Amtrak 2013 Operating Results

Trains Magazine Passenger
1

In FY13 Amtrak had an operating loss of $435 million. The NEC had an operating profit of $372.9 million, which was offset by an operating loss of $180.8 million for the State Supported and Other Short Distance trains and $627.1 million for the Long Distance trains.

Stated as contributions per passenger mile, the NEC had an average operating profit of 20 cents, which was offset by a loss of 9 cents for the State Supported and Other Short Distance trains and 22 cents for the Long Distance trains. These results are before depreciation, interest, and state capital payments. Also, the numbers have been rounded.

If the NEC were to wear 80 per cent of Amtrak’s annual depreciation and interest expenses, with the remaining 20 per cent allocated evenly between the State Supported and Other Short distance trains and the Long Distance trains, the results, adjusted for the state capital payments, would show an average loss of 11 cents per passenger mile for the NEC, 11 cents for the State Supported and Other Short Distance trains, and 24 cents for the Long Distance trains. If the numbers were changed to 90, 5, and 5, the results would be 15, 9 and 23.

When I ran this analysis several years ago, using the same guesstimate regarding depreciation and interest expenses, the average loss per passenger mile for the NEC was nearly equal to the average loss for the Long Distance trains. The change can be attributed largely to the dramatic improvement in the NEC operating results.

I don’t know how the depreciation and interest expenses would be allocated, i.e. whether 80 per is attributable to the NEC, for example, but hopefully Amtrak will respond to my FOIA request to disclose the information.

2

If one considers that the reason the NEC has so much depreciation is that they own it, while LD pays rent far lower than what they should, it makes the LD loss ppm seem even more pathetic. It’s really time Amtrak to have the LD service run as a totally separate subsidized endeavor for the elderly and handicapped if Congress wants to pay for that. Otherwise phase it out and focus on short routes where trains make sense.

3

Under GAAP costs, as reflected on the books and through depreciation, are stated in historical dollars, as opposed to replacement costs, whilst revenues are in current dollars. If the profit and loss statements were recast to reflect replacement dollars, which Amtrak acknowledges in the notes to its financial statements, the results for the long distance trains would be even more dismal.

The results would be more dismal for all of the product lines, but the greatest impact probably would be on the long distance trains, because they are running some of Amtrak’s oldest equipment.

Accountants attempted to develop a methodology for constant dollar and replacement dollar accounting in the 1970s and 1980s, but gave it up for a variety of reasons. If capital intensive industries, i.e. heavy manufacturing, electric and gas utilities, railroads, etc., had to recast their income statements using replacement costs, many of them would have gone from showing a profit to showing a loss.

4

I expect if that happened some of the LD trains would be replaced by short distance state supported traiins as some states are riding the Federal subsidy on the LD train. I don’t think that transformation would be an entirely bad thing but your going to end up with big gaping holes in the Amtrak network and the issue of ferrying equipment between islands of Amtrak usage.

Seriously they should dump the Sunset Limited and Cardinal both and free up that equipment for use elsewhere… Those two trains have to be amongst the biggest LD losers.

Trains I would dump:

Sunset Limited, Cardinal, Lake Shore Limited, Texas Eagle, Southwest Chief

Trains I would keep:

California Zephyr, Capitol Limited, City of New Orleans, Southern Crescent, Auto-Train, NY to Florida Trains, Coast Starlight.

Trains I would modify:

Rename the Southwest Chief the Texas Chief. Keep the route Chicago to Kansas City, MO head via Oklahoma City to Ft. Worth, then onto San Antonio and terminate in Laredo. Nobody wants to go to LA anyway and Texas is by far a better destination. Drop Dallas as a stop.[:D]

Make the Chicago to Indianapolis service daily with a possible extension to Louisville, Ky if CSX can fix the tracks Indianapolis to Louisville up to 50 mph for freight as they plan to do.

Halt the Empire Builder just West of St. Paul and turn there…

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In FY13 the Sunset Limited lost 47.8 cents per passenger mile, whilst the Cardinal lost 39.0 cents per passenger mile. The average loss per passenger mile for the long distance trains was 21.6 cents.

The Texas Eagle lost 16.8 cents per passenger mile, which was well below the average loss for the long distance trains. It had the second lowest average loss per passenger mile of any of the long distance trains.The Auto Train was the best performing long distance train, at least from a financial point of view. It lost 14 cents per passenger mile. The loss per passenger mile figures are before depreciation and interest.

6

SAM1: Lost your statement about bridges but have a thought. There are 10 movable bridges on the NEC according to the PRIIA of 2010. One not listed that is now subject to long term planning for replacement is Newark’s dock bridge… Each one will have one of several failures short, medium, long term. each failure will have a certain probably of failure. Unfortunately probably of a failure on the NEC adds up from all the probabilities and not the highest bridge failure number.

So a failure of any bridge will shut down part of the NEC. Note the WALK bridge failures at Norwalk are adding up to a very high percentage. It failed 16 times out of 261 openings in 2013.

The new lift bridge and new bascule bridge now operating will have a very low failure possibility.

