Amtrak Stations with Fewest # of Passengers

[Bob Dylan]

Interesting Post on another Rail Discussion Forum about the Stations with the Fewest Number of Boardings/De-Training on the Amtrak System: (Fiscal 2013/Highest to Lowest))

All Unstaffed Stations: *Flag Stop

1,McGregor,Tx 1255

2.Ft. Kent,NY 847

3.Connersville,IN 705

4.Montgomery,WV 614

5. N.Philadelphia 590

6.Alderson,WV 586*

7.Thurmond,WV 563*

8.Lordsburg,NM 483*

9.Sanderson,Tx. 255*

10. None Listed-----------

Note; Hope,AK- Opened 2013/Not Rated

 

[the_traveler]

Your #2, I doubt they get that many - because there is no station at Ft Kent. There is one, however at Port Kent, NY - the location of the ferry across Lake Champlain to Burlington, VT, but it is only a seasonal stop. (Summer only when the ferry operates.)

 

[Nathanael]

Interesting Post on another Rail Discussion Forum about the Stations with the Fewest Number of Boardings/De-Training on the Amtrak System: (Fiscal 2013/Highest to Lowest))

1.McGregor,Tx 1255 Sunset

2.[Port] Kent,NY 847 Open less than half the year for ferry connections, accounting for this

3.Connersville,IN 705 Cardinal

4.Montgomery,WV 614 Cardinal

5.N.Philadelphia 590 See below

6.Alderson,WV 586* Cardinal

7.Thurmond,WV 563* Cardinal

8.Lordsburg,NM 483* Sunset

9.Sanderson,Tx. 255* Sunset

North Philadelphia is served by two trains a day northbound (one Keystone, one NEC), both in the early morning, and by slightly more trains southbound.

Conclusion #1: 3-a-week stinks.

Conclusion #2: Amtrak is not making a serious attempt to get business at North Philadelphia. I'm actually not sure why any trains stop there given the desultory service, and the presence of frequent SEPTA service. There are probably people who don't realize that direct Amtrak trains exist, who are taking SEPTA to 30th St. or Trenton and changing trains there.

The next ten would probably be more interesting.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

Semi-unrelated but here is an interesting map somebody made representing ridership nationwide: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/17600/amtrak-stations-mapped-by-ridership/

 

[Twin Star Rocket]

McGregor TX is a stop on the EAGLE's route.

 

[PRR 60]

North Philadelphia was extensively rehabbed with economic development funds in an attempt to make it a catalyst for improvement of the surrounding neighborhood. The area was just about as bad as it can get. There a desire, if not obligation, to have at least token Amtrak service at PHN in response to that investment. Sadly, almost no one uses PHN for Amtrak, and SEPTA does not do much business there either. Kind of sad. 50 years ago North Philly was a major stop for the PRR, and the only Philadelphia stop for the trains to and from the west, including the Broadway Limited. The place was a beehive of activity and was the go to spot for my dad and I to go train watching. Now, it's a ghost town.

 

[afigg]

Interesting Post on another Rail Discussion Forum about the Stations with the Fewest Number of Boardings/De-Training on the Amtrak System: (Fiscal 2013/Highest to Lowest))

All Unstaffed Stations: *Flag Stop

8.Lordsburg,NM 483*9.Sanderson,Tx. 255*

10. None Listed-----------

Note; Hope,AK- Opened 2013/Not Rated

Some of your numbers are from the FY2012 column. Lordsburg NM had 736 passengers in FY13, a whopping 52% increase. Of course, for a 3 day a week train, that works out to about 1 more passenger per train. Deming NM, another of the smallest stations increased from 1,170 to 1,382, so maybe the SL schedule change and eTickets is boosting ridership at the (really) small market stations on the route.

Hope, AR had 1,310 passenger in FY13 for a partial year.

Pulling the data from Great American Stations website manually is rather tedious, so unless someone has pulled all the data and publishes it, I'll wait for the state fact sheets to get posted before doing a larger FY12 vs FY13 comparison. Has the deployment of eTicketing been a boost for the more remote and rural stations in the Amtrak system?

