipped, even on what would seem to me less-busy times.

Thank you for your kind words!

I have seen two specific models, one for the NEC, all classes of trains, and the other for California. I am told that there are similar for other areas, and I also should add that these more complete models have naturally been developed over a period of time, and I don't know when each became available. Also just having a model does not mean they can do what they want to or think they need to do either. They do have to work within the constraints of what is possible given the reservation and ticketing system they have, which I understand does hamper them quite a bit. There are others on this board who are more knowledgeable on that aspect than I.

 

[tonys96]

Man, don't ever bring up stuff like this again. These "fanatics" will have you hung from the nearest signal post. I guess there are all kinds of "fanatics". It depends on whose ox is being gored. Being as some have made "political" statements, I will make mine and I won't even use the dreaded "G" word. I wouldn't want anyone to wet their pants again.

NAVYBLUE

Whatever. I don't recall anyone before you getting all excited with name calling. Bar code jokes aside, why would FedEx or UPS go into the passenger business? Charity? My day job is in finance, and I crunch numbers on projects every day. No rational CEO on planet Earth would want to enter passenger rail unless they were absolutely guaranteed big profits. So if Amtrak is break even at $X loss per passenger, then an outside business would charge $X plus overhead. My question is, why would any rational government pay overhead on something they can do cheaper?

I just love it when someone comes into my office and announces a third party service provider can drive instant costs. (and I'm in private sector). Typically, the way it goes, someone comes in and announces that they can cut labor costs by some whopping amount, double throughput, and generate a terrific product. Great, I say. Prove it. Then we get into contract negotiations. The contractor won't stand by quality terms, too risky. Surcharges for rush / non standard / new / old products. The lists go on. The new employees are lower quality, so we have to build in extras for attrition / firings. It's distant from our core operation, so there's extra inventory, redundant capital, and the like. By the time we're done, we're spending anywhere from 20 - 40% more to gain these "savings". Sure, private vendors will be drooling to run trains in California where returns are good, equipment is newer, and subsidies are predictable. Good luck outsourcing the Texas Eagle.

But back to your observation of surcharges on every passenger ticket. That's a wonderful idea, truly is. People who can choose to spend $50 on a passenger train vs. $75 on a bus, add $45 to their ticket, and do you think they stay on the train. Nope. They bail to the bus. Which, coincidently,is subsidized by the government by fuel taxes below the cost of highway maintenance, driver salaries which in many cases include inadequate benefits (ergo, the government and hospitals pick up health care costs), and which through the miracle of government regulations have far less stringent safety requirements than passenger trains. Or they could fly, which receives all sorts of hidden subsidies, from TSA spend and capital for airports, to direct subsidies in many smaller markets to maintain core air service, not to mention the environmental costs of greater pollution.

Which raises another interesting point. Do fixed costs ring a bell? No? Well, they're called fixed costs for a reason. If there's fewer passengers on the train, the costs don't drop. Still have to maintain the passenger cars, staff stations and repair bases, pay the light bills and the mortgages. Drive demand down through higher prices, unit costs go up. Costs the same to run a full coach as one with one passenger.

So sorry you feel persecuted by the mean ol' train fans. Perhaps in the future you can offer productive thoughts to us "kiddies".

What you said is true! Raise the price point above bus travel, and BOOM......bus travel spikes while rail suffers lower ridership. That would in turn cause routes to be cut, ridership again suffers, and eventually pax rail dies. That puts folks back into cars/buses that use more fuel per pax mile and cost more in subsidies, fuel and pollution. Yeah, that's the way to go.

I got a kick out of the logic you quoted from other poster.... "Airports have brought down their subsidy fees ratio down from $62/passenger (15) years ago due to actions by the airports NOT the airlines. Rent a car at Phoenix Airport and if the the car is say a full size car, a week rental is about $163 weekly base rate PLUS $103 of facility/user/recovery/yada/yada/yada fees."

Sure.....I agree with the prior poster!! Anytime a car is rented at an Amtrak station there should be a " facility/user/recovery/yada/yada/yada fee" added to the price. ABSOLUTELY. That will take care of all of Amtrak's woes.

You are quite welcome. :hi:

OK, I explained it to MikeM and now I am going to try to explain it to you.

