The December 2015 Performance Report is now available - https://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/747/108/Amtrak-Monthly-Performance-Report-December-2015.pdf
First of all, someone needs to work on their cut-and-paste skills, as page A-3.4 has FY15 and FY14 in the ridership and revenue charts, likewise on the bottom chart of page A-3.5.
Not a great month for ridership across the board, with very few notable exceptions. Surfliner and Capitol Corridor did amazingly well, Downeaster is bouncing back nicely from a disastrous FY15. On the long distance side, EB, LSL, Crescent, CZ, SWC, and the Palmetto (thanks to allowing NER customers) all did well. They're blaming a small decline on the NEC on gas prices and moving some of the NER passenger traffic to the Palmetto, so I don't think the sky is falling there.
There's just no better way to say it, the midwest is uglier than a bowling shoe on the corridor routes. Nearly all of the Chicago-based corridors were pretty bad, HF and MRR were awful, and Michigan services weren't all that great (especially Pere Marquette). This is getting to be more than anomaly, it is becoming a trend.
I don't know what's going on with the Auto Train, but the Amtrak juggernaut appears to be losing its superpowers lately. Gas prices?
Since there has been a lot of discussion around the Silver Star lately, I've found something rather interesting, tell me if I'm interpreting this wrong:
First of all, someone needs to work on their cut-and-paste skills, as page A-3.4 has FY15 and FY14 in the ridership and revenue charts, likewise on the bottom chart of page A-3.5.
Not a great month for ridership across the board, with very few notable exceptions. Surfliner and Capitol Corridor did amazingly well, Downeaster is bouncing back nicely from a disastrous FY15. On the long distance side, EB, LSL, Crescent, CZ, SWC, and the Palmetto (thanks to allowing NER customers) all did well. They're blaming a small decline on the NEC on gas prices and moving some of the NER passenger traffic to the Palmetto, so I don't think the sky is falling there.
There's just no better way to say it, the midwest is uglier than a bowling shoe on the corridor routes. Nearly all of the Chicago-based corridors were pretty bad, HF and MRR were awful, and Michigan services weren't all that great (especially Pere Marquette). This is getting to be more than anomaly, it is becoming a trend.
I don't know what's going on with the Auto Train, but the Amtrak juggernaut appears to be losing its superpowers lately. Gas prices?
Since there has been a lot of discussion around the Silver Star lately, I've found something rather interesting, tell me if I'm interpreting this wrong:
- Total Ridership on the Star was unfavorable year-over-year but favorable to budget, so they were expecting a drop and luckily it wasn't as big a drop as they were expecting. Year-to-date ridership is unfavorable year-over-year and unfavorable to budget. If we have more months like December, the ridership might bounce back enough to become favorable to budget for the year, we'll wait and see.
- In December, total ridership on the Star was 36,541, while it indicates on page A-3.5 that sleeper ridership was 3,207. So the difference, 33,334, must have been coach passengers, correct? Sleeper ridership on the Star was up 2+% in December and year-to-date is up a whopping 8%. Pretty impressive, all things considered.
- But here's where things start to get funky... If what I put is correct, because of this, it appears the Star is losing coach passengers in a huge way. December FY2016 had 33,334 coach passengers compared with 36,083 in December FY15, a drop of 2,749 (7.6%), or about 88 coach passengers per day on average. YTD looks even worse, with FY16 82,717 vs. FY15 97,648 - a drop of 14931 (15.3%), or a 3-month average of 4,977, or 162 per day (92 days in Oct-Dec). Ouch.