 

[Bob Dylan]

:hi: Thanks for the "From the Scene" Updates! And as to the Numbers,(and Station Names) I just copied them from the Post, I can't Vouch for them! I agree with the 3 Trains a Week Hurts the Ridership Post! Also that it's Not Easy to find such Information, maybe Amtrak Doesn't Want This to be Common Knowledge ???(ie Easy for Critics and Washington "Rail Experts" to Find and Use as Ammo for Cutting Back Service!!! ) And it is Sad about North Philly, I used to get off there back in the PRR Days and as was said, it was a Beehive of Activity! (Wonder if this Area will "Come Back" as is happening in Most Older Cities ??? )

 

[afigg]

North Philadelphia was extensively rehabbed with economic development funds in an attempt to make it a catalyst for improvement of the surrounding neighborhood. The area was just about as bad as it can get. There a desire, if not obligation, to have at least token Amtrak service at PHN in response to that investment. Sadly, almost no one uses PHN for Amtrak, and SEPTA does not do much business there either. Kind of sad. 50 years ago North Philly was a major stop for the PRR, and the only Philadelphia stop for the trains to and from the west, including the Broadway Limited. The place was a beehive of activity and was the go to spot for my dad and I to go train watching. Now, it's a ghost town.

The 590 for North Philadelphia is a jump over 294 on/off for FY2012 and 389 for FY2011. Even if it may be just 1 additional person a day. Yes, the north Philadelphia area fell on hard times many decades ago as Philadelphia went into population decline after its 1950s peak as was the case for many Northeast and Midwest cities. However, Philly has seen a revival in the center city and has seen solid population growth in recent years, adding an estimated 21 thousand people from 2010 to 2012. Philly has a long way to go to the levels of economic recovery seen in the other major cities of the NEC: NYC, Boston, DC, but Philly and North Philly in particular have a good transit system to build on.

As for stopping at PHN, the station has high level platforms and is not on a fast section of the NEC with a 60? MPH limit through PHN. With so few getting on or off, the time impact on the schedule for that trains that stop at PHN should be small. Amtrak owns the PHN station and platforms, so they may have a few trains stop there in large part to maintain a presence at the station.

 

[fairviewroad]

McGregor TX is a stop on the EAGLE's route.

Indeed it is, making it the only station on this list with year-round daily service. Or to put it another way, of the stations with year-round

daily service, McGregor has the fewest passengers in the entire Amtrak system.

North Philadelphia is served by two trains a day northbound (one Keystone, one NEC), both in the early morning, and by slightly more trains southbound.

Conclusion #1: 3-a-week stinks.

Conclusion #2: Amtrak is not making a serious attempt to get business at North Philadelphia. I'm actually not sure why any trains stop there given the desultory service, and the presence of frequent SEPTA service. There are probably people who don't realize that direct Amtrak trains exist, who are taking SEPTA to 30th St. or Trenton and changing trains there.

And in fact, North Philadelphia has no Amtrak service at all on weekends. The service pattern is meant for daily commuters to Newark/NYP, of which there are likely

few in the relatively impoverished PHN neighborhood. The station is easily accessible from SEPTA's Broad Street subway line, but even that does not seem to be

driving ridership. Compare PHN to Cornwells Heights (CWH), a station in the NE Philly suburbs that has a similar service pattern to PHN. Except, the Amtrak ridership

at CWH is about 10x that of PHN.

 

[Nathanael]

McGregor TX is a stop on the EAGLE's route.

Whoops. Very interesting -- so in 2012 that *was* the worst-performing stop which has year-round, daily service, as fairviewroad said.

It has ridership of 5209 for 2013. A bit of a boost! It is not the lowest any more. (Was there a disruption in 2012?)

For the hell of it, I started extracting the information from GAS into a spreadsheet

Benson, AZ has ridership of 1833 -- but it's yet another flagstop on the Sunset. My quest to find the worst-performing year-round daily stop continues.

