http://overheadbin.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/09/09/7688398-amtrak-rolls-toward-record-ridership
Front page of msnbc.com today - hopefully someone in Congress will get the message.
So where did msnbc get these figures?
Although I believe the article I have not seen the Amtrak posting on their website which is the ordinary way to announce these figures. Usually the past month's ridership figures comes out about the 10th of next month and the full performance figures comes out about 6 weeks after the end of that month. For some reason June 2011 has not been posted and July will be due soon.
with all the flooding, Amtrak still has near-record highs? it's hard to believe this articles true!
Someone needs to fax this stuff to Congress almost 29 million people use Amtrak every year. Them people need to be show they that true facts of how many people use Amtrak every year.
Got to stop this in the bud...if anyone finds out we can be successful carrying people from place to place we might be stuck having to actually do that!
RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.
henry6 Got to stop this in the bud...if anyone finds out we can be successful carrying people from place to place we might be stuck having to actually do that!
If snark has become the standard for insightful commentary, I might add that Amtrak going from .1 percent of total passenger miles to .105 percent of total U.S. passenger miles is a happening that ought to get the attention of Congress. (Should I add an exclamation mark for emphasis?)
All snarking and kidding aside, for Amtrak to reach a record ridership is a Good Thing (tm) for Amtrak, the travelling public, and for the taxpayer funding part of the enterprise. But there is such a thing as the big numbers fallacy.
The "U" has this energy saving campaign that seems to consist largely of either scolding or self-celebratory posters on public buildings. "Improvements to our heating plant save 500,000 tons of CO2 emissions each year!" (Yes, I think the exclamation point is part of the poster. Whenever I see liberal use of the exclamation point, I think either of some slick Madison-Avenue ad campaign or I think of the purported ransom note from a high-profile unsolved crime from the mid 1990's.)
First off, people wanting to congratulate themselves use tons of CO2 whereas the scientific literature quantifies emissions in tons of carbon. CO2 has those two oxygen molecules making the CO2 tonnage about three times the C (elemental carbon equivalent) tonnage, and is a way to make numbers bigger. Secondly, what is 500,000 tons mean apart from it being a big number? It could mean that if every public university bought the same heating plant gear, we would make a dent in solving Global Warming? Or it could mean that this action is just plain arm flappage, that the amount of carbon emitted by our industrial civilization is so vast, that even everyone making that change would make a trivial difference?
Outside of the Northeast Corridor, where Amtrak is claimed to have a larger market share than air transport on many of the route segments, Amtrak is pretty much a demonstration project, much as the Northeast Corridor staged its comeback as an outgrowth of the Pell-sponsored Northeast Corridor Demonstration Project. As an advocacy community, I think we should look at Amtrak operations and draw conclusions as to what aspects of this demonstration have demonstrated that they work and merit much larger public spending and what other aspects of operations, not so much. But to claim that "passenger trains rule" from Amtrak posting a ridership record is a bit of a stretch.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Paul Milenkovic Outside of the Northeast Corridor, where Amtrak is claimed to have a larger market share than air transport on many of the route segments, Amtrak is pretty much a demonstration project, much as the Northeast Corridor staged its comeback as an outgrowth of the Pell-sponsored Northeast Corridor Demonstration Project. As an advocacy community, I think we should look at Amtrak operations and draw conclusions as to what aspects of this demonstration have demonstrated that they work and merit much larger public spending and what other aspects of operations, not so much. But to claim that "passenger trains rule" from Amtrak posting a ridership record is a bit of a stretch.
Paul: Unfortunately Amtrak has not published their performance stats for jun or July or the ridership figures for August. So I will have to post this with some doubts until those figures are published. The problems of weather certainly has had an effect this year. The slight increase cited in the above article certainly has been decreased by the weather. As Phoeebe Vet has stated it is all about frequency of service.
1. Basic NEC -- Since the beginning of Metroliners and now Acela the percentage of rail to air and bus transport has moved very favorably to Amtrak. Boston - NYP especially has increased both with Acela and egional service. All this due to more frequency.
2. Dlowneaster -- Has gone from 2 to 5 roundtrips every day. Many of the trips are sold out due to a lack of equipment. Route is going to be extended to Brunswick for some trips and a 6th RT IS NOW being planned. Ridership this summer is unknown but has increased this year about 6%.
3. Lynchburg -- 0 trips then just 1. No need to cite and some trips are at the 14 car limit. Some days are selling out.
4. Richmond / Newport News Regionals -- Route has increased substantially with just 2 RTs to NPN and 6 or 7 RTs to Richmond including Carolinian but not florida trains.
5. Raleigh - CLT --- with only 3 round trips a day has doubled with each additional train but cannot reach full potential until the 3 more rts are initiated.
6.. Harrisburg - Went from 6 RTs a day in the 80s to 14 weekdays now; ridership then less than 25,000 / mo to over 100,000 now.
7. Michigan - Had to add a shorten turn to handle crowds during past holidays.
8. Illinois and Missouri -- Increasing even though HrSR is not in service yet; service interruptions to rebuild track; STL - KANSAS CITY cancellations due to flood related items.
9. Cascades - Some of the 4 RTs regularly sell out with WA DOT waiting for track improvements and 2 more train sets to increase the number of Talgos
10. California -- San Diego 3 to 12 RTs , Capitol corridor 0 to 16 weekdays OAK - SACREMENTO; San Joaquins 0 to 6 DAILY; Santa Barbara -- LAX 5 RTs. All these services in California are lacking in equipment with additional equipment now being ordered.
