Amtrak Posts 18th Consecutive Month of Ridership Gains

[afigg]

Another point of interest: Thus far in FY11 (that is, as of the March Performance Report, as April isn't out yet), the LD trains closed their losses by a couple of million dollars.

The April Monthly Report is now available on the Amtrak website in the Reports and Document page. Just a continuation of the trends from the previous monthly reports. Overall ticket revenue was up +11.8% for April compared to +9.9% ridership for Apr 10 to Apr 11. Ticket revenue for the year to date (October to April) is $48.6 million ahead of budget. The average load factor was 55.2% for April, so the trains are getting fuller.

In the production report table, in the Return to Service Long Distance Car line under Beech Grove Stimulus account, there is this tidbit: "Schedule is as follows: 32065 - June

38034 - July

32040 - August

8400 - September"

The first 3 are Superliner cars, the last is the Viewliner diner. So the Viewliner diner may show up on a eastern LD train in September or October.

 

[afigg]

It is most definitely not for any additional equipment. Boardman in his Senate testimony said that Amtrak is not going to order any further LD equipment until Congress figures out a policy for what it wants Amtrak to do about LD trains.

My understanding is that the loans that Amtrak has already applied for so far are for covering most, if not all of Viewliners and ACS 64. They are yet to apply for the Acela Cars, which they plan to fund through a loan secured by expected revenues as collateral. Boardman said as much in his Senate testimony the other week. Apparently these loans have to be secured loans against verifiable assets or future earnings. One cannot just get one by saying we will figure out later how to pay it back. But this understanding is subject to verification.

If Boardman is waiting for a clear policy on LD trains from Congress in a new 6 year Transportation Authorization bill, he could be in for a long wait.

As for the terms of the RRIF loans, as taxpayers we want the government to requite verifiable assets or secure the loan somehow. So Amtrak can't go off and borrow $10 billion from the RRIF program, but can use it to get favorable loan rates and terms while waiting for Congress and the Administration to duke it out on transportation and infrastructure policy. The FRA web page for RRIF applications is at http://www.fra.dot.gov/Pages/177.shtml if anyone here owns a railroad and wants to get started on lining up some funding. :lol:

 

[Anderson]

It is most definitely not for any additional equipment. Boardman in his Senate testimony said that Amtrak is not going to order any further LD equipment until Congress figures out a policy for what it wants Amtrak to do about LD trains.

My understanding is that the loans that Amtrak has already applied for so far are for covering most, if not all of Viewliners and ACS 64. They are yet to apply for the Acela Cars, which they plan to fund through a loan secured by expected revenues as collateral. Boardman said as much in his Senate testimony the other week. Apparently these loans have to be secured loans against verifiable assets or future earnings. One cannot just get one by saying we will figure out later how to pay it back. But this understanding is subject to verification.

If Boardman is waiting for a clear policy on LD trains from Congress in a new 6 year Transportation Authorization bill, he could be in for a long wait.

As for the terms of the RRIF loans, as taxpayers we want the government to requite verifiable assets or secure the loan somehow. So Amtrak can't go off and borrow $10 billion from the RRIF program, but can use it to get favorable loan rates and terms while waiting for Congress and the Administration to duke it out on transportation and infrastructure policy. The FRA web page for RRIF applications is at http://www.fra.dot.gov/Pages/177.shtml if anyone here owns a railroad and wants to get started on lining up some funding. :lol:

I can't quite tell if a set of cars would qualify as "verifiable assets", but Amtrak could certainly use some of this money for those bridge projects on the NEC tracks that they own. And is it just me, or has the FRA used like 5% of their resources here in a decade?

Edit: Another option would be doing some kind of deal with one of the railcar companies to upgrade Beech Grove so they could just "lease out" that part of the facility in the future rather than having to effectively pay for a full new factory every time they need new cars. And there's always doing deals with localities to upgrade stations to the point that they're reasonable revenue generators.

 

[AlanB]

Anderson. Could you please refrain from posting HTML here? Just makes it harder to read what you post with all those HTML angle brackets and  'sall over the place. Thanks.

It looks like a forum or browser glitch, because it got added into the quotes that he included. I stripped it out of the quote above.

Yeah, that's some sort of glitch, although I can't say just what happened.

But the forum is set not to allow HTML coding in the typing boxes. If you put any in, your post will be rejected.

The forum software does of course translate everything into HTML when you hit post, but it won't actually allow anyone to use it as it is a major potential security issue. As an Admin I could put in HTML, but there is really no point for me to do that when I can just click the pretty little icons.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Meaningful comment: There's not a single train that you couldn't arrange for a single-level component on for a few years and reallocate the Superliners from.

How about the Auto-Train?

 

[Anderson]

Meaningful comment: There's not a single train that you couldn't arrange for a single-level component on for a few years and reallocate the Superliners from.

How about the Auto-Train?

