Tracking ridership recovery (2022-2023)

[west point]

Anderson: you are on the right track. Without getting swamped with ridership various measures the total of WAS - NFK NPN passengers is a good measure. Also total Revenue Passenger Miles comparison is also a measure. Now how to factor in the riders on the Palmetto, Silvers and Carolinian is another matter.

The Roanoke line is another similar to Richmond traffic with the addition of Crescent and Cardinal. Then the passengers to / from ALX to NEC is another what ? Are they counted or a subtraction ???

 

[west point]

Amtrak is not trying to increase ridership. That is not speculation. Just checked the single level trains from NYP for Sat and some Sun. (tomorrow ). All of them over 90%% coach full with several sleeper and/ or coach sold out Meteor and Cardinal sold out. As well connecting with Capitol not available. Someone with more time needs to check other ways and trains.

 

[jis]

Amtrak is not trying to increase ridership. That is not speculation. Just checked the single level trains from NYP for Sat and some Sun. (tomorrow ). All of them over 90%% coach full with several sleeper and/ or coach sold out Meteor and Cardinal sold out. As well connecting with Capitol not available. Someone with more time needs to check other ways and trains.

Then again, this is producing better "passenger miles per seat miles" numbers , not that it is the real intent either. The whole thing probably has more to do with Mechanical Staff issues than any intentional trying to add or dissuade passengers. That would assume perhaps more competence than is due.

 

[Septa9739]

I think that’s very likely the story. Does anyone know where we are with winter consists? I heard the LSL is down two coaches. unless the shorter consists are necessary for maintenance purpose, I don’t think winter consists are a good idea for the time being, as coach is still sold out across the country.

 

[Anderson]

Then again, this is producing better "passenger miles per seat miles" numbers , not that it is the real intent either. The whole thing probably has more to do with Mechanical Staff issues than any intentional trying to add or dissuade passengers. That would assume perhaps more competence than is due.

There's also an issue, in the case of VA, of not being able to get the extra conductor needed to be able to fill more than 7 cars (or so I am told). Basically, given the choice between having the 8th/9th car on a train go empty or risking having to annul a train due to a lack of staff, they've chosen the former.

[This is very likely acting as a bit of a cap on VA ridership, since it's forcing some trains to not sell seats they'd otherwise sell on those last segments approaching WAS, and likely forcing prices up on some of the remaining sellable seats as well.]

 

[Septa9739]

Is that just a part of the ongoing staff shortages? Or is it something else, like not wanting to pay for another crew members overnighting or something like that?

 

[jis]

Is that just a part of the ongoing staff shortages? Or is it something else, like not wanting to pay for another crew members overnighting or something like that?

On Virginia trains which are positive above the rail, why would Virginia not agree to pay for an additional staff on trains funded by them, so as to bring in even more revenue. It is most likely staff shortage IMHO.

 

[west point]

Am I wrong ? Thought that if not a full compliment of extra conducor(s) were not on a segment that the ones on board got extra compensation ?

 

[Anderson]

On Virginia trains which are positive above the rail, why would Virginia not agree to pay for an additional staff on trains funded by them, so as to bring in even more revenue. It is most likely staff shortage IMHO.

Yeah, it's a staffing issue. Part of the problem is that it does take a while to qualify someone for the position, and everyone is short on staff.

 

[Septa9739]

The new MPR is out. The following routes are above their 2019 YTD levels. The Missouri River Runner has fallen off this list. The CONO and WAS-RVR were added.

1. Ethan Allen (15,800 from 8,500)
2. Vermonter (21,300 from 17,800)
3. Maple Leaf (70,900 from 62,700)
4. Springfield Shuttle (74,000 from 69,900)
5. Heartland Flyer (12,500 from 11,900)
6. Blue Water (29,100 from 27,600)
7. Roanoke Regionals (58,700 from 41,700)
8. Cannonball (78,300 from 62,300)
9. Richmond Regionals (21,700 from 20,200)
10. Pere Marquette (15,300 from 14,400)
11. Carolinian (54,600 from 42,800)
12. Piedmont (52,600 from 43,400)
13. City of New Orleans (38,000 from 37,100)
14. Texas Eagles (51,200 from 51,200)*
15. Sunset Limited (14,600 from 14,200)
16. Coast Starlight (70,000 from 67,500)
17. Lakeshore Limited (66,200 from 61,400)
18. Crescent (46,100 from 46,100)
19. Auto Train (44,700 from 34,300)

These routes are within 5%. The NER, IL Zephyr, and Palmetto have slipped off. The Pennsylvanian and WAS-NPN climbed on.