Most of the above routes are all being limited by no available equipment. How can we conclude that these are non sucessful demonstration routes when they are limited by congress.??
One item I wish could be disclosed is the incremental cost and revenue of each route of adding an additional car to a train. If it is positive or even neutral then the costs of expanding train lengths should be a given once equipment is available.
The other cost of adding track capacity for additional trains is another matter. Those costs can be a capital cost. The costs of another train start is somewhat higher.
The above does not address LD trains but again incremental cost of an additional car needs consideration?/?
As I posted on the other thread, I wonder what the train/mile expenses for the various routes are? The monthly Amtrak metrics give expenses for each route and passenger/mile or seat/mile contributions, but that takes revenue and ridership into account. I would like to see a clearer picture of how much more expensive and wasteful most of the long distance routes, as well as some of the short distance and state-supported routes are. That way, a more realistic determination of where to get the most bang for the buck could be made, instead of diluting funding by continuing to throw funds down a black hole and short-changing the routes that are worthwhile.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Last week a Congressional investigating committee found $60 billion in military contractor waste and fraud. Medicare fraud can be as high as $100 billion. Would rather see $1.5 billion go to Amtrak and benefit 29 million people, rather than hundreds of billions to benefit crooks. Amtrak is not the best "poster child" for government waste.
Muralist0221 Last week a Congressional investigating committee found $60 billion in military contractor waste and fraud. Medicare fraud can be as high as $100 billion. Would rather see $1.5 billion go to Amtrak and benefit 29 million people, rather than hundreds of billions to benefit crooks. Amtrak is not the best "poster child" for government waste.
They are alot of ways to give Amtrak more money Stop all the Fraud and give all that money to Amtrak.
blue streak 1 So where did msnbc get these figures? Although I believe the article I have not seen the Amtrak posting on their website which is the ordinary way to announce these figures. Usually the past month's ridership figures comes out about the 10th of next month and the full performance figures comes out about 6 weeks after the end of that month. For some reason June 2011 has not been posted and July will be due soon.
These numbers were probably released by Amtrak's News and Media Group. They appear to be reasonable.
As per page A-3.5 of the September 2010 Amtrak Monthly Operating Report, the number of Amtrak's riders for FY10 was 28,938,943.
Reporting increases in ridership without addressing other operating and financial data tells only part of the story. The financials for the year, including revenues, operating costs, interest, depreciation, etc., should be examined and reported on to draw an appropriate conclusion about Amtrak's operations, including its burden on the taxpayers. To tout the increase in ridership without mentioning the comparative increase in operating costs, subsidies, etc. tells only part of the story.
schlimm As I posted on the other thread, I wonder what the train/mile expenses for the various routes are? The monthly Amtrak metrics give expenses for each route and passenger/mile or seat/mile contributions, but that takes revenue and ridership into account. I would like to see a clearer picture of how much more expensive and wasteful most of the long distance routes, as well as some of the short distance and state-supported routes are. That way, a more realistic determination of where to get the most bang for the buck could be made, instead of diluting funding by continuing to throw funds down a black hole and short-changing the routes that are worthwhile.
Amtrak's Financial Performance of Routes Report includes the allocation of all costs, except depreciation and interest expense, by route. It also includes the contribution or loss per passenger mile and seat mile by route. One can use these numbers to estimate the subsidy a passenger gets on average, for example, from Dallas to Chicago. However, the subsidy cannot be determined for coach passengers vs. sleeping car passengers. Independent studies have suggested that the per passenger mile subsidy for sleeping car passengers is greater than the comparable subsidy for coach passengers, although given the cost of sleeping car accommodations, which have reached the price of up-market hotel rooms in major cities, it is hard to see how this is the case today.
In FY10 the long distance trains had an operating loss of $575.5 million before depreciation and interest. The operating loss for the short corridor trains was $231.1 million. The NEC trains had an operating profit of $51.5 million, thanks to a solid operating profit of $100.6 million for the Acela trains, offset by an operating loss of $48.8 million for the NEC regional trains and $.2 million for NEC Special Trains.
The long distance trains accounted for 76.2% of Amtrak's operating loss, before depreciation and interest, whilst bringing in approximately 25% of revenues. They carried 15.6% of Amtrak's passengers. No matter how the numbers are sliced and diced, the long distance trains are the financial albatross around Amtrak's neck. If Amtrak were operated as a competitive, private enterprise, management would drop the long distance trains, just as it would drop any product line or service line that continually loses money and does not have a reasonable probability of covering its costs.
As highlighted in the footnotes, Amtrak does not allocate depreciation by routes. It claims to do so would be unfair. It says that it is working on a capital asset allocation model that will correct this cost accounting shortcoming.
The long distance trains probably wear very little depreciation and interest cost. Amtrak depreciates its locomotives, passengers cars, and other rolling stock over a period ranging up to 40 years. It groups assets for depreciation purposes and applies straight line depreciation to the assets in the group.
Most of the capitalized cost of the long distance equipment has been or is near being fully depreciated, which means that the long distance trains wear a minimum amount, if any, of the locomotive and the passenger car depreciation and interest.
The hoist freight railroads that carry Amtrak's long distance trains bill the company for doing so. Included in the rent (bill) could be a small amount of the depreciation for the plant and equipment that is used to support Amtrak's long distance trains, but I suspect that the amount is rather small.
