Amtrak stats surprising??

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Here are some stats I pulled from NARP site and US Census. Look like Amtrak peaked under Bush I and is at lowest normalized useage now. Amtrak’s recent growth has been slower than overall population. Capacity constrained? Demographics? What?

date 1000 pass-miles pop train feet travelled per person president
1970 4999 205,052,174 128.7 Nixon
1975 3939 215,973,199 96.3 Ford
1980 4582 227,224,681 106.5 Carter
1985 4825 237,923,795 107.1 Reagan
1988 5678 244,498,982 122.6 Reagan
1989 5859 246,819,230 125.3 Bush I
1990 6057 249,464,396 128.2 Bush I
1991 6273 252,153,092 131.4 Bush I
1992 6091 255,029,699 126.1 Clinton
1993 6199 257,782,608 127.0 Clinton
1994 5921 260,327,021 120.1 Clinton
1995 5545 262,803,276 111.4 Clinton
1996 5050 265,228,572 100.5 Clinton
1997 5166 267,783,607 101.9 Clinton
1998 5304 270,248,003 103.6 Clinton
1999 5330 272,690,813 103.2 Clinton
2000 5498 282,177,754 102.9 Bush II
2001 5559 285,093,813 103.0 Bush II
2002 5468 287,973,924 100.3 Bush II
2003 5503 290,809,777 99.9 Bush II

2

Interestings stats. I especially like passenger train FEET per year per person. ATK is irrelevant everywhere byt the NEC.

Mac

3

There were more trains and more routes 30 years ago than today’s skeletal system.

Blame policymakers for tying Amtrak’s hands and only giving this country a Third World passenger rail system.

When you get only crumbs, don’t expect gigantic leaps in patronage. Till then, status quo will continue.

Even with the backwards funding Amtrak has gotten (it’s been cut over the years, in terms of inflation, while federal highway and aviation subsidies have increased) ridership has grown, despite what critics want to believe.

Increased passenger rail demand won’t materialize until

  1. there are more trains to more places (CHI-FLa., Dallas-Denver, etc.)

  2. the current trains have reliable and new equipment.

  3. Most important - the anti-rail bigots in the White House and Congress are
    defeated.

As far as demographics, the Sunbelt, SE, Northwest, West and SW are among the fastest growing regions in population. Yet many of those areas don’t have train service or trains that run only 3 days a week.

Remember, you can’t ride a train that isn’t there.

Many of those areas are also more conservative or libertarian. They don’t want no socialized rail service. They’re happy, however, to have “commy” highways and airports, but not rail

I would argue that government-mandated limiting of travel options - to only flying or the dangerous highways - is more socialistic and communistic, since there’s little choice.

4

Tell that to the 25 million people that rode Amtrak this past year.

Or to California, where rail service is booming. Or to the Texas Eagle, which had its highest ridership last year.

That’s a myth that passenger rail is irrelevant to areas outside of the NE.

Using that same logic, you could say air service is irrelevant to low populated areas, such as the Plains states or the desert states.

5

The Amtrak stats are interesting but provide an incomplete picture of short-haul passenger rail such as ACE (Calif) or the Trinity Express (DFW). Short-haul is where much of the rail passenger growth is occuring.

dd

6

May we check the numbers again? Column 2 is 1000 passenger miles and in 2003 the table then says that there were 5,503 times 1000 or 5,503,000 total passenger miles?

According to that remarkable statistic that means some 24,000,000 passengers boarding Amtrak only traveled an average of a of about 1200 feet on each of their trips.

You might want to do something about figuring in the very signifcant growth of traffic on shorter runs.

7

Say goodbye to Amtrak. Although ridership is strong, he(Bush) and his croanies will dismantle it within weeks, now that he’s been re-elected. Also, say goodbye to all of our jobs too.

8

About Bush, the comments on goodbye to all of our jobs is well stated.

Look at how CEO robber barrons almost get off scot-free. THeir salaries are increasing, I read. THey say that’s due to the worshipped and almighty free market system.
You know, the same system that says it’s okay to ship jobs overseas and pay software engineers, for example, pennies instead of dollars.

If that’s the case, why can’t we outsource those greedy CEOs that raise their salaries even whilst their companies are sinking?

That particular political party had so much contempt and hatered for its stockholders - the American people - that it outsourced its campaign calls to a Third World nation.

So much for caring about the economy.

Bush has to answer for the “outsourcing is good for the economy” lame argument his administration advanced. While that nonsense may look good on paper and make a company’s stock rise, losing your job surely isn’t good for the American people.

Too bad he gets to keep his job.

9

Amtrak ridership IS AT ITS HIGHEST LEVEL E-V-E-R.

Hear that? That means more people - on short distance AND long distance trains - have ridden Amtrak than any other past year.

I don’t know how many times this has to be said.

It’s up. And ridership has also increased while air travel hasn’t increased at the rate Amtrak’s ridership has gone up, according to past NARP information.

Here’s more evidence, from NARP.

http://www.narprail.org/default.asp?p=hot.htm

Amtrak has set yet another ridership record for fiscal 2004. Over 25 million riders were carried on the nation’s passenger rail system from October 2003 through September 2004. Leading the way were the Cardinal (23.1%), the three Michigan Corridor services (Wolverine 12.2%, Blue Water 16.7%, Pere Marquette 19.6%), Heartland Flyer (16.8%), Capitol Limited (17.4%), Texas Eagle (9.5%), and Southwest Chief (6.1%). Overall, corridors were up 4.4% and National Network (long distance) trains were up 3.3%. These numbers, especially National Network, are even more impressive given several long-term and high profile service disruptions this past year, particularly the four hurricanes to strike Florida, the Republican and Democratic conventions, and the two month long service disruption to the Silver Service due to CSX Transportation trackwork

10

I goofed. Its millions, not thousands.

