Yes. I believe it’s almost 10 to 1.
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One of the timeless topics here for a while was the contribution of the ‘high speed’ Acela premium fares when there really wasn’t much of an impressive speed premium over previous Amfleet-Metroliner and “Amtrak Regional” trains. I’ve thought for many years that many of the corridor services could, and should, benefit from special-class cars or trains to take advantage of the ‘snob factor’ – that might include the re-introduction of group-subsidized ‘bar’ or ‘parlor car’ service where “government-sponsored amenities” might be seen as subsidization of the wealthy.
I don’t know if ‘revenue’ for the LD trains is decremented by the amount of ‘rental’ to the host railroads involved – Amtrak may be totting up the maintenance expenses of the NEC separately from operations revenue (since they own much of the Corridor) but considers the ‘below the rail’ share of cost to be an expense otherwise. (PJS1 would probably know or be able to determine…)
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Revenue is not decremented for host railroads costs. It accounted for as an expense.
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In FY24 the average operating revenue per passenger mile on the NEC was $.56. The average for the State Supported Trains was $.47; the average for the Long-Distance Trains was $.29.
The average Adjusted Operating Earning per passenger mile for the NEC was approximately $.11. The average loss per passenger mile for the State Supported Trains was approximately $.14; for the Long-Distance Trains it was approximately $.29.
The rents paid to other railroads to host Amtrak’s trains are included in operating expense. By the same token, the rents paid to Amtrak by other railroads to use its tracks are included in Other Ancillary Revenue, I believe.
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But I’d still like to know the actual amount of cost to maintain the infrastructure of the Corridor that is attributed to each passenger mile for the Corridor trains. Presumably the equivalent costs and allowance for ‘wear and tear’ are components of the rantal Amtrak is charged, and for a fair comparison should be included as ‘operating expense’
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Remember we are dealing with a quasigovernmental entity. Things will be reported in a non-comparable manner. That is the governmental form of transparency.
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About the best you can do is take ticket revenues less operating expenses less capital expenditures. Amtrak only splits NEC and then everything else.
Prior to COVID the NEC barely lost cash even after capex. Since COVID, NEC tix revs are down and it’s losing more cash (especially as capex is up) but still about a half billion less cash loss than the rest of the network. . Note I’m only including ticket revenue less op expenses less capital expenses. I’m excluding state support revenues.
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One thing about the NEC that is important to note. Whenever the topic of Amtrak is brought up, The NEC is what most outlets picture as representative of Amtrak. Long distance and most state supported services are seen as irrelevant. This seems to be the result of most of the mainstream media being located primarily in New York and Washington DC being the seat of government. It also does not help when LD trains serve many population centers once a day in the wee hours of the morning and run often hours late. This is the definition of irrelevance.
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Welcome on board 1254.
David
Welcome to the forum, 1254!
Amtrak reports Adjusted Operating Earnings (AOE), i.e. Operating Revenue – Operating Expense, for each segment of it routes, i.e., NEC, State Supported, and Long-Distance. Also, it shows the results of each route within the segment, i.e. Acela, Northeast Regional and NEC Special Trains and Adjustments for the NEC. The same transparency is shown for each State Supported and Long-Distance route.
“Adjusted Operating Earnings is defined as GAAP Net Loss excluding: (1) certain non-cash items (depreciation, income tax expense, non-cash portion of pension and other postretirement employment benefits, and state capital payment amortization); and (2) GAAP income statement items reported with capital or debt results or other grants (project related revenue/costs reported with capital results, expense related to Inspector General’s office, and interest expense, net).”
In FY20 the NEC has an AOE of ($7.3 million). In FY21 it was ($331.4 million). By FY24 it was $267.8 million. This is the key operating metric. Operating revenue is only part of the equation. The other part is operating expense.
Capital expenditures are cash items. They do not show up in fully allocated results until they are converted into depreciable assets, i.e., property, plant, and equipment and amortized over the expected life of the assets as depreciation expense. As noted above, Amtrak’s AOE does not show depreciation expense for each route. For public reporting purposes, it is not required to do so. However, for cost accounting, which is used to price each segment, the models would include the amortization of capitalized expenditures, which would include depreciation, goodwill, etc.
The only way to know what is included in the costs the host railroads bill Amtrak would be through access to their books. And the only people that would have access to the books outside of management(s) would be auditors for Amtrak, the carriers, and the regulators.
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I don’t care what the cost basis for the host railroads is; presumably it is included in a fair ‘rental’ agreement.