In FY10 Amtrak's depreciation was $593.1 million; interest charges were $135.5 million, offset by interest income of $34.6 million, although the interest income would not be netted against the capitalized interest. I suspect that most of Amtrak's depreciation is tied up in the NEC, including the Acela equipment, as well as the other properties that Amtrak owns outright. However, without being able to look at the property accounting records, one cannot know how Amtrak's depreciation and associated interest are allocated.
conrailman Someone needs to fax this stuff to Congress almost 29 million people use Amtrak every year. Them people need to be show they that true facts of how many people use Amtrak every year.
The number of people carried by Amtrak was not 29 million. It was approximately 29 million passengers, which is different than people.
Amtrak carried 28.9 million passengers in FY10, but many of those passengers, especially along the NEC, would have been one person making multiple trips over the year.
I took eight trips on Amtrak in FY10, including four trips on the Texas Eagle from Temple, Texas to Dallas or Taylor, Texas to San Antonio. For reporting purposes I am one person who made eight passenger trips on Amtrak in FY10. The same statistical analysis, of course, applies to any form of transportation.
Amtrak's comparative market share of commercial passenger transport along the NEC needs explanation.
Amtrak's share of the NEC market has been increasing. It is not true, however, that Amtrak carries more passengers between New York and Washington than the airlines. Amtrak compares the whole New York to Washington NEC market to alternate commercial forms of passenger transportation. It counts passengers for intermediate points along the NEC, i.e. New York to Philadelphia or Philadelphia to Washington, for example, in its comparative numbers. But the market for the airlines is New York to Washington. They offer practically no flights, for example, from the New York metropolitan area to Philadelphia or other intermediate points except for passengers connecting in New York or Washington for overseas or national flights.
Another comparative point that is left out of the picture is the cost. Amtrak does not cover its fully allocated costs for the NEC, or any other operation for that matter, with the possible exception of the Lynchburg service, whereas the airlines and bus companies must cover their fully allocated costs and provide a return to their shareholders.
In Fy10 The Downeaster had an average load factor of 32.7%. Undoubtedly, it was probably sold out on a few occasions. More often than not, however, it ran with light loads. In any case, the load factor was not sufficient to cover its costs. In FY10 it lost $1.9 million before depreciation and interest.
The average FY10 load factor on the state supported and other short distance corridor trains in FY10 was approximately 41 per cent. The Lynchburg service had a load factor of 51.4%. It had an operating profit of $2.1 million. It was the only route outside of the Acela routes to cover its operating costs and earn an operating profit.
The load factors do not support the contention that Amtrak's routes are constrained by equipment shortages. Clearly, on select dates, especially holidays, some trains may be sold out. But it does not happen very often.
Amtrak's accountants probably have the numbers to show the incremental costs of adding an additional car to a train. I too wish that they would publish them, but they are not likely to do so because most people would not understand how they get the numbers.
The key question is whether the incremental cost of additional capacity is offset by the incremental revenues. And it is not just the cost of running another car. It is the depreciation, interest, and storage cost of the additional equipment that may sit idle for most of the year. If these costs were covered by additional revenues, I suspect that Amtrak would increase its capacity. After all, given the pressure that it is under from numerous sources, it should be happy to demonstrate to Congress that it can increase its revenues and reduce its subsidies by more effective management of its capacity.
Sam1, your comparison explanation underscores the folly of comaring transportation modes and information and explains why there is an essential need for each mode of transportation and why the whole system has to be supported and rationalized. Again, if rail passenger service received the same and equal financial support as air and highway over the past 50 to 75 years, then the comparisons would be more even. To say there are fewer rail passengers only relfects the lack of the availability of the service and not about the choice made by passengers for instance. Corridors prove that point because that is where there are three almost equal choices while over long distance routes the choices are fewer.
If rail passenger service received the same and equal federal financial support as air, that same and equal subsidy dollar would serve 1/10 the passenger miles as the airlines. If rail passenger service received the same and equal federal financial support as highways, those subsidy dollars would serve 1/30 the passenger miles as the roads.
Sez who? The Vision Report. And where do they come up with that? In the Appendices, where they extrapolate the performance of passenger rail subsidy in Europe.
And how can one talk about a service carrying .1 percent of passenger miles in the U.S. as being essential? It may be desirable, and putting more money into rail may confer some future social and economic benefit. But to speak of it as being essential when we are conducting our affairs in the U.S. pretty much without it?
Sam1 In Fy10 The Downeaster had an average load factor of 32.7%. Undoubtedly, it was probably sold out on a few occasions. More often than not, however, it ran with light loads. In any case, the load factor was not sufficient to cover its costs. In FY10 it lost $1.9 million before depreciation and interest. The average FY10 load factor on the state supported and other short distance corridor trains in FY10 was approximately 41 per cent. The Lynchburg service had a load factor of 51.4%. It had an operating profit of $2.1 million. It was the only route outside of the Acela routes to cover its operating costs and earn an operating profit. The load factors do not support the contention that Amtrak's routes are constrained by equipment shortages. Clearly, on select dates, especially holidays, some trains may be sold out. But it does not happen very often.
I don't agree with the notion that the indicated load factors are evidence that "people won't ride Amtrak" or "won't ride Amtrak in enough numbers to cover expenses."
Airlines have much higher load factors at the expense of providing a much lower grade of service. Planning any kind of airline trip is at least one evening or maybe even a couple of days of figuring out to adjust your plans around when the airlines want to take you. We put up with that inconvenience along with the many other inconveniences of air that people are quick to remind us of because of the speed of the air travel, or at least once you get airborne. Or one could pay a lot more for the fare and have much more choice in when to travel.
Maybe railroad load factors are so low because people will not put up with the kind of inconvenience that airline travel presents in order to ride a much slower mode. But rail load factors are not evidence of people not being willing to ride, rather, there is an economic tradeoff between load factor and inconvenience, and Amtrak is operating on a different part of the curve.
