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Amtrak stats Mar 2010 and 1st half FY 2010

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Expenditure to budget comparisons should be taken with a grain of salt.  Having spent a career developing and managing budgets, I know that gaming the budget is an important career enhancement tool.  A more meaningful comparison is a year to year or longer comparison of verifiable expenditures. Up ticks in Amtrak's performance is good news, but it is equally important to note the down ticks, i.e. Amtrak's is on track to lose more money per passenger mile this year than last year.  The system operating loss was 14.4 cents per passenger mile for the first half of FY10 compared to 14.0 cents for the first half of FY09.  The long distance trains lost 25 cents per passenger mile in FY10 compared to 24 cents in FY09.  For the first six months of FY10 Amtrak lost $678.5 million compared to $607 million for the same period in FY09. I just returned from a trip on the Southwest Limited from Albuquerque to Los Angeles, the San Joaquin from Lost Angeles to San Francisco, and the California Zephyr from San Francisco to Denver.  The Limited and Zephyr had the same number of sleepers (3) and coaches (3) that they had in February when I made a similar trip.  Moreover, the Texas Eagle and Sunset Limited, which I have ridden twice this year, are carrying the same number of sleepers as before hand.  I have not seen any additional sleepers on the trains that I have used or observed.
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