There’s an interesting 3-part L.A. Times interview with Amtrak president Joseph Boardman on today’s BLET Web site (www.ble.org).
The best part of it to me is Boardman’s unequivocal support for Amtrak’s long-distance trains. “They run full,” he says of the likes of the Southwest Chief and the Builder, are needed by rural America and are safe “on my watch.”
Amtrak’s long distance trains had an average load factor of approximately 56% through the first nine months of FY10. This compares to 54% for the comparable FY09 period. This does not meet my definition of “full”.
For the first nine month of FY10 the long distance trains generated approximately 22 % of Amtrak’s revenues, but they accounted for 73% of the carrier’s operating costs before interest and depreciation. They carried approximately 15% of Amtrak’s riders. They lost approximately 25 cents per passenger mile compared to a loss of 14 cents per passenger mile for the short distance and corridor trains vs. nearly 1 cent per passenger mile profit for the NEC trains. In FY09 the long distance trains carried approximately 4/10s of one per cent of the intercity passengers traveling on a commercial carrier (airlines, buses, etc.).
Most rural areas of the United States are not dependent on long distance trains for commercial carrier services. One look at Amtrak’s long distance train map makes this fact crystal clear. Moreover, for those areas that have reasonable access to the long distance trains, once a day train services, with many communities served in the middle of the night, is not a serious transport option.
If Amtrak were operated like a business, the first thing that the managers would do, after reviewing the dismal numbers associated with the long distance trains, is drop them and use the resources to beef up the high density
But this doesn’t happen which leads to the conclusion that it’s not run like a business. It’s run like a ________.
My answer is “political animal”. What’s yours?
The original three-part article in the LA Times:
http://travel.latimes.com/daily-deal-blog/index.php/interview-amtrak-pre-7108/
http://travel.latimes.com/daily-deal-blog/index.php/interview-amtrak-pre-7151/
http://travel.latimes.com/daily-deal-blog/index.php/interview-amtrak-pre-7153/
Agreed!
The articles are interesting, but like so many of them they tell only part of the story. Several examples struck me.
Boardman noted that the long distance trains are running full and on time. Ridership is up. And he acknowledged that the long distance trains eat up about 80 per cent of the federal subsidy. This is true for the operating subsidy, but it is not historically true for the capital subsidy. Most of the capital subsidy has gone to the NEC. Moreover, he failed to note that the long distance trains, whilst eating up most of Amtrak’s federal subsidy, serve a miniscule portion of travelers choosing an intercity commercial option.
The claim that Amtrak carries more than 50% of the air/rail passengers between New York and Washington is true. However, one needs to drill into the numbers to get a clearer picture of them. I have ridden the Acela or a regional train between New York and Philadelphia or Baltimore or Washington three times during the past 15 months. Based on my unscientific ob
I continue in my agreement with sam1 about LD trains: from most dollars and sense perspectives, their continuation makes little sense. The only justification I can see is a political one we’ve seen since the beginnings of Amtrak: providing a minimal service to various areas of the country so that corridor construction and operation can get votes in Congress.
Continuation of long distance trains would make more sense if the equipment were available to cover routes more than once a day (or three times weekly as in the cases of the Cardinal and Sunset Limited). The fixed costs of operation could spread among more trains and the taking the train would be a more viable option to more people if there was a train every 12, 8, or 6 hours versus once daily service.
I just saw that Amtrak’s Board of Directors has renewed Boardman’s contract until or through 2013. I think he has done a decent job so far and look forward to his continued tenure.
When we spend on Airlines 15 Billion and Highways 41 Billion a year, and give poor Amtrak only 1.3 to 1.5 Billion a year, there is something wrong with picture? We need fair and balance system? When OverSea Countrys can spend 10 to 30 Billion a year on they train system.[2c]
Some contributors to these posts do not believe the government should be involved in railroading. Yet Adam Smith, often credited as the founder of free market capitalism (he never used that term), felt it was the role of the government to provide goods “of such a nature that the profit could never repay the expense to any individual” such as roads, bridges, canals, and harbors. Since Smith was writing before railroads, it seems a reasonable extension to include railroads in that mix. Although he was a free trader, he did believe retaliatory tariffs should be used to bring down tariffs and barriers in other countries.