But that Amtrak does not keep extra cars in their fleet to adjust capacity to peaks is telling. That was long the advantage of conventional passenger trains compared to every other mode, articulated unit trains included. In theory, one can vary consists to match demand, something the airlines cannot do with dispatching a whole other plane and crew.
So why doesn't Amtrak vary consists? One is that rail cars are expensive and their maintenance seems to be expensive. The other reason offered on another thread is that switching passenger cars is so hard, and it involves large crews of ground people with special craft skills, and you armchair railroaders who play with toy trains in the rec room have no idea of how hard real railroading is.
Well, if real railroading is that hard, and if all of the expenses are justified and there are no efficiencies to be had, what is the point of transporting passengers in this expensive manner? What advantage is there to rail over other modes if there isn't any operational advantage that rail brings to the table?
Paul Milenkovic I don't agree with the notion that the indicated load factors are evidence that "people won't ride Amtrak" or "won't ride Amtrak in enough numbers to cover expenses." Airlines have much higher load factors at the expense of providing a much lower grade of service. see Maybe railroad load factors are so low because people will not put up with the kind of inconvenience that airline travel presents in order to ride a much slower mode. But rail load factors are not evidence of people not being willing to ride, rather, there is an economic tradeoff between load factor and inconvenience, and Amtrak is operating on a different part of the curve. This comparsion of load factor argument needs some thought. As someone who has flown for years it comes down to this: Any trip that has intermediate stops looses load factor. I once flew a seven stop trip that had an average load factor in the low 40s % to high 30s%. why was it kept you may ask? 2 non adjaecent legs were full constantly. Only at holiday periods were the other legs near full. Airlines in the late 1950s - 1970s had many trips that could not fly long legs so the airlines had load factors in the 40% to 60 % depepnding on the season. With the advent of aircraft that can fly the US coast to coast non stop and with hub and spoke operations routes can be designed to bring load factors up much higher and the ability to offer lower fares . Now our very limited RR route structure does not yet permit that kind of load planning. I rode the TGV from Paris - Lyon - french coast 2 stop. Sold out to both legs. Came back on a 5 or 6 stop with only 1 leg sold out. Same as the US But that Amtrak does not keep extra cars in their fleet to adjust capacity to peaks is telling. Yes Congress made sure of that by not allowing purchase of spare cars and causing the budget to be so tight that Heritage cars especially sleepers had to be scrapped. That was long the advantage of conventional passenger trains compared to every other mode, articulated unit trains included. In theory, one can vary consists to match demand, something the airlines cannot do with dispatching a whole other plane and crew. That has long been my argument as well. If the passenger cars were available then when demand was high such as holidays [thanksgiving etc ] then maybe the southbound trains could either originate longer than the normal 14 car limit at NYP by using track 5 at NYP or adding cars at PHL or WASH. So why doesn't Amtrak vary consists? One is that rail cars are expensive and their maintenance seems to be expensive. The other reason offered on another thread is that switching passenger cars is so hard, and it involves large crews of ground people with special craft skills, and you armchair railroaders who play with toy trains in the rec room have no idea of how hard real railroading is. Well, if real railroading is that hard, and if all of the expenses are justified and there are no efficiencies to be had, what is the point of transporting passengers in this expensive manner? What advantage is there to rail over other modes if there isn't any operational advantage that rail brings to the table? So maybe switching out one or two cars is not financially viable but why not 6 or 8? ACL, SAL, SOU, C AND O all did it in the past at WASH.
Airlines have much higher load factors at the expense of providing a much lower grade of service. see
This comparsion of load factor argument needs some thought. As someone who has flown for years it comes down to this: Any trip that has intermediate stops looses load factor. I once flew a seven stop trip that had an average load factor in the low 40s % to high 30s%. why was it kept you may ask? 2 non adjaecent legs were full constantly. Only at holiday periods were the other legs near full. Airlines in the late 1950s - 1970s had many trips that could not fly long legs so the airlines had load factors in the 40% to 60 % depepnding on the season.
With the advent of aircraft that can fly the US coast to coast non stop and with hub and spoke operations routes can be designed to bring load factors up much higher and the ability to offer lower fares . Now our very limited RR route structure does not yet permit that kind of load planning.
I rode the TGV from Paris - Lyon - french coast 2 stop. Sold out to both legs. Came back on a 5 or 6 stop with only 1 leg sold out. Same as the US
But that Amtrak does not keep extra cars in their fleet to adjust capacity to peaks is telling.
Yes Congress made sure of that by not allowing purchase of spare cars and causing the budget to be so tight that Heritage cars especially sleepers had to be scrapped.
That was long the advantage of conventional passenger trains compared to every other mode, articulated unit trains included. In theory, one can vary consists to match demand, something the airlines cannot do with dispatching a whole other plane and crew.
That has long been my argument as well. If the passenger cars were available then when demand was high such as holidays [thanksgiving etc ] then maybe the southbound trains could either originate longer than the normal 14 car limit at NYP by using track 5 at NYP or adding cars at PHL or WASH.
So maybe switching out one or two cars is not financially viable but why not 6 or 8? ACL, SAL, SOU, C AND O all did it in the past at WASH.