I am talking about LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG DISTANCE trains. You know, the ones they call LD. Did YOU read my initial post ? Please go read it again. I said LEAVE COMMUTER TRAINS ALONE. They are the ones that usually compete with Greyhound on shorter runs.

My ticket from LA(SWC/CARD/CL/SWC) to BWI for 12/11 and 1/8 cost me $1,935 for roomettes on all (4) segments.

I just went to Greyhound. The same (2) cities round trip for (2) adults(seniors) for the same time frame is a total of $887 round trip.

Now are you going to sit there and tell me if AMTRAK raises that fare by $45 per person (for me $90) I am going to say "You know what, I am going to ride the DOG instead for 2 days/18 hours instead because you know I really enjoy sitting with 60+ people who haven't bathed for (2) days, with little room to stretch out and the scenery of the interstate.

Are you out of your mind? AMTRAK and the DOG don't compete on LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOND DISTANCE routes.

I am talking about the fee on LD routes. The demographics are completely different.

With your "attitude" AMTRAK is doomed because you have showed me:

A. You don't understand English ie Leave commuter trains alone and only attach fee to LD trains. That is what I said

B. You don't understand economics.

c. You don't understand politics. Both parties are seeing AMTRAK as place to cut. If it doesn't get deficit neutral, I guarantee half the LDs are gone.

I wouldn't be upset if it's gone BECAUSE I would have seen it coming vs being blindsided by it.

You're welcome

NAVYBLUE

As you told another poster "Go back and read ALL of my posts in this thread", and you will see that I was speaking of LD trains. 'K?

I do however, wonder about the honesty of "Effective on "X" date, each LD passengers pays a $25 Security Fee (can you say TSA) and a $20 Passenger Facility Charge." when there is no TSA service at nearly all of the stations Amtrak uses (thankfully) and that Amtrak does not own most of the "passenger facilities" that it uses..........the passenger facility charge on airline tix actually goes toward improvements in airports, and the Security fee goes toward funding the TSA.........so if these fees were added to Amtrak tix, wouldn't that be charging for something under a false pretense?

As for your price comparison....it is comparing apples to fruitcake when comparing bus tix to roomette tix. Last time I was on the Dog, they didn't have roomettes with free food in the diner. The real comparison is bus tix to coach tix. I did a quick price comparison of DAL to CHI on a day in February......Bus lowest fare is $97.00 travel time 22hr, 10 min. Amtrak coach fare is $117.00 travel time 22 hr, 12 min. So sure, let's tack on 45 more bux to the Amtrak fare making it $55.00 per pax more than the dog........yes that's the way to keep increasing Amtrak ridership, isn't it? :wacko:

Now, I just want to make a general statement here..............is it necessary to use put-downs toward other posters in every post? Little comments like "you are late to the rodeo, cowboy", "here's how it is, kiddies" and "you don't understand (fill in the blank)" do nothing other than bring the person who posted them down, IMHO.

I, for one, am truly happy that you know all the answers and have all the correct ideas and opinions .........................however, in the future, I will simply skip over your posts as I feel they add nothing to the conversation other than vitriol, and I believe these forums are an attempt at the betterment of Amtrak travel for everyone, which is not your position since you admit that you "Personally would not be upset if LD was terminated", which is exactly the opposite position of (likely) 99% of the rest of us, who are working, in our own ways, to keep LD rail travel available for everyone, including you. IMHO, this is a forum to discuss the virtues, wonders and future possibilities of rail travel, not one to argue politics, or argue anything else for that matter. There is a plethora of sites where political vitriol is spewed from all sides, this is simply not one of them, IMHO.

With sincerest wishes for the merriest of Christmases and the happiest New Year possible. Have fun on your LD trip. I am glad that it is an available option for you. :hi:

 

[Trogdor]

It amazes me how some people think mandated "fees" are the answer to Amtrak's financial woes, as if these "fees" are somehow exempt from being factored into a customer's spending habits.

If that were the case, then Amtrak ought to lower every ticket price to 1 cent (to cover the cost of the paper), then charge a "transportation fee" based on how far you actually want to ride on the train.