3-a-week *sucks*.

 

[the_traveler]

Does Amtrak even stop at CWH? :huh: I know SEPTA does.

If no Amtrak trains stop there, how can the Amtrak ridership be higher than PHN? :huh: (What am I missing?)

 

[the_traveler]

My quest to find the worst-performing year-round daily stop continues.

What about Essex, MT? I know it's a flag stop (basically for the Issak Walton Inn), but it does have daily year round service.

 

[fairviewroad]

Does Amtrak even stop at CWH? :huh: I know SEPTA does.

If no Amtrak trains stop there, how can the Amtrak ridership be higher than PHN? :huh: (What am I missing?)

Amtrak does stop at CWH, which can be easily verified by using the booking feature on Amtrak.com

 

[PRR 60]

McGregor TX is a stop on the EAGLE's route.

Indeed it is, making it the only station on this list with year-round daily service. Or to put it another way, of the stations with year-round

daily service, McGregor has the fewest passengers in the entire Amtrak system.

North Philadelphia is served by two trains a day northbound (one Keystone, one NEC), both in the early morning, and by slightly more trains southbound.

Conclusion #1: 3-a-week stinks.

Conclusion #2: Amtrak is not making a serious attempt to get business at North Philadelphia. I'm actually not sure why any trains stop there given the desultory service, and the presence of frequent SEPTA service. There are probably people who don't realize that direct Amtrak trains exist, who are taking SEPTA to 30th St. or Trenton and changing trains there.

And in fact, North Philadelphia has no Amtrak service at all on weekends. The service pattern is meant for daily commuters to Newark/NYP, of which there are likely

few in the relatively impoverished PHN neighborhood. The station is easily accessible from SEPTA's Broad Street subway line, but even that does not seem to be

driving ridership. Compare PHN to Cornwells Heights (CWH), a station in the NE Philly suburbs that has a similar service pattern to PHN. Except, the Amtrak ridership

at CWH is about 10x that of PHN.

I'm not sure I'd say that PHN is "easily" accessible from the Broad Street Subway. The North Philadelphia subway stop is about 2 blocks south of the Amtrak station at Lehigh Avenue. At one time there was an underground walkway between the stations, but that was closed years ago for security reasons. Even in better times, it was a scary walk. The neighborhood surrounding North Philly has improved in recent years with Temple University expanding. It still has a long way to go.

 

[bgiaquin]

My quest to find the worst-performing year-round daily stop continues.

What about Essex, MT? I know it's a flag stop (basically for the Issak Walton Inn), but it does have daily year round service.

Even though it is a flag stop, Essex is very popular due to GNP and as you said the Izaak Walton Inn. In fact, they just put in a new platform there not to long ago.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Be Interesting to know Amtrak's Criteria for Flag Stop Stations since some of them have Higher Passenger Numbers than Regular Daily Station Stops! Policy Wonks and Number Crunchers Might Know??? :help:

 

[Nathanael]

Essex, Montana had 3869 passengers -- not bad for a flagstop.

Amtrak's flagstop policies are frankly a little weird. The highest-ridership flagstop is Slidell, Louisiana (SDL) on the Crescent, with 7596 passengers per year. I would say this probably should not be a flagstop. Amtrak's flagstop policies perplex me.

Anyway, I used this as my threshhold for "low ridership"; it's also very close to Amtrak's threshold below which it will not consider anything fancier than portable lifts for ADA compliance (which is 7500).

Now, three-a-week is obviously a disaster and has to stop.

There are only four stations on the Sunset Limited -- not counting LA, New Orleans, and San Antonio, which are shared with other routes -- which exceed this threshold. These are Maricopa, El Paso, and Houston.

There are more Cardinal-only stations above this threshold: Cincinnati, Huntington WV, Charleston WV, Hinton WV, and Staunton VA. The Cardinal has more potential in WV than I realized, and I hope improvements to the Buckingham Branch portion come soon.