Amtrak has shown that they manage as best they can by scheduling as many cars out of Beech Grove and Bear during high peak periods. In addition they have borrowed at various times MARC, NJ TRANSIT, AND MBTA equipment especially at thanksgiving during peak periods
SAM:
Sam1 In Fy10 The Downeaster had an average load factor of 32.7%. Undoubtedly, it was probably sold out on a few occasions. More often than not, however, it ran with light loads. In any case, the load factor was not sufficient to cover its costs. In FY10 it lost $1.9 million before depreciation and interest. The average FY10 load factor on the state supported and other short distance corridor trains in FY10 was approximately 41 per cent. The Lynchburg service had a load factor of 51.4%. It had an operating profit of $2.1 million. It was the only route outside of the Acela routes to cover its operating costs and earn an operating profit. Here we go again on load factor. Lets take Downeaster first. Boston North station [ downeaster only ]. 413K passengers FY 2010 Portland Me 174K and 116 miles. So other stations are less with the 239K traveling less miles. Summer time outbound trains are full on fridays full returning on Sundays. Return trips close to empty. So a full train 100% return 20 - 30%. When the extension of the Downeaster is implemented I believe not all trips will go on the extension?? Someone? LYNCHBURG route - FY 2010 327K passengers. Top riderships are Charlottesville - WASH, NYP, PHL, ALX, LYN - PHL COMES IN 9TH. LYN - WASH 173 miles CVS - WASH 112 MILES. CVS had 89077 in FY 2010. So the short riders lower the load factors. CVS of course has passengers that also get on the Cardinal and Crescent. The use on weekends by U of Va students swells ridership one way especially the Cardinal. These students may cause many cars of the equipment positioning of those necessary cars to lower the load factor. [ ie 8 empty cars WASH - LYH - CVS then full back to WASH ] . Kills load factor numbers. The Amtrak performance reports on the NEC give the peak load factor [ some station to another ] which is a better figure. Another point of load factors as you sam has pointed out is Acela south of PHL. If there was enough Acelas then NYP - PHL could have some originate / terminate PHL or maybe go to Harrisburg and not be running half empty to/from WASH. The load factors do not support the contention that Amtrak's routes are constrained by equipment shortages. Clearly, on select dates, especially holidays, some trains may be sold out. But it does not happen very often. See above The key question is whether the incremental cost of additional capacity is offset by the incremental revenues. And it is not just the cost of running another car. It is the depreciation, interest, and storage cost of the additional equipment that may sit idle for most of the year. If these costs were covered by additional revenues, I suspect that Amtrak would increase its capacity. After all, given the pressure that it is under from numerous sources, it should be happy to demonstrate to Congress that it can increase its revenues and reduce its subsidies by more effective management of its capacity. That statement I do agree
Here we go again on load factor. Lets take Downeaster first. Boston North station [ downeaster only ]. 413K passengers FY 2010 Portland Me 174K and 116 miles. So other stations are less with the 239K traveling less miles. Summer time outbound trains are full on fridays full returning on Sundays. Return trips close to empty. So a full train 100% return 20 - 30%.
When the extension of the Downeaster is implemented I believe not all trips will go on the extension?? Someone?
LYNCHBURG route - FY 2010 327K passengers. Top riderships are Charlottesville - WASH, NYP, PHL, ALX, LYN - PHL COMES IN 9TH. LYN - WASH 173 miles CVS - WASH 112 MILES. CVS had 89077 in FY 2010. So the short riders lower the load factors. CVS of course has passengers that also get on the Cardinal and Crescent. The use on weekends by U of Va students swells ridership one way especially the Cardinal. These students may cause many cars of the equipment positioning of those necessary cars to lower the load factor. [ ie 8 empty cars WASH - LYH - CVS then full back to WASH ] . Kills load factor numbers. The Amtrak performance reports on the NEC give the peak load factor [ some station to another ] which is a better figure.
Another point of load factors as you sam has pointed out is Acela south of PHL. If there was enough Acelas then NYP - PHL could have some originate / terminate PHL or maybe go to Harrisburg and not be running half empty to/from WASH.
See above
That statement I do agree
To conclude until there is enough equipment available how can Amtrak really show how many persons really want to ride? But IMHO some Congress do not want that demonstration.
blue streak 1 SAM: Sam1: In Fy10 The Downeaster had an average load factor of 32.7%. Undoubtedly, it was probably sold out on a few occasions. More often than not, however, it ran with light loads. In any case, the load factor was not sufficient to cover its costs. In FY10 it lost $1.9 million before depreciation and interest. The average FY10 load factor on the state supported and other short distance corridor trains in FY10 was approximately 41 per cent. The Lynchburg service had a load factor of 51.4%. It had an operating profit of $2.1 million. It was the only route outside of the Acela routes to cover its operating costs and earn an operating profit. Here we go again on load factor. Lets take Downeaster first. Boston North station [ downeaster only ]. 413K passengers FY 2010 Portland Me 174K and 116 miles. So other stations are less with the 239K traveling less miles. Summer time outbound trains are full on fridays full returning on Sundays. Return trips close to empty. So a full train 100% return 20 - 30%. When the extension of the Downeaster is implemented I believe not all trips will go on the extension?? Someone? LYNCHBURG route - FY 2010 327K passengers. Top riderships are Charlottesville - WASH, NYP, PHL, ALX, LYN - PHL COMES IN 9TH. LYN - WASH 173 miles CVS - WASH 112 MILES. CVS had 89077 in FY 2010. So the short riders lower the load factors. CVS of course has passengers that also get on the Cardinal and Crescent. The use on weekends by U of Va students swells ridership one way especially the Cardinal. These students may cause many cars of the equipment positioning of those necessary cars to lower the load factor. [ ie 8 empty cars WASH - LYH - CVS then full back to WASH ] . Kills load factor numbers. The Amtrak performance reports on the NEC give the peak load factor [ some station to another ] which is a better figure. Another point of load factors as you sam has pointed out is Acela south of PHL. If there was enough Acelas then NYP - PHL could have some originate / terminate PHL or maybe go to Harrisburg and not be running half empty to/from WASH. The load factors do not support the contention that Amtrak's routes are constrained by equipment shortages. Clearly, on select dates, especially holidays, some trains may be sold out. But it does not happen very often. See above The key question is whether the incremental cost of additional capacity is offset by the incremental revenues. And it is not just the cost of running another car. It is the depreciation, interest, and storage cost of the additional equipment that may sit idle for most of the year. If these costs were covered by additional revenues, I suspect that Amtrak would increase its capacity. After all, given the pressure that it is under from numerous sources, it should be happy to demonstrate to Congress that it can increase its revenues and reduce its subsidies by more effective management of its capacity. That statement I do agree To conclude until there is enough equipment available how can Amtrak really show how many persons really want to ride? But IMHO some Congress do not want that demonstration.