What I’m concerned with is whether Amtrak assesses some equivalent cost of maintaining the NEC as a ‘cost’ of providing NEC service, as it assesses the track rental from host railroads.
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Amtrak does not include any depreciation of capitalized plant and equipment in its train by train operating expenses. The best you can do is segregate the NEC and everything else as I noted above because they do show cap ex split between the two. I’ll provide a link when I can. Currently in transit.
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I can’t get the quote function to work on my phone. Speaking of Irrelevance…
Irrelevance is in the eye of the beholder. The lone station stop may be irrelevant to someone on the NEC, but the NEC is irrelevant to those not living there, too.
There’s the rub. Amtrak being a political animal, needs support from those that only see one train a day each way and from those that have multiple trains every day. Kill off one part and the political will to keep the other parts evaporates. It’s hard enough getting support from those that have access to trains but would never consider using the trains.
If Amtrak is to become a glorified commuter system of the NEC and state supported systems, I can’t see support for it at the Federal level going forward. When it ceases to be a national system it will be hard to justify national support.
Jeff
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Out here in flyover country, we have one Amtrak route (a LD train) that comes through in the middle of the night. There are very few passengers who get on or off at any of the five stations in the 450 miles of the state.
There is not a lot of support here for Amtrak, although there is not a lot of complaining about it, either. We choose to live out here.
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A couple guys in first class on a flight
From New York to Los Angeles
Kinda making small talk killing time
Flirting with the flight attendants
Thirty thousand feet above, could be Oklahoma
Just a bunch of square cornfields and wheat farms
Man it all looks the same
Miles and miles of back roads and highways
Connecting little towns with funny names
Who’d want to live down there in the middle of nowhere
Flyover States - Jason Aldean
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Thanks in advance!
Hi. Here’s a link to Amtrak’s last full year report that splits NEC and rest of network. It’s dated Sept 2024 which is their fiscal year end.
Take a look at slides 6 and 7. Unfortunately slide 6 looks like it includes state support in the top revenue line. So I would replace that with ticket revenue from slide 7.
I’m in transit all day today but tomorrow I’ll put together an excel of ticket revenues less op expense less cap expense and see how NEC performs versus rest of network.
I’ll also compare to 2019 to see what impact Covid did.
I spitballed the numbers in my head in my earlier post so the excel will correct any mental math errors I might have made.
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[quote=“jeffhergert1, post:33, topic:328901”]
If Amtrak is to become a glorified commuter system of the NEC and state supported systems, I can’t see support for it at the Federal level going forward. When it ceases to be a national system it will be hard to justify national support.[/quote]
I think the ‘answer’ to that is inherent in the Congressional mandate from the late 2010s: every part of the ‘system’ is mandated to be run so that some measure of its operations cost is covered by received revenues. Presumably any part of the operation that cannot be so justified would require additional Congressional funds allocation, with all the ‘fun’ and politics involved in the process, to get a ‘waiver’ from the mandate for some services (including the lion’s share of those LD trains) – absent which service would be curtailed, or more probably increasingly bustituted, to continue “transportation” between the various points on the politically-desired national scale. (In previous decades, you might have seen railbuses or various kinds of SPVs used to give RDC-style service, but I doubt that’s properly cost-effective, it might not be safe to run, and absent a great deal of amenities not related to “transportation” it’ll be a replay of Lightweight Trains of the Fifties…
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Amtrak uses cost data from its Amtrak Performance Tracking System (APT) to gather and, if appropriate, allocate revenue and cost data associated with its three-service lines, i.e., NEC, State Supported Trains, and Long-Distance Trains.
Presumably it uses the cost data from APT to set the rents it charges other carriers using its facilities, i.e. commuter railroads and freight carriers. It would also use the cost data of its facilities to allocate their costs used by more than one of its service lines, i.e., long-distance trains running on the NEC. However, without access to its books (cost models), I do not know how an outsider would get the detailed information.
I do not fully understand your question. In any case, the answer is in Amtrak’s books, which would only be available to authorized auditors and/or members of the management(s) team.
Amtrak’s White Paper “How Does Amtrak Calculate Route Financial Performance”, which I believe I found on Amtrak.com, contains general information regarding how the company accounts for revenues and costs for its service lines.
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For my two cents worth -
On LD routes Amtrak should be operating 2 trains per day spaced 12 hours apart. Making miles and miles of the route only accessible on the wrong side of the clock is not providing any SERVICE to those communities.
Like is or not - Amtrak is a governmental SERVICE. Of course now we are at a point in time where some feature government should not provide and services to the electorate.
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