11

Ridership is NOT at a peak if normalized for population. The avg American went less than 19 miles on Amtrak last year, the lowest number since the mid 70s

The highest number of passenger miles EVER WAS IN 1991. HEAR THAT? They may have a record number of passengers, but they also have a record number of trains miles.

The system is not currently more “skelatal” than is was in the early 70s - go dig out your old system maps and timetables and check it out!

My point was that Amtrak ridership is NOT KEEPING UP with population

12

So there’s MORE train routes now than 30 years ago???

How come I rode trains in the late 70s that aren’t running now? Was I on another planet??

You must be looking at the wrong maps, pal.

The system IS a lot more skeletal. It’s tiny out west by comparison.

Look back at that map and tell me how many routes were in existence 30 years ago that aren’t there now.

There’s ONLY ONE Chicago-Texas train now. Then, there were two.

There’s ONLY ONE CHI-SEA train now. Then, two.

Of course, the ones gutted are mostly west of Pittsburgh.

A few that come to mind.

-CHI-FLorida
-CHI-HOU
-CHI-SEA
-CHI-SLC-BOISE-PDX-SEA
-CHI-SLC-LV-LA
-NYC-PGH-COL-IND-STL-KCY

Those are very large populated routes that left big cities like Louisville, Nashville, Columbus, Ohio, Oklahoma City, Las Vegas, Montgomery, Boise, and others such as Missoula, and Dayton, without service.

The loss of individual routes wasn’t the only thing that hurt the system.
Fewer individual routes meant fewer connections.

Here are a few examples of where one CANNOT travel by train to/from:

Up until the mid-90s, you could travel from CHI or DENVER directly to Vegas by train, or DEN to LA or DEN to PDX and SEATTLE directly by train. That’s impossible now.

Kansas City - Texas is no longer possible with direct service.

CHI-Nashville, CHI-Birmingham, CHI- Louisville.
St. Louis - Columbus.

CHI-Minneapolis used to have 2 separate trains. Now, just one.

Until 1979, Montana’s largest cities had rail access.

Tulsa and Oklahoma City had no train service from 1979 to the early 2000s. Tulsa still doesn’t have train service.

Nashville has zippo service.

Fewer trains to fewer places equal fewer travel options = fewer passengers.

–

The loss your one stati

13

Again, a healthy Amtrak is necessary for National Preparedness.

14

I said early 70s. The map sprouted like crazy under Carter. Try 1972, not 1979.

15

Amtrak ridership has not kept up with population growth, not to mention economic growth. Are you not understanding this or just choosing to ignore it? I wasn’t asking if this was true - a facts a fact, you know. But I was asking WHY this was so.

16

This is fallacious. How did the Amtrak map “sprout like crazy?”
There have never been enough rail routes to serve the population (i.e. no Texas-Denver service, or Dallas-New Orleans, or Memphis- west).

The system was even more skeletal after Carter’s reign.

Amtrak was a small system during all of the 70s and got even smaller at the end of the decade with a few trains here and there added (Pioneer, Desert Wind) but soon those were ordered to stop running due to politics, not ridership.

I’ve told you WHY ridership hasn’t kept up with population growth.

No money, no equipment, no routes. How hard is that to understand?

17

Amtrak is not a consideration for National Preparedness. Congress has been trying to kill it since its inception.

18

This is another one of those useless statistics… sort of like if you watch every car during rush hour and you find that there are 1.2 persons in each car…then that means that every sixth car has nobody in it.

To say that AMTRAK is not keeping up with population growth is silly since AMTRAK doesn’t go everywhere. There are many many AMTRAK problems, but where it does compete it does very well… The NEC is a good example.

What’s wrong with the picture is that we have spent billions for highways that we can’t maintain, and that certainly don’t keep up with population growth. Just drive around ATLANTA or the Nation’s capital sometime if you don’t believe this one!

19

I live in Atlanta - tell me about it.

You say the Amtrak competes in the NEC. Agreed! There has been investment there and market share has increased.

The “national” network is another story. The original Amtrak map had LESS routes than there are now - much less than in 1979.

In 1972, there was:

no Adirondak
no Lake Shore Ltd.
no svc west of Buffalo on PC (no Toronto or Detroit train)
no svc between Jax and NO
only one route across Montana
no Desert Wind
no Pioneer
no Hilltopper
no Shenendoah
no Capital Ltd.
no Atlanta - Mobile train
no Pt Huron Train
no Grand Rapids train
no KC Mule

The only two routes on the orig map that went away in 1980 were the Floridian and the Nat’l Limited. And, the Chic - Texas train was on a different route.

So, taking out the NEC (and it’s Empire and Harrisburg “branches”), you get an even WORSE picture of Amtrak ridership vs. population growth.

The Crescent is a good example. It’s roughly the same size train as in 1980 even though the population of Atlanta, Greensboro, Charlotte and other points along the route have doubled in size since then.

Why is this?

20

You aren’t seriously trying to say that Amtrak is a solution to highway congestion, are you? Even NY-Wash DC, Amtrak isn’t worth more than a couple of lanes of highway in each direction.

Don’t get the idea I’m anti-Amtrak or anti-passenger rail. I’m pro-both! But I’ve yet to see a really good economic argument for Amtrak’s long haul routes.

You must not have been old enought to remember the Amtrak’s first decade…