Only two of the at-risk stations on the Southwest Chief are above this threshhold: Raton, NM and Lamy, NM, and interestingly Raton has more passengers than Lamy.

Now, there are actually *135* stations with lower ridership than Slidell, and I'm not going to list them all. (For reference, the count omits the Coaster stations with recently-added Amtrak service, and Greenfield Village, due to lack of data.) But from the bottom, we have:

SND 261 20544 Sunset flag

THN 563 23228 Cardinal flag

ALD 586 37055 Cardinal flag

PHN 590 28231 weekday only

MNG 614 39285 Cardinal

LDB 736 81497 Sunset flag

COI 771 44921 Cardinal

PRK 847 32896 four months/year

SPM 1010 62090 Cardinal

WNM 1126 59167

RSP 1205 49473

SLQ 1292 67985

HOP 1310 88016 opened midyear 2013

WHL 1329 60641

DEM 1382 155981 Sunset flag

POS 1461 162819 Sunset

WIH 1570 134180

HAZ 1728 104483 flag

GAS 1741 156191 flag

ARK 1787 148129 flag

SCH 1811 109842 Sunset flag

The lowest-ridership stops with full-year daily service are then:

Windsor, Vermont

Rouses Point, NY

Saint Lambert, Quebec

Whitehall, NY

Wishram, WA

Hazlehurst, MS (flagstop)

Gastonia, NC (flagstop)

Arkadelphia, TX (flagstop)

Three of these are on the Adirondack and aren't flagstops. I know St. Lambert is supposed to go away when preclearance is established at Montreal. The numbers would suggest that Rouses Point should go away too, or at least become a flagstop. Whitehall NY should probably be a flagstop. If you keep going along the lists, stations on the Adirondack dominate the bottom of the chart. A bunch of the stops on the Vermonter are also near the bottom of the ridership charts. Neither train "does" flagstops; perhaps they should.

 

[fairviewroad]

I'm not sure I'd say that PHN is "easily" accessible from the Broad Street Subway. The North Philadelphia subway stop is about 2 blocks south of the Amtrak station at Lehigh Avenue. At one time there was an underground walkway between the stations, but that was closed years ago for security reasons. Even in better times, it was a scary walk. The neighborhood surrounding North Philly has improved in recent years with Temple University expanding. It still has a long way to go.

You have a point, though I don't think people in that neighborhood would find those two blocks especially onerous. It's just a part of their everyday life. When I lived in Philly in the mid-90's I would sometimes transfer between the subway and the Septa Trenton line at PHN. If you were heading somewhere other than the immediate vicinity of the three Center City Septa regional rail stops, it was often quicker to hop on the subway at PHN than to stay on the train to Suburban Station.

Only two of the at-risk stations on the Southwest Chief are above this threshhold: Raton, NM and Lamy, NM, and interestingly Raton has more passengers than Lamy.

Perhaps Raton is stronger due to Thruway/Greyhound feeder traffic from Denver? I realize Lamy has Thruway service from SAF but I'd imagine

many people in SAF, particularly those heading westward, just catch the Chief in ABQ.

 

[the_traveler]

Raton also has the Boy Scout Camp. That increases the numbers greatly!

 

[afigg]

There are more Cardinal-only stations above this threshold: Cincinnati, Huntington WV, Charleston WV, Hinton WV, and Staunton VA. The Cardinal has more potential in WV than I realized, and I hope improvements to the Buckingham Branch portion come soon.

The Cardinal ridership numbers are quite decent, but people see them as small because of 3 days a week. The Cardinal had 113,103 passengers in FY2013 compared to the Capitol Limited 229,668. Sounds lousy. But if one compensates for the 3 days a week by multiplying the Cardinal ridership by 7/3 or 2.33, a daily Cardinal would have 264K passengers. And that is a simplistic projection because a daily service should attract additional business as a more viable service. The Cardinal provides daytime service between NYP-WAS, CVS, and WV so that is one of the markets it draws on.
A daily Cardinal with a bag-dorm, 2 sleeper cars, and a full service diner should pull in $20+ million in annual revenue, putting it in the same range as the CL and CONO. But that won't happen until the new Viewliners are all delivered, the BBRR is fixed up, CSX is ok with daily service, and my guess Amtrak has Indiana fully onboard with paying for a daily Hoosier State on a different schedule from the Cardinal.

