As many of you are aware, there was a local meeting to discuss the upcoming requirement that Indiana’s DOT start paying $3 million a year to run the Hoosier State, a corridor train in two states, as PRIIA set out. Since this schedule is in essence a corridor only fill-in for the other days that the Cardinal does not run, the PRIIA reports provide an interesting look into the relative financial performance of Corridors trains versus Interconnected Corridor/Long Distance trains. Let’s set up the discussion with this helpful comment from the State’s representative to the meeting.
“Still, Troy Woodruff, INDOT Chief of Staff, was willing to be the actual wet blanket during the Amtrak summit. He blistered the federal mandate passed in 2008, calling Amtrak’s business model a loser and repeatedly indicated his unwillingness to touch an annual payment of $80 for every one of the 36,669 passengers who rode the Hoosier State during the most recent fiscal year.(Ed. PRIIA said a $0.75/PSGM Direct loss on Hoosier State, so sounds accurate)
That, he said, wasn’t going to change whether the $3 million was framed as an investment in communities along the 196-mile line or as a straight subsidy.
But he did allow that INDOT would be willing to pay a slice, if local governments and others were willing to chip in, too.”
I did some net surfing. It seems a lot of people want to save the Hoosier State. Unfortunately, INDOT Chief of Staff Troy Woodruff is not among them. It is hard to understand since he is supposed to have an unbiased commitment to all forms of transportation. But I guess it is what it is. Good luck in your grass roots efforts to keep the Hoosier State.
It was pointed out in the new issue of Trains (October) p.25, Amtrak uses the Hoosier State to ferry equipment to and from Beech Grove shops near Indy. It seems INDOT should have some leverage to get ATK to carry some more of the costs.
0 So Amtrak will have to ferry equipment several times a week.? The cost of ferrying that equipment is a cost that should be deducted from the cost to Indianna. Those costs ? Average number of days a year equipment is ferried. A factor of that number as Amtrak’s and other agencies receive equipment and more will have to be ferried. ( mainly locos & pass cars ). Cost of engineer and conductor ( no attendant ) On the other side Indianna needs to market the route and press for quicker trsvel times there by reducing crew costs.
A corridor train between Chicago and Indianapolis, perhaps going as far as Cincinnati, could be viable by running on decently quick schedules and coaches only to reduce crew costs.
Amtrak may try to limit payments to incremental costs, but they would have to pay full costs for equipment ambulance runs, if INDOT did not pick up the train on non-Cardinal days.
D/Cing the Cardinal should be job #1. it has low ridership and a large operating loss per PM. If equipment needs to be ferried, send up to Chicago on ta new improved, daily Hoosier State service, and then on to wherever.
Of course the loss per passenger mile is higher on a shorter run as it currently is But if you had a 2X daily, faster train between CHI-IND (Eventually to CIN) and carefully marketed. you would not need full service, certainly not sleepers. I think you would find the new train would come much closer to covering above rail expenses.
June 2013 YTD numbers for both are terrible. Amtrak says the Hoosier State has tough competition from Megabus [seven buses each way throughout the day, daily, 3 hours, 15 min., $19.00. The Hoosier State by comparison is one train at 5:45 pm, 5 hours, 5 min., $24.00. Not even in the same league.
Hoosier State ($2.9) contribution total (69.0) contribution per PM.
Cardinal ($13.3) contribution total (37.7) contribution per PM.
So unless Amtrak can provide a real, competitive service, why would anyone ride it from CHI-IND except for curiosity or nostalgia?
Maybe it is time to tighten the schedule. Most days that 851 operates it is arriving CHI 30 - 35 minutes earls. Of coourse the Cardinal is anotheer matter.
Few are riding for curiosity or nostalgia, particularly with no food service. I think the consumer model of least time is not correct, it is dis-utility of time upon which consumers make choices. Pure time savings is only valid when comparing routes taken by the same mode, say two routes in your same automobile.
Ok, so running a train a certain distance is needed to bring the costs down, more than 600 miles ideally, so is running a train with a density of greater than 150 passengers a train mile, 200 ideally. My point is that a longer overall route will get you there as an extension of a short corridor and at less cost due to the greater number of origin and destination pairs.
I have used Megabus before, their fares vary from $19 to $37 on this corridor, so not always cheaper. I can see these drawbacks to a large scale implementation: they only cover the larger cities, no stops between Chicago and Indianapolis for example, they have NO waiting areas and schlep off the public stations in Chicago which consumers value in a cold climate, they are running “investment mileage” per their financial reports and using their existing government contract haulage (transit) to cover overhead, so they might not go on forever, particularly once workers ask for more or move on post recession.
