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Amtrak's FY 2008 Key Performance Numbers

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Amtrak's accounting, financial, and operating data can be found on Amtrak's website.  To suggest that they are misleading is wrong.  They are crystal clear to people who know how to read them. The bulk of Amtrak's fixed costs are confined largely to its portion of the NEC, as well as the Keystone Corridor, New Haven to Springfield, and Porter to Kalamazoo lines.  It also has fixed costs associated with its equipment; however, most of it is leased, and it has fixed costs embedded in the stations and other improved property that it owns.  Amtrak could cancel the leases in a heartbeat.  Disposing of the railway and other property would be a bit more challenging, but it could be done.  All costs are ultimately variable, and they can be shed.  Just ask Circuit City. If you think that the numbers presented are distorted, please show us the contrary numbers.   I have not seen any.     The Balance Sheet long ago lost its luster.  The most important accounting statement is the State of Cash Flows.   For Amtrak, as well as most other passenger rail operators, it is not a pretty story.  Amtrak's cash flow statement shows that more than one dollar of subsidy is required for every two dollars of revenue. The cost to fly from LA to New Orleans is just one segment of the Sunset route.  As I stated in my post, it would cost Amtrak, i.e. the taxpayers, considerably less to discontinue the Sunset Limited and fly the wannabe passengers between practically any paired combination of cities on the route.  If you think that I am bashing Amtrak that is your prerogative.  If you do, clearly you have not read all of my posts.  In any case, presenting the whole picture, i.e. what works and what doesn't, is telling it like it is.  And I will continue to do so.
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