I repeat again that there is a fundamental economic difference between the situation for Amtrak in the 1970s and 1980s and the situation now. Having looked at the reports then, when *did list direct costs* (no allocations), the trains really *were* costing a large amount to run (not just overhead) in the 70s and 80s. Now, they're mostly profitable before overhead.
This *is* a difference.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the NEC and all the state-supported trains continue to run, since the NEC isn't being attacked (a new development) and the states are just as supportive as they were in 2016. This requires nearly all of Amtrak's overhead to continue, including bases at Beech Grove, Chicago, LA, Seattle, and Portland. Let's run through the long-distance trains once again, and see if any money could be saved by cutting anything (spoiler: not much).
My estimates of profits before overhead are *underestimates*, by the way, because I believe I'm overestimating direct costs and underestimating overhead. Direct costs were specified to include the costs of stations served only by one train.
-- Despite recent declines, the Auto Train is quite profitable -- about $36.8 million. The Sanford Maintenance Facility must stay open to support SunRail. Cancelling it would COST money every year.
-- Silver Star, Silver Meteor, and Palmetto jointly generate a profit of about $45 million per year. This is certainly enough to pay for the rent and staffing at the stations they share along the route which are not shared with corridor trains (i.e. south of Cary). It looks like it's enough to pay for Hialeah maintenance base too. So: again, incrementally profitable; canceling any of them would COST money every year.
-- The Lake Shore Limited is profitable by about $3.8 million per year. This is enough to cover the costs of Cleveland and Toledo, the only staffed stations not shared with state services. So cancelling this would, again, COST money every year.
-- The Capitol Limited costs about $4.7 million per year to run. All staffed stations are either unique to it (and therefore included in this number) or are used by state services or the profitable LSL. So that's the sum total you could possibly save by cancelling it. In fact, over half of its passengers connect to other trains... the result is that cancelling it would probably lose more than $4.7 million in revenue on other trains, thus meaning that cancelling it would COST money every year.
-- The Coast Starlight seems to cost about $1.8 million per year to operate. All the maintenance facilities are shared with state services, and all the stations are either shared with state services or unique to this route (and so included in this number). Again, like the Capitol Limited, this almost certainly generates revenue from connecting traffic on state services in excess of $1.8 million, so cancelling it would COST money every year.
-- The Empire Builder seems to cost about $3.5 million per year to operate. Again, all the stations are either unique to this route or shared with state services. I don't know whether it generates enough connecting traffic revenue to cover that, but seriously, $3.5 million per year?!?
I'm not going to go through them all again, but you get my point. The maximum theoretical amount Amtrak could save by cutting long-distance trains would be $59.2 million plus the cost of operating New Orleans Union Station. (New Orleans is the only station shared by multiple long-distance trains but not by state services, NEC, LSL, or Silvers.) It would actually be less than that. This assumes (a) we only cut the unprofitable trains, (b) my estimates are right (they're not, they underestimate profits and overestimate losses), and © no connecting revenue would be lost (it definitely would be lost).
I can estimate a more realistic "maximum savings from cuts" by retaining, in addition to the NEC and state services, the profitable trains (Auto Train, Palmetto, Silver Star, Silver Meteor, LSL, Crescent), and the trains which are likely generating connecting revenue in excess of their small direct operating loss (Coast Starlight, Capitol Limited, Empire Builder, Cardinal). This would be about $46.5 million. The thing about this is, there's zero chance of doing this politically. What trains would be cut to do this?
-- California Zephyr. Won't happen, Colorado won't allow it, neither will Nevada or Nebraska
-- Southwest Chief. Won't happen, New Mexico won't allow it, neither will Kansas
-- Texas Eagle. Texas and Missouri actually fought for this train.
-- City of New Orleans. *Mississippi* actually fought for this train.
-- Sunset Limited. This is literally the only train which both loses money on operations and doesn't have massive political backing.
So if I were going to be really realistic, I would point out that the maximum Amtrak can save by cutting trains is the roughly $13.2 million for the Sunset Limited (revenue less direct costs).
This is totally insignificant.
Basically, for any CEO at Amtrak, faced with the current system, the only rational thing to do in the face of funding cuts is to get more money, whether from the states or from borrowing. Because cutting trains will either COST money or will cost too much political support to be possible.
I must repeat that this is *very different* from the situation in the 1970s when individual trains had direct losses (revenue minus direct costs, again, BEFORE overhead allocation) upwards of $20 million, IIRC some as high as $40 million. That's a *very different* situation economically.