At least in theory you could do so in either the sleepers or the coach segment, though with the sleepers you'd have issues with the bedroom/roomette ratio. The Auto Train's biggest issue is that you've got a lot of equipment effectively deadheading one way or another in the spring and fall...there's so much traffic going to FL in the fall and coming from FL in the spring that you've got a full train one way and a low bucket train the other. If you got into a crunch, substituting a Viewliner consist on the "slow" side in a crunch would not be an issue, but you'd have trouble once the train got to the other end.

Given the length of that train, I don't see swapping an extra couple of single level cars in for a lower number of dual-level ones...and I don't see there being an issue if you had the capacity in the autoracks. If I had to guess, the racks are what's driving Auto Train capacity, not the cars themselves. But assuming that one too many Superliners got bad-ordered in DC and you had to run a couple of Viewliners down to fill in the gap at the last minute (file this under "stuff happens"), your biggest issue is going to be crew qualifications, not equipment compatibility.

 

[AlanB]

If I had to guess, the racks are what's driving Auto Train capacity, not the cars themselves. But assuming that one too many Superliners got bad-ordered in DC and you had to run a couple of Viewliners down to fill in the gap at the last minute (file this under "stuff happens"), your biggest issue is going to be crew qualifications, not equipment compatibility.

While the supply of car racks and spaces therein aren't unlimited, the major limiting factor for overall train capacity on the Auto Train is power. During the peak periods Amtrak maxes out the number of cars that they can supply HEP to. The 480 cables simply can't carry any more power without melting down or other bad things.

So once they sell enough seats/rooms to fill the cars, that's it for capacity. There is no adding still more passenger cars to increase the number of seats/rooms. I believe that the maximum is 1 Trans/Dorm, 6 sleepers (2 Deluxe), 3 diners, 2 cafes, and either 6 or 7 coaches I'm not positive on the last number. It doesn't happen every day, but there are definately times that Amtrak would like to be able to add still more cars to the AT, but they can't.

 

[afigg]

I can't quite tell if a set of cars would qualify as "verifiable assets", but Amtrak could certainly use some of this money for those bridge projects on the NEC tracks that they own. And is it just me, or has the FRA used like 5% of their resources here in a decade?

The RRIF loans still have an interest rate and have to be paid back. Amtrak should not be racking up debt for big projects on the existing NEC, if they can get federal annual capital funding, HSIPR or FRA grants, and some state funding to cover the costs. Amtrak has been getting their outstanding debt under control in the past few years. They don't need to add to it for projects to replace the Portal or CT River bridges.

For Amtrak, using the RRIF loans to buy rolling stock can work, because the rolling stock generates ticket revenues that can tracked in the accounting books. The rolling stock also has a defined book value. Much harder to account for revenue that comes from replacing the CT River bridge. Well, except in the case of if we don't replace the bridge, the NEC will eventually shut down. The Fleet Strategy Plan V2 identifies the need to buy up to $15.7 billion of rolling stock out to 2031 (in FY11 dollars). Serious amount of money. That what happens when new or replacement equipment purchases get postponed or left in unfunded limbo for so many years.

Amtrak, I expect, would prefer to get federal capital, grant, and/or state funding to cover most of that cost. But, in lieu of that, they can try to use the RRIF loan program to provide funds for their most critical immediate equipment needs - electric locos and replacing 50-60 year baggage and diner cars.

 

[mfastx]

Just rode the Sunset Limited from Houston to New Orleans, the whole train was completely full. Some had to sit in the lounge car because there were no coach seats left.

 

[Anderson]

I can't quite tell if a set of cars would qualify as "verifiable assets", but Amtrak could certainly use some of this money for those bridge projects on the NEC tracks that they own. And is it just me, or has the FRA used like 5% of their resources here in a decade?

The RRIF loans still have an interest rate and have to be paid back. Amtrak should not be racking up debt for big projects on the existing NEC, if they can get federal annual capital funding, HSIPR or FRA grants, and some state funding to cover the costs. Amtrak has been getting their outstanding debt under control in the past few years. They don't need to add to it for projects to replace the Portal or CT River bridges.

For Amtrak, using the RRIF loans to buy rolling stock can work, because the rolling stock generates ticket revenues that can tracked in the accounting books. The rolling stock also has a defined book value. Much harder to account for revenue that comes from replacing the CT River bridge. Well, except in the case of if we don't replace the bridge, the NEC will eventually shut down. The Fleet Strategy Plan V2 identifies the need to buy up to $15.7 billion of rolling stock out to 2031 (in FY11 dollars). Serious amount of money. That what happens when new or replacement equipment purchases get postponed or left in unfunded limbo for so many years.

Amtrak, I expect, would prefer to get federal capital, grant, and/or state funding to cover most of that cost. But, in lieu of that, they can try to use the RRIF loan program to provide funds for their most critical immediate equipment needs - electric locos and replacing 50-60 year baggage and diner cars.

Well, would it be possible to get Amtrak to get the loan backed by state funding commitments? i.e. Obtain $20 million in funding for capital stock now, with a state agreeing to pay that off over 10 or 20 years (and with Amtrak strictly acting as the intermediary to tender the application)? I know the environment isn't very good right now, but there are some states that such a deal might fly in (Illinois leaps to mind).