 

[RailFanLNK]

I work at UPS and this is how the train would be operated. The engineer would serve as the Dining Car attendent, the chef, the coach attendent, lounge car attendent, sleeper car(s) attendent and then when he would not be able to perform up to standards or get injured rushing from train car to train car he would be suspended for not following safety procedures that he/she was taught. :lol: Amtrak trains go too slow so "Moving At The Speed of Business" wouldn't be a good corporate slogan. "The Tightest Train in the Training Business" doesn't sound right. "What Could Brown Do For You" wouldn't be good if BNSF or UP has delayed the train for 24 hours on a siding. Oh boy...I could have fun with this one! No one could board the train if they are over 150lbs! ..............ok...I'll let this one go!

 

[NAVYBLUE]

As a starting hypothesis the idea of adding a surtax to tickets to cover the shortfall seems to me to be worthy of consideration. So I did a little quick BotE (Back of the Envelope) calculation.

In FY 2011 Amtrak's shortfall is $457 million on a total ticket revenue of about $1852 million. So if that shortfall has to be covered entirely by ticket revenue, ticket revenue needs to go up by about 25%. One way of achieving this is by raising fares across the board by 25%, call it surcharge or whatever fancies you. Other distributions also can be considered, but we do not have enough information to make a judgement call on the choice.

Now about half of the ticket revenue came from the NEC, and the other half from everything else. So if this shortfall is to be paid for by only non NEC then non-NEC fares have to go up 50%, actually a bit more since the NEC revenues are a bit more than half of the total.

Just to give you ballpark figures the ticket revenues were roughly as follows:

1. NEC $983 million
2. Short Distance $427 million
3. Long Distance $481 million

Since the total revenue from LD is in the same ballpark as the shortfall, if the shortfall has to be entirely covered by LD ticket revenue then basically LD fares have to be doubled across the board. That is, what is today a $1500 ticket will have to become a $3000 ticket. OTOH if it is covered across the board then what is today a $1500 ticket will become something like a $1875 ticket ($1500 + 25%).

Now of course, one cannot just raise fares and expect total revenues to go up by the same proportion. One has to take into consideration the demand-price elasticity curve. Amtrak has detailed validated models, and separate ones for each region and for each train category. Without access to those models it is impossible to tell (a) what the distribution of the price rise should be as a function of the price per ticket, and (b) what the actual added revenue will be as a result of such ticket pricing action.

I hasten to add that I actually have no specific training or degrees in this area. My degrees are in Physics and Computer Science, but currently I do spend a lot of time modeling financial systems, specially systems to manage such. I completely realize that my assumptions and computations may have errors in them, and I may even be reading the data wrong from the tables in the September 2011 Performance Report (PDF). I would be happy to hear about such and make amends. I really don't have a dog in this race, and would have no problem if I am proved to be entirely wrong in my analysis either. It is always a learning opportunity either way. It just caught my fancy so I thought I'd do the BotE and contribute it to the discussion.

In general based on this analysis I believe that the idea is impractical for wiping out all of Amtrak's shortfall. What is important is to judiciously take steps to maximize yield while keeping a tight check on the rate at which CASM rises. That is the best one can do under the circumstances.

Excellent Analysis !!!!! My SIL has a PhD in Space Physics (APL in MD) and that's exactly how he would have explained it to me.

Obviously my analysis wasn't going to cover the shortfall in one year as you and I both know. I agree with your keeping a tight check on the rate of increase.

I still feel a retiree like me can afford that $45 bump to my LONG DISTANCE trip costs. Someone who can afford $1,935 round trip is not on public assistance

Since the $45/person won't cover the deficit, I would also attach a fee to the medium distance and short distance train runs based on the same ratio of the LD trains.

By the way I got the my $45 figure from AMTRAKS own figures for "2010". I took their revenue-expenses figures and dividing that by the total number of passengers.

Again, excellent analysis. As I've told others I know Economics, weapons law and mental status determination. I don't know computer modeling and yours was spot on

jis, if you don't mind. I am going to add on to your thread replies to answer some of the other statements others have made so I don't have to do multiple replies.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

tonys96 DON"T READ THIS BECAUSE YOU"LL NOT GOING TO LIKE IT !!!!!!

1. In case you didn't get the memo, we are running a annual deficit AND the debt has increased from 10 Trillion in 9/2008 to 15 Trillion as of 9/2011

2. In case you haven't heard there is a push back from the taxpayers aginst more govt spending across the political spectrum.