1. Empire South (205,800 from 216,200)
2. Washington to Newport News (58,800 from 61,700)
3. Pennsylvanian (35,300 from 36,500)
4. Silver Star (55,900 from 57,700)

*Ties get benefit of the doubt

Honorable mention goes again to the Ethan Allen, which is running nearly double its 2019 ridership, although that strangely low average miles per trip persists.

There was also good news from the bigger corridors. The Keystone, San Joaquin, Capitol Corridor, Wolverine, and Lincoln Service all carried more passengers in November than October, which as I understand it is abnormal (November has on less day and traffic tends to slow in the fall.) This could be taken as a sign of recovery.

Also the Virginia Services via Richmond are incredible. Ridership is up 51% in 3 years despite COVID. The Piedmont, Carolinian, and Roanoke Regionals are up about 20% a piece.

And finally, the Heartland Flyer carried more than 100 passengers per train this month, possibly for the first time ever, but someone would have to check me. Unfortunately, it seems that this year it will become the least used train in the system because of the incredible growth of the Ethan Allen.

And this is old news, but it the Cardinal were run daily, its ridership and passenger miles would be greater than the Capitol Limited. Just a bit weird to think about.

 

[Anderson]

The new MPR is out. The following routes are above their 2019 YTD levels. The Missouri River Runner has fallen off this list. The CONO and WAS-RVR were added.

1. Ethan Allen (15,800 from 8,500)
2. Vermonter (21,300 from 17,800)
3. Maple Leaf (70,900 from 62,700)
4. Springfield Shuttle (74,000 from 69,900)
5. Heartland Flyer (12,500 from 11,900)
6. Blue Water (29,100 from 27,600)
7. Roanoke Regionals (58,700 from 41,700)
8. Cannonball (78,300 from 62,300)
9. Richmond Regionals (21,700 from 20,200)
10. Pere Marquette (15,300 from 14,400)
11. Carolinian (54,600 from 42,800)
12. Piedmont (52,600 from 43,400)
13. City of New Orleans (38,000 from 37,100)
14. Texas Eagles (51,200 from 51,200)*
15. Sunset Limited (14,600 from 14,200)
16. Coast Starlight (70,000 from 67,500)
17. Lakeshore Limited (66,200 from 61,400)
18. Crescent (46,100 from 46,100)
19. Auto Train (44,700 from 34,300)

These routes are within 5%. The NER, IL Zephyr, and Palmetto have slipped off. The Pennsylvanian and WAS-NPN climbed on.

1. Empire South (205,800 from 216,200)
2. Washington to Newport News (58,800 from 61,700)
3. Pennsylvanian (35,300 from 36,500)
4. Silver Star (55,900 from 57,700)

*Ties get benefit of the doubt

Honorable mention goes again to the Ethan Allen, which is running nearly double its 2019 ridership, although that strangely low average miles per trip persists.

There was also good news from the bigger corridors. The Keystone, San Joaquin, Capitol Corridor, Wolverine, and Lincoln Service all carried more passengers in November than October, which as I understand it is abnormal (November has on less day and traffic tends to slow in the fall.) This could be taken as a sign of recovery.

Also the Virginia Services via Richmond are incredible. Ridership is up 51% in 3 years despite COVID. The Piedmont, Carolinian, and Roanoke Regionals are up about 20% a piece.

And finally, the Heartland Flyer carried more than 100 passengers per train this month, possibly for the first time ever, but someone would have to check me. Unfortunately, it seems that this year it will become the least used train in the system because of the incredible growth of the Ethan Allen.

And this is old news, but it the Cardinal were run daily, its ridership and passenger miles would be greater than the Capitol Limited. Just a bit weird to think about.

You missed out on the Norfolk Regionals. Going via FY19, the increase is: 78,300 (from 28,150). Going via FY20 (CY19), it's 78,300 from 62,300. [Norfolk getting a train that didn't leave at 0600 did wonders, and doing it by "stealing" 94/95 from NPN certainly didn't hurt. So FY19->FY20 saw a massive surge there. Of course, Norfolk also added a midday train in the last few months (which, while it doesn't have huge ridership, helps the overall situation for Hampton Roads). Now if only Norfolk trains could viably serve Main Street Station...