Now if Indianapolis to Chicago was 4 hours on Amtrak with the near future improvements, that timing with a standard train seat and total interior area about twice the size of the motorcoach and a station area could deliver pricing power to the train even if it is still slightly slower and might only be running twice a day a direction at most in the near future. This is due to consumers perception of the quality of the same time, a dis-utility of time model accounts for this.
As usual though automobiles are the real competition not buses.
The Megabus fare was for any of the buses running this Wednesday. If we are talking potential customers, both bus and train are going to serve folks mostly downtown to downtown. Folks leaving from many Chicago suburbs can use a suburban commuter line to get from and back to their home, but probably not in Indy, and in any case, they will probably drive if the destination in Indy is outside the central city, whether on business or pleasure. Some businessmen may fly. But few customers want to spend an extra one to two hours traveling by train, extra space notwithstanding. Cutting the time to 3 hours should be the goal to be at all competitive, since it is only 180 miles. Even then that is only an average of 60 mph. Double the average speed, with 6 or more trains each direction and you could leave I 65 to the many trucks. That is modern passenger service!!
I’m not so sure the schedule could be tightened without substantial track work. A couple of years ago, I rode the Cardinal eastbound. My memory of the Chicago/Indy portion is a lot of single track with speeds in the 30-45 mph range. Perhaps someone else has ridden it more recently and has a up to date report on the track conditions?
There may be a lot of people who want to save the Hoosier State but there sure are few that want to ride it. If I’ve massaged the numbers correctly, the average passengers/trip is between 85-90. IMHO the Hoosier State should be Amtrak’s number one candidate for discontinuance followed closely by the
Cardinal. I dare say there are fewer than 20 passengers that board in Indianapolis at 4:57 am for a 6+ hour trip to Chicago on a train that doesn’t even have food service.
In terms of distance and population the Chicago - Indianapolis route has the potential for being a viable corridor route. At least 2 to 2-1/2 hours would have to be cut from the Hoosier State’s current schedule to make this even marginally possible and might lead IDOT to rethink subsidizing it. Given the conditions on the rail routes between the two cities, such a reduction in run time is not just unlikely but is impossible.
The ridership of both trains is pathetic. But not surprising. Examining the Hoosier State, which could be a heavily used corridor, who in their right mind would ride a train that averaged 35 mph over a 5 hr, 5 minute ride from CHI, leaving at 5:45pm, getting to IND at 11:50pm? Or leave Indy at 6:00am to get here at 10:05, and pay $24.00 for the privilege? As you say, about 95 each way, including intermediate stops. Those stops include two college towns, Purdue, with many students from the Chicago area and little Wabash College. It could be a real market if the trains could move at a competitive speed, as they did 60 years ago. But generally, outside the NEC, passenger train speeds are substantially slower today. Real progress!!
I believe the posters calling for quite significant reductions in total run time are still thinking along the total time automobile planning theory. This theory is valid only for planning between two automobile routes as the use/quality of a driver’s time does not change if they take a different route, they still sit behind the same wheel in the same non-productive use of time conditions.
SO there is a good enough run time. It is probably begins at about a 50 mph average for most applications, just under 4 hours for the Indianapolis to Chicago segment. This is also a speed that is compatible with infrastructure upgrades that benefit passenger and general freight use of the line equally.
At this speed a 6:30 AM morning departure would put you in Chicago with time for work. The perception of time is what matters, if you could for example transport your living room at 50 mph your perception of time would be practically zero. If you could transport your desk at work a similar effect takes hold, if you can keep 70% of the functionality of your desk then time is transfered to decision making at a cost of the loss, 30%, roughly.
So for a lot less total cost than dedicated HSR, that is operations + infrastructure costs, you can get marked gains with just a bit of infrastructure investment. Don’t get me wrong I would love to see double track HSR, but we need to see what can be done with modest improvements, and semantics is not an improvement.
The problem is even these small amounts are being argued over as not a suitable investment due to the current operational loss. Eliminating the train won’t help that, as it will probably be lost forever.
Besides the endpoint business (passengers going all the way from Indy to Chicago and vice versa) what are the passenger counts at the intermediate stations? From Rensslear, Chicago is about 3 hours travel time by train. At approximately 75 miles, that might be close enough to tip the scales in favor for a lot of people that don’t want to deal with Chicago area traffic as well as all the usual inconveniences of a car in the city.
The Hoosier State/Cardinal currently leaves Rennselaer at 7:38, arrives CHI at 10:05, running time 2:27. The total boardings and alightings at Rennselaer in 2012 was 2,342, which is 7 people per day. If 3/4 ride between CHI and REN, that is 2-3 people each way. By highway, even in rush hour, you can cover the 83 miles in 1:22… Apparently very few people want to spend an extra hour each direction to loaf along at 34 mph, even if it feels like being in their living room.
Passengers to/from Crawfordsville and Lafayette are almost equal to Indy, around 32-33,000 annually.