Sam1: In Fy10 The Downeaster had an average load factor of 32.7%. Undoubtedly, it was probably sold out on a few occasions. More often than not, however, it ran with light loads. In any case, the load factor was not sufficient to cover its costs. In FY10 it lost $1.9 million before depreciation and interest. The average FY10 load factor on the state supported and other short distance corridor trains in FY10 was approximately 41 per cent. The Lynchburg service had a load factor of 51.4%. It had an operating profit of $2.1 million. It was the only route outside of the Acela routes to cover its operating costs and earn an operating profit. Here we go again on load factor. Lets take Downeaster first. Boston North station [ downeaster only ]. 413K passengers FY 2010 Portland Me 174K and 116 miles. So other stations are less with the 239K traveling less miles. Summer time outbound trains are full on fridays full returning on Sundays. Return trips close to empty. So a full train 100% return 20 - 30%. When the extension of the Downeaster is implemented I believe not all trips will go on the extension?? Someone? LYNCHBURG route - FY 2010 327K passengers. Top riderships are Charlottesville - WASH, NYP, PHL, ALX, LYN - PHL COMES IN 9TH. LYN - WASH 173 miles CVS - WASH 112 MILES. CVS had 89077 in FY 2010. So the short riders lower the load factors. CVS of course has passengers that also get on the Cardinal and Crescent. The use on weekends by U of Va students swells ridership one way especially the Cardinal. These students may cause many cars of the equipment positioning of those necessary cars to lower the load factor. [ ie 8 empty cars WASH - LYH - CVS then full back to WASH ] . Kills load factor numbers. The Amtrak performance reports on the NEC give the peak load factor [ some station to another ] which is a better figure. Another point of load factors as you sam has pointed out is Acela south of PHL. If there was enough Acelas then NYP - PHL could have some originate / terminate PHL or maybe go to Harrisburg and not be running half empty to/from WASH. The load factors do not support the contention that Amtrak's routes are constrained by equipment shortages. Clearly, on select dates, especially holidays, some trains may be sold out. But it does not happen very often. See above The key question is whether the incremental cost of additional capacity is offset by the incremental revenues. And it is not just the cost of running another car. It is the depreciation, interest, and storage cost of the additional equipment that may sit idle for most of the year. If these costs were covered by additional revenues, I suspect that Amtrak would increase its capacity. After all, given the pressure that it is under from numerous sources, it should be happy to demonstrate to Congress that it can increase its revenues and reduce its subsidies by more effective management of its capacity. That statement I do agree
"Here we go again." Nothing condensing in that statement.
How do you know that the Downeaster is maxed out on any segment on Fridays and Sundays? Where does Amtrak published the segment loads? Or is this just conjecture?
According to Amtrak's web site, none of the Downeaster trains are sold out on Friday or Sunday through the remainder of the year. As a matter of fact, they are not sold out on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the Sunday after Thanksgiving, which are the heaviest travel days in the U.S. Two of the trains for this Sunday from Portland to Boston have sold out their business class seats; otherwise one can still get a reservation on any of the trains.
The Downeasters carried slightly more than 478,000 passengers in FY10, according to Amtrak's Maine fact sheet. There are ten trains a day or 3,650 per year. On average the trains carry 131 passengers at some point on the run from Portland to Boston or vice versa. Each Amfleet car can accommodate 84 passengers. It appears that the train has three coaches and a cafe/business class car. This works out to an average of 44 passengers per car, plus a certain number in business class. At 44 passengers per car, the load factor would be 52.4%, assuming that the passengers ride all the way through, which probably is not the case.
As I said, on certain trains, especially those on holiday weekends and perhaps summer weekends, the load factor for selected segments of the Downeaster route is relatively high, but I don't see anywhere in the numbers where significant numbers of people are being turned away or that Amtrak's Downeaster is constrained because of equipment shortages.
If Amtrak's management had a compelling case for new equipment, it would show that the incremental costs would be covered by a higher proportional increase in revenues. Even the most conservative members of Congress would probably go along a request to buy new equipment in this case. The bottom line, I suspect, is that does not have a compelling case.
The Congress authorized an annual support request from Amtrak. Amtrak requests monies for its operations and capital improvement programs. Once the request has been authorized, I am not aware that the Congress tells Amtrak's management what cars it should buy or how many should be run on each train.
Come to think of it, a train system that has lost more than $26 billion since its inception does not have a compelling business case for anything other than going out of business or turning the operation over to an organization that could rationalize it and perhaps break even in select markets.