Edit:
Let's also look at "VA as a whole" for a second. In FY19 (CY18 so far), ridership on the four routes for October was 75,869. In FY20 (CY19 so far), for October it was 98,100. For FY23 (CY22 so far), it's 104,600.

The November data adds up October and November...but we can subtract October's report from November's report to get November's data. That will yield 83,342 for FY19; 87,800 for FY20; and 112,900 for FY23.

Comparing data across the three years, December 2019 got a bump from where Thanksgiving landed (in 2018, it was a full week earlier - look up "Republican Thanksgiving" or "Franksgiving for a fun bit of history), as the post-Thanksgiving Sunday was in December. The result in VA was that while November ridership was relatively "flat" (ridership was "only" up 4,500-ish in November FY20 while it had been up 28,700-ish). My best guess for December would put ridership...somewhere in the 115k ballpark, presuming some lost connections from the winter storm and so on getting balanced out by the airline meltdowns. Note that at just under 120k, it becomes VA's best month ever for ridership.

As a note, there's a chance that the new Norfolk train is "stealing" some ridership from the other midday/afternoon trains. Previously at RVR, there was nothing NB between the Carolinian (1400-ish) and the Palmetto (1700-ish). The NB Palmetto may also be getting "boxed in" by the shifted NPN train, which is only about an hour behind it (1735) instead of closer to 2.5 hours (1900), and looking at RPA's data, RVR-WAS was the Palmetto's #1 city pair not internal to the NEC...and trains coming from NPN/NFK are far less likely to get held up badly than trains coming from Charlotte and Savannah. I ran into this a few weeks ago (I was going to take the Palmetto and ended up on the NPN train because the Palmetto wound up behind the NPN train). But overall, VA ridership does seem to be comfortably up.

Edit to add on the last point:
On the "old" timetable, you had the following NB Trains out of RVR:
1216: #92 (MIA)
1412: #80 (CLT)
1714: #90 (SAV)
1900: #66 (NPN)

As of now, the afternoon out of RVR looks like this:
1239: #92 (MIA)
1411: #80 (CLT)
1510: #138 (NFK)
1641: #90 (SAV)
1735: #186 (NPN)

Essentially, instead of three trains spread over five hours, it's four trains over four and a half hours.

 

[BlackDiamond]

Cannonball (78,300 from 62,300)

Not familiar with that train.
I assume it is not this one

 

[Septa9739]

I just noticed that myself. It’s Norfolk Regionals. I believe at one point the train that served that route was called the Cannonball. Usually I put it in parentheses, but I guess I forgot. I get a chuckle out of that name.

 

[Anderson]

I do not have break-out numbers for December 2018 or December 2019 readily on hand for VA, but the December 2022 report just dropped. In VA, I've got the following:
Washington-Roanoke: December 2022: 28,200; YTD FY2023: 86,900
Washington-Newport News: December 2022: 29,300; YTD FY2023: 88,100
Washington-Norfolk: December 2022: 42,000; YTD FY2023: 120,300
Washington-Richmond: December 2022: 11,600; YTD FY2023: 33,300
Totals: December 2022: 111,100; YTD FY2023: 328,600

For reference, the VHSR chart gave December FY2020 (so, December 2019) as almost exactly 100k riders for the four routes, so the gain is probably just over 10k for the month. December FY2019 (so December 2018) was also conveniently right on the line at 80k, so that's 30k up for the month there.

Patching December 2020 onto the Oct/Nov figures from that year for Virginia gives ridership at about 286k for Oct-Dec 2019, so YTD we're probably up right about 42k. Patching December 2019 onto the Oct/Nov figures from that year gives a YTD ridership of around 239k, so YTD we're up 90k (and probably on course to be up somewhere around 250-300k for FY23 vs FY19 - adding about 10k/month to the prior-year record (whether FY19, FY20, or FY22) through June and then matching FY22 for July-September seems to put us at a bit over +250k).


[Feel free to check my math, and obviously the bottom totals might be off by a few hundred due to Amtrak cutting the last few digits from the dining car...er...the reports.]