3. In my opinion there are only (3) classes of paper who have EARNED a check from the gov't. There may be some others.

A. Social Security retirees

B. Military retirees

C Disabled vets

4. Those (3) paid federal taxes while they were working or on active duty.

5. Everyone else who receives money from the gov't receives it from taxpayers.

6. You can continue to stick your head in the sand and hope the problem goes away or continue to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic (AMTRAK). Then your beloved train system is doomed

7.I DO NOT WANT TO SEE AMTRAK GO AWAY

8. I said" I wouldn't be upset if it went away as I would have seen it coming and was prepared for it". It's that understanding English thingy again. God, I hope that hasn't offended someone. I couldn't live with myself.

9. I chose the two FEE names randomly based on airline terminology.

10. You can call it " I LOVE AMTRAK SO MUCH I DON"T WANT TO LOSE IT FEE" and the "LETS KEEP THEM TRAINS A ROLLING FEE", I don't care. I am sure the marketing folks at AMTRAK can come up with an acceptable name.

11. I haven't until recently had the opportunity to travel on the train because for (28) years I was defending this country against communists and terrorists.

12. Then for (20) years after that I worked to put two kids through college without one penny from the govt.

13. So after (64) years, I want to try to recapture that youth(18 yrs) spent with the PRR railroad watching by traveling by train.

14. AMTRAK is dying a slow death. Unless WE are willing to keep it afloat financially with additional FEES, it's over.

15. You are NOT getting more money from the govt.

16 To become close to neutral you have to reduce the expenses(take segments off line) or increase revenue(fees).

17. Your call.

NAVYBLUE

 

[Ispolkom]

Also just having a model does not mean they can do what they want to or think they need to do either. They do have to work within the constraints of what is possible given the reservation and ticketing system they have, which I understand does hamper them quite a bit. There are others on this board who are more knowledgeable on that aspect than I.

That really makes sense. Not being in the railroading business, it's easy for me to skip from modeling to implementation, when the actual systems and bureaucracies are often far stickier. After all, if Amtrak can't always get conductors to bother to sell on-train sleeper upgrades (to give one example that greatly irritates me), there is always going to be lots of sand in the gears.

 

[jis]

Excellent Analysis !!!!! My SIL has a PhD in Space Physics (APL in MD) and that's exactly how he would have explained it to me.

Thank you. The common thread would seem to be a PhD. Mine is in Computer Science. Perhaps it is the analytical rigor one gets trained in, in the process of getting a PhD - specially in hard sciences, mathematics and engineering, that stays with one through life. I hasten to add that there are other ways of getting the same training. Getting a PhD is pretty brutal and cannot be fully justified just for financial gains that flow from it. It is to quite an extent a labor of love.

 

[afigg]

14. AMTRAK is dying a slow death. Unless WE are willing to keep it afloat financially with additional FEES, it's over.

Amtrak is in far better financial condition today than they were 10 years ago when the company took out the $300 million mortgage on NYP to help pay the bills. Amtrak had new records set for ridership in 8 out of the last 9 fiscal years. Ticket revenue in FY11 was a record $1.891 billion, $149 million more than FY10.

One of the critical steps toward financial stability was cutting the total debt from $3.05 billion in FY08 to $1.8 billion as of the end of FY10. The debt was cut more in FY11 before the $562 million low interest RRIF loan was taken out to pay for the 70 ACS-64 electric locomotives and maintenance facility upgrades. The FY11 financial report has not yet been posted, so there is not an up to date picture of their debt situation. Amtrak will be getting $420 million from the Treasury to exercise early buy options on 13 equipment leases in FY12 and FY13 to clear the books of Warrington era 7% to 9% interest leases on now old equipment. Clearing the books of old (bad) debt, including the 9.5% mortgage on NY Penn Station, will help their financial situation considerably.

Of course, Amtrak is facing many challenges. Getting cost growth and overhead under control. A uncertain and complex political situation and future. The inability to get the $1 to $1.2 billion they keep requesting since 2008 in capital grant funding (not including debt service or ADA compliance) to provide the sustained funding levels identified as needed to get the NEC to a state of good repair and direct funding to buy new equipment. Getting all the states to provide the full subsidy funding amounts needed to keep the state corridor trains running. Possible direct competition for running the same state corridor trains. Figuring out the best strategy for buying and funding badly needed new rolling stock. And so on.

Overall, however, "dying a slow death" is a not an accurate reflection of Amtrak's current condition. Could be healthier, yes. But not on life support either.