You can say, do, prove and disprove anything you want with any given statistic. You have to know the topic, the statistic, the derivation of the statistic, what the statistic represents, what it refers to, how it was derived, and what you want to say or not say.
I've got $100 at the end of the day. I made $100. I made a100% profit. I doubled my money. My profit margin is 30%. My mark up is 20%. I discounted my price 20%. Really, what does any of this mean if you don't know the whole story of the business or what I am talking about. Did I or didn't I make a $100 profit? Any one of those statistical sketches could prove or disprove what the $100 represents and how it relates to the other sketches. Statistics don't lie...users of statistics do.
Henry,
So I am to conclude that you are calling Sam a liar? Sounds like an attack to me!
Mac
I was addressing you, Mac...based on what you said to me...Sam has nothing to do with it.
I'm glad to hear this. I know I've been reading that ridership is up and Congress needs to keepAmtrak running. A lot of people depend on the train in some rural areas, some people do not like to fly, the cost of gasoline is getting out of sight and some of us just love riding trains.
blue streak 1 Paul Milenkovic: I don't agree with the notion that the indicated load factors are evidence that "people won't ride Amtrak" or "won't ride Amtrak in enough numbers to cover expenses." Airlines have much higher load factors at the expense of providing a much lower grade of service. see Maybe railroad load factors are so low because people will not put up with the kind of inconvenience that airline travel presents in order to ride a much slower mode. But rail load factors are not evidence of people not being willing to ride, rather, there is an economic tradeoff between load factor and inconvenience, and Amtrak is operating on a different part of the curve. This comparsion of load factor argument needs some thought. As someone who has flown for years it comes down to this: Any trip that has intermediate stops looses load factor. I once flew a seven stop trip that had an average load factor in the low 40s % to high 30s%. why was it kept you may ask? 2 non adjaecent legs were full constantly. Only at holiday periods were the other legs near full. Airlines in the late 1950s - 1970s had many trips that could not fly long legs so the airlines had load factors in the 40% to 60 % depepnding on the season. With the advent of aircraft that can fly the US coast to coast non stop and with hub and spoke operations routes can be designed to bring load factors up much higher and the ability to offer lower fares . Now our very limited RR route structure does not yet permit that kind of load planning. I rode the TGV from Paris - Lyon - french coast 2 stop. Sold out to both legs. Came back on a 5 or 6 stop with only 1 leg sold out. Same as the US But that Amtrak does not keep extra cars in their fleet to adjust capacity to peaks is telling. Yes Congress made sure of that by not allowing purchase of spare cars and causing the budget to be so tight that Heritage cars especially sleepers had to be scrapped. That was long the advantage of conventional passenger trains compared to every other mode, articulated unit trains included. In theory, one can vary consists to match demand, something the airlines cannot do with dispatching a whole other plane and crew. That has long been my argument as well. If the passenger cars were available then when demand was high such as holidays [thanksgiving etc ] then maybe the southbound trains could either originate longer than the normal 14 car limit at NYP by using track 5 at NYP or adding cars at PHL or WASH. So why doesn't Amtrak vary consists? One is that rail cars are expensive and their maintenance seems to be expensive. The other reason offered on another thread is that switching passenger cars is so hard, and it involves large crews of ground people with special craft skills, and you armchair railroaders who play with toy trains in the rec room have no idea of how hard real railroading is. Well, if real railroading is that hard, and if all of the expenses are justified and there are no efficiencies to be had, what is the point of transporting passengers in this expensive manner? What advantage is there to rail over other modes if there isn't any operational advantage that rail brings to the table? So maybe switching out one or two cars is not financially viable but why not 6 or 8? ACL, SAL, SOU, C AND O all did it in the past at WASH.
Paul Milenkovic: I don't agree with the notion that the indicated load factors are evidence that "people won't ride Amtrak" or "won't ride Amtrak in enough numbers to cover expenses." Airlines have much higher load factors at the expense of providing a much lower grade of service. see Maybe railroad load factors are so low because people will not put up with the kind of inconvenience that airline travel presents in order to ride a much slower mode. But rail load factors are not evidence of people not being willing to ride, rather, there is an economic tradeoff between load factor and inconvenience, and Amtrak is operating on a different part of the curve. This comparsion of load factor argument needs some thought. As someone who has flown for years it comes down to this: Any trip that has intermediate stops looses load factor. I once flew a seven stop trip that had an average load factor in the low 40s % to high 30s%. why was it kept you may ask? 2 non adjaecent legs were full constantly. Only at holiday periods were the other legs near full. Airlines in the late 1950s - 1970s had many trips that could not fly long legs so the airlines had load factors in the 40% to 60 % depepnding on the season. With the advent of aircraft that can fly the US coast to coast non stop and with hub and spoke operations routes can be designed to bring load factors up much higher and the ability to offer lower fares . Now our very limited RR route structure does not yet permit that kind of load planning. I rode the TGV from Paris - Lyon - french coast 2 stop. Sold out to both legs. Came back on a 5 or 6 stop with only 1 leg sold out. Same as the US But that Amtrak does not keep extra cars in their fleet to adjust capacity to peaks is telling. Yes Congress made sure of that by not allowing purchase of spare cars and causing the budget to be so tight that Heritage cars especially sleepers had to be scrapped. That was long the advantage of conventional passenger trains compared to every other mode, articulated unit trains included. In theory, one can vary consists to match demand, something the airlines cannot do with dispatching a whole other plane and crew. That has long been my argument as well. If the passenger cars were available then when demand was high such as holidays [thanksgiving etc ] then maybe the southbound trains could either originate longer than the normal 14 car limit at NYP by using track 5 at NYP or adding cars at PHL or WASH. So why doesn't Amtrak vary consists? One is that rail cars are expensive and their maintenance seems to be expensive. The other reason offered on another thread is that switching passenger cars is so hard, and it involves large crews of ground people with special craft skills, and you armchair railroaders who play with toy trains in the rec room have no idea of how hard real railroading is. Well, if real railroading is that hard, and if all of the expenses are justified and there are no efficiencies to be had, what is the point of transporting passengers in this expensive manner? What advantage is there to rail over other modes if there isn't any operational advantage that rail brings to the table? So maybe switching out one or two cars is not financially viable but why not 6 or 8? ACL, SAL, SOU, C AND O all did it in the past at WASH.