 

[joelkfla]

The new MPR is out. The following routes are above their 2019 YTD levels. The Missouri River Runner has fallen off this list. The CONO and WAS-RVR were added.

1. Ethan Allen (15,800 from 8,500)
2. Vermonter (21,300 from 17,800)
3. Maple Leaf (70,900 from 62,700)
4. Springfield Shuttle (74,000 from 69,900)
5. Heartland Flyer (12,500 from 11,900)
6. Blue Water (29,100 from 27,600)
7. Roanoke Regionals (58,700 from 41,700)
8. Cannonball (78,300 from 62,300)
9. Richmond Regionals (21,700 from 20,200)
10. Pere Marquette (15,300 from 14,400)
11. Carolinian (54,600 from 42,800)
12. Piedmont (52,600 from 43,400)
13. City of New Orleans (38,000 from 37,100)
14. Texas Eagles (51,200 from 51,200)*
15. Sunset Limited (14,600 from 14,200)
16. Coast Starlight (70,000 from 67,500)
17. Lakeshore Limited (66,200 from 61,400)
18. Crescent (46,100 from 46,100)
19. Auto Train (44,700 from 34,300)

These routes are within 5%. The NER, IL Zephyr, and Palmetto have slipped off. The Pennsylvanian and WAS-NPN climbed on.

1. Empire South (205,800 from 216,200)
2. Washington to Newport News (58,800 from 61,700)
3. Pennsylvanian (35,300 from 36,500)
4. Silver Star (55,900 from 57,700)

*Ties get benefit of the doubt

Honorable mention goes again to the Ethan Allen, which is running nearly double its 2019 ridership, although that strangely low average miles per trip persists.

There was also good news from the bigger corridors. The Keystone, San Joaquin, Capitol Corridor, Wolverine, and Lincoln Service all carried more passengers in November than October, which as I understand it is abnormal (November has on less day and traffic tends to slow in the fall.) This could be taken as a sign of recovery.

Also the Virginia Services via Richmond are incredible. Ridership is up 51% in 3 years despite COVID. The Piedmont, Carolinian, and Roanoke Regionals are up about 20% a piece.

And finally, the Heartland Flyer carried more than 100 passengers per train this month, possibly for the first time ever, but someone would have to check me. Unfortunately, it seems that this year it will become the least used train in the system because of the incredible growth of the Ethan Allen.

And this is old news, but it the Cardinal were run daily, its ridership and passenger miles would be greater than the Capitol Limited. Just a bit weird to think about.

What's MPR?

What do these numbers represent, and over what period of time?

I assume YTD means year to date? What would 2019 YTD be, when we're 3 years past the end of 2019?

 

[Septa9739]

MPR stands for monthly performance report. These are the way AMTRAK reports its financial information, key operating benchmarks, and ridership. They are based off the AMTRAK financial year, which runs October 1-September 30. When I report YTD stats they are always October to the current month, referenced against October to the current month in FY 2020 (2019-2020) to track individual lines recovery vs the last pre-COVID year. When the March report rolls around, I’m going to have a problem, but that’s for April or May.

 

[Septa9739]

The following 12 routes are above their 2019 YTD levels. Seven trains have dropped off this list this month. None were added.

1. Ethan Allen (23,600 from 14,100)
2. Vermonter (30,300 from 28,200)
3. Maple Leaf (106,200 from 104,500)
4. Heartland Flyer (19,300 from 18,800)
5. Roanoke Regionals (86,900 from 63,700)
6. Norfolk Regionals (120,300 from 96,600)
7. Richmond Regionals (33,300 from 31,200)
8. Carolinian (80,100 from 66,400)
9. Piedmont (75,700 from 63,700)
10. Texas Eagle (78,000 from 77,500)
11. Sunset Limited (22,900 from 23,200)
12. Auto Train (69,600 from 54,500)

These routes are within 5%. The Silver Star has slipped off. The Pennsylvanian and WAS-NPN dropped off again. Several long distance trains have retreated into this category. No trains have climbed into it.

1. New Haven-Springfield (114,000 from 114,700)
2. Empire South (313,000 from 324,900)
3. CONO (55,500 from 57,000)
4. Starlight (105,700 from 107,300)*
5. Crescent (69,800 from 73,200)

All in all, it was a bit of a rough December. Weather seems to have knocked back progress on a lot of trains serving CHI. Most trains carried fewer passengers than in November. This could be normal; I am ignorant of the annual ridership curve. The NEC was off 10% from October, SS was off 4%, LD was up 1%, all Amtrak was off about 5%. Total ridership is down 20% compared with October to December 2019.

