Amtraks goal is to cover its above the rail costs from revenue by 2028, in an effort to be “profitable”. It will subdivide its costs between operations, and infrastructure/construction costs.
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The subdivision seems sensible. Thanks for posting.
Will Pigs & Cows be flying in 2028?
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I agree. They should be at least covering their variable costs. Otherwise they’re just destroying value. I hope they can achieve it.
So will Amtrak’s trains, it would seem, because that’s the only way that they can be profitable. I doubt that Amtrak will ever make a profit the way they are now and have been.
Alright, I shouldn’t have gotten involved. Please, everyone, don’t argue about politics.
This isn’t really a partisan political issue. The ‘difficulty’ is that there was a Congressional mandate in place for Amtrak to be profitable on operations, and I don’t think this was materially changed or cancelled during the term of the Biden administration. There was a certain amount of leeway granted due to the pandemic and its aftermath.
A couple of self-appointed ‘watchdogs’ in Congress have been making changes to Amtrak’s services, including dining-car alternatives. Something almost surely HAS to be done about crews and commissary supply for trains that have full diners; part of the answer might be ghost kitchens or pre-reserved delivery at stops, but more effective service and amenities are going to have to remain as long as ‘sleeper’ service as a profit center commanding a high price continues.
Amtrak was DESIGNED at the start to be a money losing quagmire. It is only through the persistence of Amtrak management and employees over the years that Amtrak even exists today. The PLAN was for Amtrak to die when its initial authorization expired.
Didn’t Nixon write or say he thought Amtrak would be dead and buried after 6 months or so? If so, these last 54 years have got to be the longest 6 months in history! 
I can see what you mean by saying that it isn’t a partisan issue, but I would not be surprised if the discussion takes that turn…
Once again, I don’t think that it can be profitable this way.
The intent was for it to be profitable. It was legally incorporated as such. Whether it was later designed to be unprofitable while true (the routes selected were designed to cover as many legislative districts as possible) the initial intent was to be profitable. Of course Congress got involved in the day-to-day ops and this is what we got ever since.
Many people have opined that the Nixon Administration created Amtrak for political purposes but believed it would not last beyond the next Administration. There is no evidence that Nixon said he expected Amtrak to be dead in six months.
I have never seen any direct evidence, i.e. print, recordings, flies on the wall, etc. in which one of the architects of Amtrak said for the record that was a short term solution designed to fail.
Amtrak is a financial failure. As of the end of FY24 it had an accumulated deficit of $45.6 billion. When adjusted for inflation, it probably is close to $88 to $90 billion.
Nixon was a railfan. As president he road the Metroliner as well as SF BART. The stories were published in Trains magazine at the time.
He signed the bill into law. It had a two year “expiration” if it wasn’t profitable. Congress renewed it after two years despite losses from the start.
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Profitable by above the rail costs (ie. avoidable) or by fully allocated? It will never be profitable by fully allocated. But I think it should be by avoidable costs. The fares should at least cover crew labor and fuel. I think that should be the metric for all transit by the way. Too many lines and trains are hardly carrying any riders. Those cars and locos and crews could be deployed to other services where they have riders. Instead the busy lines stand while empty trains go to no riders.
Amtrak was created to relieve Penn Central of it’s passenger train obligations and losses. it was thought that for Penn Central to be able to reorganize, its passenger obligations would need to removed. To be able to do it for PC, it had to be offered to all other railroads still operating passenger trains.
Its widely accepted that Amtrak would preside over the demise of long distance intercity service. Some may not have had that view. Certainly many wanted it to succeed. Enough to the point that politicians couldn’t let it kill off the trains.
Not that they were going to fund it so that it possibly could become profitable, or at least a break even operation, in the future.
The true intent of every one involved with Amtrak’s creation may never be known. Those planning or thinking it would be gone in a few years probably wouldn’t have admited it at the time for political reasons.
Jeff
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The true intent is available for everyone to see. Just google - the rail passenger service act of 1970 - there is tons of Congressional testimony to see.
They thought it would be profitable. Really! Yes the trigger was the failure of PC. Everyone talked about it but did nothing until PC went BK and there was a real fear in Congress that the entire northeast US would lose all passenger service.
But they thought that nationalizing the pax service would somehow make the service go from money losing to money making. Naive in retrospect.
But the act was only good for 2 years. It would expire unless Congress renewed it. Although Amtrak lost money right away, Congress renewed the Act because there was no way the railroads would take the pax trains back and people got to like Amtrak. So Congress acquiesced and funded it going forward since.
Nixon by then was deep into Watergate and didn’t have the time or energy to care. If I recall he did not sign the renewal, so it became law de facto.
I discovered all this when I researched the pre-Amtrak PC metroliner profitability thread I started a few months back.
And by the way the original shareholders of Amtrak were the railroads themselves. Not the US government. That came later as Congress poured money into Amtrak. Today a vast majority of Amtrak stock is owned by the government. A very small portion is still owned by some railroads.
There were two classes of stock at the beginning. The type of shares the government controlled were the ones with authority; the ones the railroads owned were (as I recall) more to recompense the cost of the “donated” passenger locomotives and equipment than to have a TrailerTrain or REA-style share of ownership.
Profitable as in actually makes more money than it spends. Which seems unlikely with Amtrak.
While Nixon himself did not really say it, some railroad CEOs were on the record in indicating that Amtrak was there to wind down the remaining trains with the NEC being the only thing left. I firmly believe that the thing that saved Amtrak was the 1973 Arab oil embargo and the quadrupling of oil prices. The oil shock of 1979 following the Iranian revolution further underscored support for Amtrak.
TheRail Passenger Service Act of 1970 signed by Nixon mandated that Amtrak operate a “basic system” of routes for at least four years, specifically until May 1, 1975, at which point the company could start discontinuing unprofitable routes.
Good to see some facts.
“Designed to fail” is a popular myth but without any primary sources as evidence.