Well, if Amtrak were producing 2% of intercity trips in the US, your case would be better. But they only produce 0.1% of all intercity trips. So, a subsidy proportional to trips produced would be something like $58 million, not $1 billion. To be fair and balanced, the subsidy would have to be whacked pretty hard.
I’d rather see Amtrak do a much better job with what they have and then build on that as a way forward. I’m not sure how 50+ new baggage cars help the situation much, though.
Just throwing more money at Amtrak doesn’t appear to be in the works at all. Very little of the stimulus and $8B for new starts and upgrades was funneled through Amtrak.
I found a table on the breakdown of U.S. passenger miles by year and by mode at
http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_37.html
An interesting table on the breakdown of highway vs local streets is at
I would reason that apart from any “shortfall funded by General Revenue”, the entire 15 billion of the Federal air travel budget is funded by “user fees” – the tax on aviation gas and Jet A, and the ticket tax. That funds the air traffic control system whereas airports are another story, which have a strong degree of local funding, although it has been argued that there is a high degree of recovery on that through various fees and charges. I suppose there is an indirect subsidy to air travel through the R&D on military aircraft, engines, and instruments and other electronic systems, and we can argue that one until the cows come home.
A case can be made, however, that there is a large amount of cross-subsidy into Federal highways and of course Interstates owing to the gas tax being charged the minute you turn the key to start up in your driveway. There is also cross-subsidy of gas tax money into local transit of various forms.
The second table suggests that only about half of driving miles takes place on highways of various kinds, maybe only 20 percent of all driving miles on Interstates. But then again, Interstates have a heavy freight component, as anyone driving amongst the trucks, or the poor truck drivers doing a job and having to navigat
I agree. Other than the NEC, (and even that isn’t all that glowing) there aren’t many bright spots in Amtrak’s 40 year history. And even now, following the same old out-of-date pathways will not advance passenger rail as a viable option. One major problem is mission/location discrepancies. Amtrak is supposed to be a national network, yet only some parts of the US are suited to modern passenger rail. The result is a continuation of funneling resources into LD rail and artifacts of the golden era like baggage cars.
Did the $72 fare for the round trip cited above by about four posts include the cost of the subsidies? That much is a cost to each fare sold and should be added, even if only a buck or two.
The cost of the trip via car was about $71 for “all allocated costs”. Does that price include the recapitalization of the Corolla which at some point will have to be replaced? I ask these questions just hoping for more clarity for the sake of my appreciation of the various points expressed.
-Crandell
If we Stop all the Waste money like Aid to these Over Seas Countrys 100 Billion plus a year, and this War 800 Billion Dollars a year and other programs, waste alot of money. We would have a World Class Amtrak system if stop waste all of this money?[2c]
Amtrak does need baggage cars so I am not sure I follow that argument. The ones it has are just too old to be safe. As for Long Distance vs Short Distance. Age old argument BUT your not going to get a quasi-governmental agency to run like a private business. Same deal with the Post Office.
How so? The safest RR in the US runs a locomotives and business car fleet that are older than Amtrak’s baggage cars.
Perhaps, but are any of the business cars in service at least 90% of the time? Or do they spend most of their time in storage?
Every mile traveled is just as important at the last or next. The safety standards apply uniformly to all equipment regardless of utilization. The “old = unsafe” axiom is the result of the US’s automobile culture. It is most certainly not true for railway equipment.
The freight car age limit is primarily a commercial limit imposed by the industry on itself. It is not a government safety regulation. There is nothing intrinsic in age of Amtrak’s baggage cars that I know of that would make them less safe than new. Nor of the similar-aged 10-6 sleepers zipping back and forth across Canada each day.
How does Amtrak compute its “load factor”?
Suppose I run a coach train on the route of the California Zephyr and Denver is the half way point. My train runs from Chicago to Denver with every seat filled, but at Denver everybody gets off and it completes the run empty.
Was the load factor 50% or 100%? If it is 50%, then what is a reasonable expectation for load factors?