WoodyinNYCPosted 29 May 2015 - 12:18 PM
Mostly a very superficial write-up, almost fact-free.
But this was interesting info, tho possibly garbled:
"… debate over the future of Amtrak ... Of its 48 lines, only five make a profit and one breaks even".
Looking in the April Performance Report, Page C - 1 shows year-to-date (7 months) results. Under the column heading "Fully Allocated Contribution/(Loss)", I count the
Acelas; the
Regionals; the
Vermonter; Amtrak Virginia: the
Lynchburger, the
Newport News,
Norfolk, and
Richmond routes as contributing. So seven "made a profit", or at least a positive contribution, in April. The
Auto Train shows "$0.0" to break even.
Of course, except for the
Acelas,
Regionals, and the
Auto Train, the others are state-supported as per PRIIA. Whether or which If the Amtrak Virginia trains are showing results AFTER state support it's not enuff to matter.
Note that "break-even" had a number of contenders: the
Maple Leaf, the
Adirondack, the
Pere Marquette, and the
Carolinian show a 7-month loss of less than $1 million. The
Ethan Allen, the
Hiawathas, the
Heartland Flyer, the
Blue Water, the
Piedmont, and even the hapless
Hoosier State showed an Amtrak loss of less than $2 million for the 7 months. (Amtrak's share of the loss is to be 15% of the yearly total, iirc, after the state support covers 85% iirc.)
Don't forget the state support is counted as non-farebox revenue for the purposes of calculating fully allocated profit/loss. You have to compare the ticket revenue to the allocated cost to get a better feel for the picture taking state support money out of it.
I see where you are coming from. Not sure I was going in the same direction.
I'm looking at the corridor results as the loss that will hit Amtrak's results. So I do want the figures after the states' contributions. Of course the 85% state support will take care of most of the operating losses. But Amtrak still is gonna pay 15% of any losses, iirc.
So if the corridor routes are doing better, Amtrak's loss on these services will be less. And in a perfect world (riding the
Lynchburger, perhaps?), some corridors would not require any state support and lucky Amtrak would not have to pay its small percentage of any losses at all.
Then, for example, when new equipment rides over 110-mph sections on St Louis-Chicago-Dearborn, ridership will jump, ticket prices will increase somewhat, and revenue will rise against costs. This will bring the
Lincoln services and the
Wolverines much closer to operating surpluses going forward, reducing the state subsidies, but also decreasing Amtrak's 15% share of any losses.
So I'm thinking mostly about corridor routes that will benefit from the extravagant sums invested in them under the Stimulus. The
Wolverines and
Lincoln services are tops, along with the
Cascades. The
Vermonter stands to speed up by another half an hour later this year, but probably next. Amtrak's own
New Haven-Hartford-Springfield Shuttle corridor will also benefit from investments there. The
Carolinian will go 20 or 30 minutes faster on that last stretch into Charlotte. The
Empire services NYC-Albany-Buffalo will gain improved reliability and OTP, maybe even shave minutes from the padded printed schedule. The
Ethan Allen, the
Adirondack, and the
Maple Leaf should also see better timekeeping from the double tracking west of Albany and other upgrades nearby.
These improvements will be nice and even save a few million for Amtrak's bottom line. But for all the screaming over the piddling $7 or $8 Billion Stimulus funds invested mostly in corridor services (outside of California HSR), it only looks good compared to the previous 40 years of underinvestment leading to rot and decline.