15 trains carried more passengers in December than in November: Maple Leaf, NHV-SPG, Empire Service, Lincoln Service (which is huge when you consider a week of horrible weather issues), Illini/Saluki (restored frequency), the Heartland Flyer, Cascades (It’s numbers have been incredibly stable, suggesting major capacity problems. The western transcons are having the same problem), the Pennsylvanian, the CA Zephyr, Texas Eagles, Sunset Limited, Crescent. All three Florida trains are hitting their busy season and topped their November ridership. Hopefully extra sleepers will allow further improvement.

Ethan Allen seems to expect to have about 7,800 riders per month. We’ll see if the fair weather and bad ski season helps or hurts.

Anderson has already shared the further good news about VA.

The least used train in the system this month was the IL Zephyr, at a paltry 5,900 passengers.

 

[Anderson]

Could you give me the Oct-Dec totals for the NPN Regionals pre-pandemic?

One quirk to note about the NPN trains - I don't know if I mentioned it before, but there are two buses a day now going between NPN and NFK (connecting to the 0900 and 1300 trains). But as noted before (and as I will note ad nauseam), NPN shifting to having one of its trains be at an annoying time in the morning is not helping ridership there. Footfalls at NPN are possibly up, however, given the added trains (I think those buses are running about 10-20 people each.

The Richmond Regional(s) line is, by the way, probably seeing its ridership numbers saved by the extension of that train to Main Street Station (which saw ridership hit an all-time high of about 75k in FY22). This is a hair less than 50% higher than in FY19. Some of those riders are almost assuredly ending up on the other train out in the morning/back in the evening, but there's almost assuredly some support (e.g. folks taking one out and the other back).

Edit: As to the ridership curve - November and December vary a bit depending on how Thanksgiving spills around. Usually, if all of Thanksgiving lands in November, November may have slightly higher ridership (the week around Thanksgiving is usually Amtrak's busiest), but if it spills into December due to a late Thanksgiving then December will win out comfortably. Look at CY18 vs CY19 in that screenshot I posted - Thanksgiving in 2019 was as late as possible, so ridership rose quite a bit in December. In 2018, Thanksgiving weekend was fully embedded in November, so there was a slight ridership dip in December.

That being said, it looks like Amtrak probably lost six figures of riders due to the "abundance of caution" cancellations (and remember, quite a few of those canx probably cost Amtrak a return ticket the next week as folks either shifted travel mode or had to kill a trip outright) even if Southwest did their best to offset that a few days later.

So December probably "should" have been flat but ended up down on balance due to those issues.

 

[Septa9739]

Oct. to Dec. 2019 showed WAS-NPN ridership at 94,900.

 

[Anderson]

I will constrain my remarks to Virginia since I've been tracking those trains most closely.

January is the last month that "perfectly" tracks FY2020 (February probably tracks it as well, and I'd be happy to allow that the extra day in 2020 helps make up for any marginal ridership losses at that point). I don't have exact numbers from VHSR (Amtrak was tardy in posting this report, so it wasn't ready in time for our monthly meeting), so I plan to edit this post once that comes in. What I have is as follows:

YTD ridership in FY2023 for the four routes is as follows:
WAS-RNK: Jan 2023: 22,600; YTD FY23: 109,500
WAS-NPN: Jan 2023: 24,200; YTD FY23: 112,300
WAS-NFK: Jan 2023: 31,200; YTD FY23: 151,500
WAS-RVR: Jan 2023:  9,200; YTD FY23:  42,500
In Toto: Jan 2023: 87,200; YTD FY23: 415,800

Ridership for FY2022:
WAS-RNK: Jan 2022:  9,200; YTD FY22:  57,400
WAS-NPN: Jan 2022:  9,200; YTD FY22:  80,500
WAS-NFK: Jan 2022: 12,000; YTD FY22:  68,400
WAS-RVR: Jan 2022:  3,300; YTD FY22:  18,300
In Toto: Jan 2022: 33,700; YTD FY22: 224,600