Heck, PRR/PC used to fill out nice shiny stainless steel NYP-WAS trains with ancient P70s at Phila! The station switcher would hide with the coaches at the south side of the station. When the train arrived and stopped, it'd tack them on.
Amtrak, on the other hand, is going to scrap Amfleet when they get new stuff. Why not keep it around to balance train size with demand, particularly for peak seasons.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
If some people live in areas without air service, if some people are fearful of or just don't like flying, or some "just love riding trains" then the fares on those LD train routes need to be raised to come much closer to covering their high operating expenses. If it weren't for the LD trains, Amtrak would come fairly close to breaking even in terms of covering its operating expenses, to say nothing of being able to invest capital more wisely into the needed new equipment for the shorter haul corridors rather than wasting it on new LD coaches and sleepers, etc.
Sunnyland I'm glad to hear this. I know I've been reading that ridership is up and Congress needs to keepAmtrak running. A lot of people depend on the train in some rural areas, some people do not like to fly, the cost of gasoline is getting out of sight and some of us just love riding trains.
We should subsidize people who "just don't like to"? I just don't like having to do my own grocery shopping. Will the gov't please provide an affordable shopping service for me?
Sam1 In Fy10 The Downeaster had an average load factor of 32.7%. Undoubtedly, it was probably sold out on a few occasions. More often than not, however, it ran with light loads. In any case, the load factor was not sufficient to cover its costs. In FY10 it lost $1.9 million before depreciation and interest. Have been in touch with the NNERPA and they state that many (unfortunately no % but were on 4 coach 1 lounge bussiness class car train capacity approximately 300) trains were sold out thie summer. Aug 2011 ridership up 7% over 2010. The load factors do not support the contention that Amtrak's routes are constrained by equipment shortages. Clearly, on select dates, especially holidays, some trains may be sold out. But it does not happen very often. Amtrak has just released its PRIIA performance improvement plan for silver service. It is on their web site under reports. Amtrak stated that they were able to add an additional coach to each Silver Meteor train set (changed each set from 4 coaches to 5 coaches) (4 sets + 1 spare) with some difficulty by temporilarily reducing cars out of service. The additional cars operated June 10 - Sep 6 enabled the Metoer to carry 6457 more passengers than same period last year despite the hurricane cancellations this year. Amtrak's accountants probably have the numbers to show the incremental costs of adding an additional car to a train. I too wish that they would publish them, but they are not likely to do so because most people would not understand how they get the numbers. The above cited PRIIA report stated that for the Meteor additional revenue was $900,000 and net benefit was $700,000 giving ~ $200,000 additional cost. The time period is about 90 days with a 180 train days so about $5000/ day additional operating costs???. Meteor route is 1389 miles so maybe a cost of $3.60 / mile?? Fares are about what $.20 / mile so ~18 additional passengers (for a full car length ) in car would break even? Sam please check me?? The key question is whether the incremental cost of additional capacity is offset by the incremental revenues. And it is not just the cost of running another car. It is the depreciation, interest, and storage cost of the additional equipment that may sit idle for most of the year. If these costs were covered by additional revenues, I suspect that Amtrak would increase its capacity. After all, given the pressure that it is under from numerous sources, it should be happy to demonstrate to Congress that it can increase its revenues and reduce its subsidies by more effective management of its capacity. The above figures may make the case or may not??
Have been in touch with the NNERPA and they state that many (unfortunately no % but were on 4 coach 1 lounge bussiness class car train capacity approximately 300) trains were sold out thie summer. Aug 2011 ridership up 7% over 2010.
Amtrak has just released its PRIIA performance improvement plan for silver service. It is on their web site under reports. Amtrak stated that they were able to add an additional coach to each Silver Meteor train set (changed each set from 4 coaches to 5 coaches) (4 sets + 1 spare) with some difficulty by temporilarily reducing cars out of service. The additional cars operated June 10 - Sep 6 enabled the Metoer to carry 6457 more passengers than same period last year despite the hurricane cancellations this year.
The above cited PRIIA report stated that for the Meteor additional revenue was $900,000 and net benefit was $700,000 giving ~ $200,000 additional cost. The time period is about 90 days with a 180 train days so about $5000/ day additional operating costs???. Meteor route is 1389 miles so maybe a cost of $3.60 / mile?? Fares are about what $.20 / mile so ~18 additional passengers (for a full car length ) in car would break even? Sam please check me??
The above figures may make the case or may not??
The above report also had the Crescent listed and it was even more revealing. Stated is that there is not enough coach capacity north of ATLANTA. But there is too much capacity south of Atlanta. Amtrak would like to remove 2 or 3 coaches and the lounge at ATL but have more coaches north of ATL. Unfortunately the ATL station is a center platform located on NS Wash - ATL mainline. Any switching at the station would require maybe extended time and some trackwork to accomplish which cannot work for NS as of now. You need to read the whole report!!
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