HOP 1310 88016 opened midyear 2013

Checking the Amtrak press releases, TE service to Hope, AR started on May 18. So the numbers are for ~4.5 months or ~3/8ths of the fiscal year. Which projects to 3500 over a full year, so the stop at Hope is a nice although small boost for TE ridership.

 

[Nathanael]

So, I started with my list of stations with less ridership than Slidell, LA, and I did this:

- leave out flagstops

- leave out stops without daily year-round service

- leave out Hoosier State stops, which we can expect to do poorly (and they do)

- leave out stops on the Vermonter and Adirondack (which dominate the bottom of the chart)

The remaining "lowest ridership stations" are, in order from lowest ridership up:

Wishram, WA (Empire Builder Portland Section)

Lamar, CO (at-risk section of SW Chief -- no loss!)

HER (CZ)

HLD (CZ)

Framingham, MA (LSL Boston Section)

GRI (CZ)

Cut Bank, Montana (EB)

FMG (CZ)

Gilman, IL (Illini/Saluki)

GRA (CZ)

...at which point it became obvious that the CZ was also very overrepresented among the low-ridership stations.

It's a little surprising to me that the CZ has no flagstops, as a "flagstop" policy would seem to make sense for it.

Leaving out CZ stations as well, I got a new list, which I proceeded to analyze. The Empire Builder and Texas Eagle are rather overrepresented in that list. But almost every route has a few "low-ridership" stops.

So I looked at flagstop policy.

Now, the flagstop policy of the Texas Eagle makes sense -- the flagstops are the lowest ridership stops (or one stop shared with the Lincoln Service).

But for contrast: the Empire Builder has one flagstop, Essex MT. But it has four stations with lower ridership than Essex -- so why aren't these stations flagstops?

Wishram, WA (Empire Builder Portland Section)

Cut Bank, Montana (EB)

Bingen-White Salmon, WA (EB Portland Section)

Ephrata, WA (EB Seattle Section)

The Silver Star has no flagstops. As long as it's on the current route, it probably should: it has four low-ridership stations on its trip south of Cary through the Carolinas:

Camden, SC

Hamlet, NC

Denmark, SC

Southern Pines, NC (7554 on/offs, the most of the four)

(Columbia's the only one on this section with ridership above my arbitrary cutoff)

Also, Okechobee, FL has low ridership (3851). It's between Miami and Tampa, but it is only served by the Silver Star, not the Meteor, and the circuitous routing to Tampa probably suppresses ridership.

The Crescent's flagstop policy badly needs adjustment. As noted earlier, Slidell has more ridership than many non-flagstops and probably shouldn't be a flagstop. Other non-flagstops on the Crescent with less ridership than Slidell:

Spartanburg, SC

Clemson, SC

Anniston, AL

Gainesville, GA

As noted before, the at-risk section of the SW Chief is mostly low-ridership.

These are the lowest-ridership stations with 2 or more Amtrak trains each way per day (starting with the worst):

Gilman, IL (Illini/Saluki)

Dowagiac, MI (Wolverine 2/day)

Stanwood, WA (Cascades -- ridership suppressed by mudslides?)

Rantoul, IL (Illini/Saluki)

Glendale, CA (Pacific Surfliner, but Metrolink is probably taking ridership)

Elyria, Ohio (LSL & CL -- given the state of the station people probably drive to Cleveland)

Plano, IL (Quincy Service)

Hammond/Whiting, IN (Wolverine 2/day) -- 7763 on/offs

Gilman and Rantoul may simply have reached maximum demand.