Ridership for FY2020:
WAS-RNK: Jan 2020: 16,700; YTD FY20:  80,400
WAS-NPN: Jan 2020: 24,200; YTD FY20: 119,100
WAS-NFK: Jan 2020: 24,800; YTD FY20: 121,400
WAS-RVR: Jan 2020:  8,300; YTD FY20:  39,500
In Toto: Jan 2020: 74,000; YTD FY20: 360,400

Ridership for FY2019:
WAS-RNK: Jan 2019: xx,xxx; YTD FY19:  74,879
WAS-NPN: Jan 2019: xx,xxx; YTD FY19: 113,888
WAS-NFK: Jan 2019: xx,xxx; YTD FY19:  53,409
WAS-RVR: Jan 2019: xx,xxx; YTD FY19:  54,751
In Toto: Jan 2019: xx,xxx; YTD FY19: 296,927

I'll ask Danny Plaugher what the YTD numbers for FY19 were when I get a chance (so as to ease tracking). Hopefully I can get a VHSR report for January, 2023.

The YTD months in Virginia are as follows:

      FY19   |  FY20   |  FY22   |  FY23   |
Oct:  75,869 |  98,100 |  62,000 | 104,600 |
Nov:  83,342 |  87,800 |  66,400 | 112,900 |
Dec:  80,344 | 100,500 |  62,500 | 111,100 |
Jan:  57,372 |  74,000 |  33,700 |  87,200 |

A quick analytical note:
YTD, VA is 15% ahead of FY2020 (and 40% ahead of FY2019). January was actually above the trend here - up about 17.8% (December was up 10.5%, November was up 28.6%, and October was up 6.6%). I'm inclined to mark Nov/Dec off to holiday configurations and leave it at that.

Route-wise:
Roanoke is up 35.3% for the month and up 36.2% YTD. Roanoke is +1 train vs FY2020 and FY2019 (from one train to two).

Newport News is flat for the month and down 5.7% YTD. Newport News had a significant train shuffle early in 2019 (when Norfolk got its second train, the Newport News train moved earlier). On the one hand, this hurt ridership to/from NPN. On the other hand, it also acquired additional ridership out of Richmond for said train. In 2022 there was another shuffle, with one half of the 66/67 pair being sent to Roanoke and another train being swapped in, resulting in an earlier afternoon departure. This does not seem to be doing this route any favors.

Norfolk is up 25.8% for the month and up 24.8% YTD. Norfolk is +1 train vs FY2020 and +2 trains vs FY2019 at this stage (the second train, as noted above, came in during March 2019; the third started in the summer of 2022).

Richmond is up 10.8% for the month and 7.6% YTD. This is a single-train route; it is -1 train vs FY2019 at this point (two trains terminated at Richmond until March 2019). The schedule has shuffled around, but the main boon this "line" has had is an extension of service from Staples Mill Road station to Main Street Station (said extension probably having some odd interactions with the Newport News service's numbers - diverting some ridership but inducing other ridership).

Also, this is my 10,000th post! (I was holding my breath to make this one an analysis post rather than a glib comment ;-) )

 

[ComeonRailinAmerca]

Is it just my positive glasses or are the following capacity increases happening these days:

NEC - 2-4 additional daily trains (depending on weekday) beginning April 1st between NYC and WAS.

Cascades - Recent extra frequency + additional coaches(?)

Lincoln - 5 coaches pr train seems to back looking at recent YouTube railfan videos.

It’s so frustrating to see sold out trains but at least there seem to be some progress…

 

[Anderson]

Is it just my positive glasses or are the following capacity increases happening these days:

NEC - 2-4 additional daily trains (depending on weekday) beginning April 1st between NYC and WAS.

Cascades - Recent extra frequency + additional coaches(?)

Lincoln - 5 coaches pr train seems to back looking at recent YouTube railfan videos.

It’s so frustrating to see sold out trains but at least there seem to be some progress…

NEC is one additional Acela r/t and one additional Regional r/t, I believe. Whether that's "two trains" or "four trains" is a fun point to debate ;-)

The main "sold out"/"nosebleed pricing" issue has been on the LD side of things IINM, though the Cascades have also been a sore point because of the Talgos getting pulled a little bit too soon vis-a-vis the new equipment coming in.