Bridge pivots are the most failure prone and swing bridge pivots are the worse. However a bridge can fail due to power failure, boat strikes, freight train strikes as well. All which need to be added in.

s are probably the

7

I realize that some people on here disqualify the argument that, because a lot of money is wasted on other things, including subsidies to other forms of transportation, it’s also OK to blow money on Amtrak.

Favoring Amtrak, I disagree with that disqualification, which is neither here nor there. But I did get curious a few weeks ago and tried to investigate the efficiency of the money we blow on so-called Essential Air Service, which is spent on schedules to two cities in my North Dakota, among other places: Devils Lake (pop. 8,000) and Jamestown (pop. 16,000).

The boardings in those cities is ludicrous, in single digits per city per day, EAS amounting to a subsidy to business travelers who could well afford other arrangements. Those figures are from simple division applied to newspaper accounts of annual boardings. Per-city figures from the federal Department of Transportation are harder to find.

Ditto with passengers hauled nationally. The best I could do, before I ran out of beer, was 959,867 “enplanements” in all of 2010, with a figure of $235 million for the Washington subsidy in 2013.

Break this down for Washington dollars per passenger and it puts Amtrak’s c. $500 million for 31 million passengers in the shade. None of which will carry the day with Sam1 or Schlimm – nor maybe should it.

But as long as we’re spilling money – which Washington does best, and on much less-worthy causes than Amtrak – it’s a useful exercise.

8

If this were an airline forum, then I would refer to EAS as “Non-essential air service.” And by your bringing up the comparison, you now agree that most LD services are a waste.

9

Au contraire. I’m arguing that, as a taxpayer cost, Amtrak is a comparative bargain. And that’s before we consider the inherent virtue of passenger rail, which has a spiritual component related to the history and building of the country that is beyond price.

10

Dakota how about comparing revenue passenger miles with costs ?

11

Be my guest.

12

Bring back the Wells Fargo stagecoaches!

13

They never left, we refer to them by their more modern name: buses.

14

Trans Atlantic Ocean Liner service might be a better comparison…

15

You can see my comment on the Builder delays thread. I think a stage coach or ocean liner could not help the specific wounded war veteran in Alberquerque visit his relatives in Dallas every year. Or attract foreign tourists to see America at ground level.

16

It could help an elderly vet get back to Normandy for a D-day commemoration. Or, attact tourists who can’t or won’t fly.,etc. etc.

You can actually make a better case, I think, for the social necessity of ocean liners than Amtrak LD trains since there are zero alternatives to flying (unless you count the once-a-month scheduled cruise ship service)

17

I have to say that IMO, Amtrak should pare it’s East -West network down to one train to the West Coast. Three are overkill. Likewise two of the LD trains to the East Coast should be cut back. Use the spare equipment for new trains or more frequencies on existing shorter distance routes. North South I think the Texas Eagle route runs pretty close to that of the City of New Orleans and I would shift that west to Kansas City, then Oklahoma City - Ft. Worth then Dallas.

I understand the elderly using the Long Distance trains intermediate point to intermediate point but I would like to see the stats on the elderly riding a LD train for three days and two overnights. I think most of the elderly in this country could not do that type of marathon ride with their medical conditions.

18

My experience from the days when I did ride, was Yes They Do. If they can afford it, they will go for a family room or the handicapped room in Superliner sleepers, but I have seen some, even with physical impairment, in coaches.

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In FY13 the average cost per passenger mile before OPEBs, depreciation, and interest was 40 cents for the NEC, 42 cents for the State Supported and Other Short Distance Trains (SSOSD), and 40 cents for the Long Distance Trains (LD). The average cost of the OPEBs per passenger mile was one cent for all three service lines. All numbers have been rounded for clarity.

The average total revenue per passenger mile was 61 cents for the NEC, 34 cents for the SSOSD, and 20 cents for the LD.

The average cost per passenger, including OPEBS, before depreciation and interest was $66.70 for the NEC, $56.51 for the SSOSD, and $251.54 for the LD. The average cost of the OPEBs per passenger was $1.68 for the NEC, $1.46 for the SSOSD, and $7.00 for the LD.

The average total revenue per passenger was $99.43 for the NEC, $44.78 for the SSOSD, and $119.63 for the LD.

The average core contribution per passenger before depreciation, interest, etc. was $32.72 for the NEC, offset by losses of $11.73 for the SSOSD and $131.91 for the LD.

Assuming 80 per cent of the depreciation and interest is worn by the NEC, with the remainder being allocated equally over the other two service lines, which as noted above is a guesstimate, the average loss per passenger for the NEC was $18.10 compared to $14.01 for the SSOSD (after adjustment for State Capital Payments) and $147.14 for the LD.

Clearly, the problem for the long distance trains is revenue. They cannot generate enough revenue to cover their costs, and this is not likely to change.

The numbers are averages. Distribution of revenues and costs by route segments would likely produce significantly different results from one segment to another. Unfortunately, Amtrak does not make this information available, or if they do I have not been able to find it.