Santa Clara-University is the lowest-ridership station to be served by 3 or more trains each way per day -- at 8635 on/offs. But it's fairly new and people are probably still using the other Santa Clara station.

Other stations where ridership is probably diverted to other operators' trains:

Framingham, MA (LSL Boston Section -- eastbound riders take the MBTA, while delays on the LSL may discourage westbound ridership)

Michigan City, IN (Wolverine 1/day only; people clearly take South Shore Line if going west)

Burke Center, VA (mostly a VRE station)

Rockville, MD (Capitol Limited, but mostly a WMATA subway station)

Finally, other "low-ridership" (less than Slidell LA) stations which are not on any of the previous lists of things I excluded, not mentioned earlier, and also not on the Texas Eagle or Empire Builder:

Purcell, OK (Heartland Flyer)

Barstow, CA (SW Chief)

Bangor, MI (Pere Marquette)

Newbern, TN (CONO)

Castleton, VT (Ethan Allen Express)

Alliance, Ohio (Capitol Limited)

Winslow, AZ (SW Chief)

Connellsville, PA (Capitol Limited)

Brookhaven, MS (City of New Orleans)

Pauls Valley, OK (Heartland Flyer)

Dunsmuir, CA (Coast Starlight)

Williams Junction, NM (SW Chief)

Lawrence, KS (SW Chief)

None of these particularly surprise me or leave me with anything to say.

 

[fairviewroad]

Wishram is generally a smoke stop on the Builder, not sure if there's a crew change or what have you.

 

[Nathanael]

More trivia, this time looking at the high-ridership end of the list.

• The busiest stations served by only one train per day... Sanford and Lorton Auto Train terminals, of course.
• New Orleans has two to three departures per day. Except for Auto Train, all stations with more ridership than New Orleans have at least four departures per day, in one direction or another. (New Orleans numbers are probably inflated by connecting traffic, though)
• Kansas City has four departures per day. Except for New Orleans and the Auto Train, all stations with more ridership than Kansas City have more than four departures per day. (KC numbers are probably inflated by connecting traffic, through.)
• Orlando has four departures per day (two north, two south). Its numbers *aren't* inflated by connecting traffic. Except for the aforementioned stations, all stations with more ridership than Orlando have more than four departures per day. Orlando clearly provides more traffic than its service level would predict.
• Vancouver, Canada has a mere two departures per day, and except for the Auto Train stations, all stations with more ridership than Vancouver have more departures per day than that. (But Vancouver does have a bunch of bus service too, which probably improves ridership.)
• Tampa has two departures a day -- one north and one south. It is the best-performing station with mere "one each way" service, particularly impressive given the routing of the train and the poor on-time performance. (Though there are also connecting buses.)
• After Tampa, the next-highest-ridership "one each way" stations are, in descending order:
• Minneapolis-St. Paul.
• Denver
• Atlanta
• Montreal
• Reno
• Albuquerque
• Memphis
• Whitefish, Montana (at which point I stopped, as there are lots of "one each way" stations from here on down the chart)

I think that these one-each-way stations which are "punching above their weight", getting ridership usually associated with stations with more frequencies, seem like they could use more service. (Apart from Auto Train, where it makes more sense to run a longer train.) I am aware that there is a plan in progress for Montreal, that the Minnesota government is interested in getting another frequency for MSP, that there are rumors of returning the Palmetto to Tampa at some time in the future, and that there were vague proposals to extend the Capitol Corridor to Reno, and that there were even vaguer and less likely proposals to extend something from Charlotte to Atlanta, but I am aware of no proposals whatsoever for Denver. Which I find odd.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

Elyria, Ohio (LSL & CL -- given the state of the station people probably drive to Cleveland)

Yes, that is generally what happens. One could think of this stop as a sort of "West Cleveland" the city has been growing in size and is probably worth its own stop.

I would take a look at your stations and look at their calling times. Stations like Alliance OH (which has just over 4,000 boardings/deboardings per year) would probably have more riders if their schedules were pushed forward twelve hours.