 

[Septa9739]

Apologies, life got busy (busier) for a few weeks. The January 2023 MPR is out. Ridership is as expected down sharply from December according to the seasonal curve, but here we go:

YTD the following 12 routes are above their Jan FY 2020 levels:
1. Ethan Allen (29,800 from 17,700)
2. Vermonter (37,300 from 35,800)
3. Maple Leaf (137,000 from 133,800)
4. Heartland Flyer (24,000 from 23,100)
5. WAS-RNK (109,500 from 80,400)
6. WAS-NFK (151,500 from 121,400)
7. WAS-Richmond (42,500 from 39,500)
8. Carolinian (101,300 from 82,900)
9. Piedmont (96,500 from 80,400)
10. Texas Eagle (99,900 from 97,600)
11. Auto Train (94,300 from 75,100)

These are within 5%:
1. Empire Service (400,500 from 415,500)
2. Silver Star (115,700 from 121,700)
3. CONO (70,800 from 71,700)
4. Sunset Limited (29,100 from 29,300)
5. LSL (115,800 from 121,700)
6. Crescent (88,700 from 91,200)

Sunset has slipped down to 5%, Springfield Shuttles have fallen off completely. LSL and Silver Star have climbed up to 5%. None have climbed to newly to above 2019 levels. Lack of demand continues to kill many state supported trains, especially the Keystone and Capitol Corridors. Lack of equipment continues to constrain the Cascades (though future reports should show easing here with the addition of new equipment) and strangle most Superliner equipped long haul trains. Virginia and North Carolina continue to prove especially bright. Improved yield management is doing wonders for the Auto Train, a rare bright spot in the LD Sector. The NER finished the month within striking distance of a monthly record. I would expect one soon. NER sellouts are happening with increasing regularity. One almost wonders if the Airo's should be longer than eight coaches. Acela continues to struggle.

 

[Anderson]

Apologies, life got busy (busier) for a few weeks. The January 2023 MPR is out. Ridership is as expected down sharply from December according to the seasonal curve, but here we go:

YTD the following 12 routes are above their Jan FY 2020 levels:
1. Ethan Allen (29,800 from 17,700)
2. Vermonter (37,300 from 35,800)
3. Maple Leaf (137,000 from 133,800)
4. Heartland Flyer (24,000 from 23,100)
5. WAS-RNK (109,500 from 80,400)
6. WAS-NFK (151,500 from 121,400)
7. WAS-Richmond (42,500 from 39,500)
8. Carolinian (101,300 from 82,900)
9. Piedmont (96,500 from 80,400)
10. Texas Eagle (99,900 from 97,600)
11. Auto Train (94,300 from 75,100)

These are within 5%:
1. Empire Service (400,500 from 415,500)
2. Silver Star (115,700 from 121,700)
3. CONO (70,800 from 71,700)
4. Sunset Limited (29,100 from 29,300)
5. LSL (115,800 from 121,700)
6. Crescent (88,700 from 91,200)

Sunset has slipped down to 5%, Springfield Shuttles have fallen off completely. LSL and Silver Star have climbed up to 5%. None have climbed to newly to above 2019 levels. Lack of demand continues to kill many state supported trains, especially the Keystone and Capitol Corridors. Lack of equipment continues to constrain the Cascades (though future reports should show easing here with the addition of new equipment) and strangle most Superliner equipped long haul trains. Virginia and North Carolina continue to prove especially bright. Improved yield management is doing wonders for the Auto Train, a rare bright spot in the LD Sector. The NER finished the month within striking distance of a monthly record. I would expect one soon. NER sellouts are happening with increasing regularity. One almost wonders if the Airo's should be longer than eight coaches. Acela continues to struggle.

February is also out. Give me a moment to run an analysis for VA there ;-)

https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/...-Monthly-Performance-Report-February-2023.pdf

 

[Anderson]

Starting off: February, 2023's data for VA:

WAS-RNK: Feb 2023: 20,600; YTD FY23: 130,100
WAS-NPN: Feb 2023: 22,800; YTD FY23: 135,100
WAS-NFK: Feb 2023: 29,500; YTD FY23: 181,000
WAS-RVR: Feb 2023:  8,300; YTD FY23:  50,800
In Toto: Feb 2023: 81,200; YTD FY23: 497,000

[I should have February for the other years in a few days, since VHSR's meeting is coming up.]