http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-amtrak-passenger-numbers-surge-in-illinois-20120911,0,4165130.story
"Chicago to St. Louis route saw the biggest jump, an increase of almost 11 percent."
A clear indication of what sort of passenger service people choose to use in growing numbers.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
schlimm http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-amtrak-passenger-numbers-surge-in-illinois-20120911,0,4165130.story "Chicago to St. Louis route saw the biggest jump, an increase of almost 11 percent." A clear indication of what sort of passenger service people choose to use in growing numbers.
Yep, relatively short, high density corridors!
It would be interesting to know whether the increase in riders stretches all the way from Chicago to St. Louis or, as I suspect, it is concentrated between Chicago and Springfield.
Good question. It might be possible to derive the data, since Amtrak doesn't publish traffic numbers by segment.
Four round trips daily plus the "Texas Eagle" provide enough frequency to make the train a legitimate travel option on this route. It also helps that this route reaches most of the sizable cities between Chicago and St. Louis.
Now if we can only persuade the advocacy community to realize that this is the kind of service they need to get behind.
Once all the 110 mph track is in place and the bottlenecks between Joliet and Union Station are corrected, the number of RT's will be increased with demand, which will really jump. But trying to get the advocacy community to let go of the past and embrace these advances seems very difficult. Perhaps it is wise to just let them do their thing.
many questions of the CHI - STL route;;
1. why doesn't the state of illinois require a breakdown of the number of passengers on each leg segment?
2. what are the 20 most traveled trip legs?
3. is the 11% increase just in passengers on trains or are the ones that had to take a bus part of the way counted as another passenger?
4. have any of the trips sold out and if so why ( lack of equipment , late sales, etc )?
5. what are the number of business class trips ( same questions ) and is it selling out and if so why?
6. as our posters can see we all need to put a skeptical eye on any stats.
Unfortunately Amtrak doesn't break out those stats for the public. However, you can get a rough idea from these numbers:
Lincoln service: 549K passengers 2011
Texas Eagle: 299K (includes the CHI-STL segment)
Stations on the route:
Bloomington: 244K
Springfield: 159K
Joliet: 55K (includes SW Chief)
Alton: 50K
Lincoln: 18K
Pontiac: 14K
Dwight: 9K
Carlinville: 8K
What we cannot determine is how many passengers rode to STL from CHI.
Now, lets see if it translates into better monthly financial numbers for the route. Amtrak, rather amazingly, has found ways to match incremental revenue with incremental cost - dollar for dollar - many times.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
CSSHEGEWISCH Four round trips daily plus the "Texas Eagle" provide enough frequency to make the train a legitimate travel option on this route. It also helps that this route reaches most of the sizable cities between Chicago and St. Louis. Now if we can only persuade the advocacy community to realize that this is the kind of service they need to get behind.
You're a guy who likes statistics, Sam.
Amtrak's state Fact sheets shows about 159,000 boardings and alightings in Springfield and about 310,000 in Saint Louis. However, we don't know that the station at the other end of the trip was Chicago so I'm not sure about what conclusions we can draw from these numbers.
Amtrak only publishes total passengers per route. It does not publish segment to segment numbers. They can be gotten by filing a Freedom of Information Act request. Only problem with that is Amtrak can charge you $38 per hour for the research plus the cost of the materials and mailings.
In FY11 the average load factor on the Chicago to St. Louis trains was 46.3%. The average loss per passenger mile was 4.1 cents, which was considerably below the overall average loss per passenger mile of 9.8 cents for the trains in the other and short corridor category.
In FY10 the average load factor was 45.2% and the corresponding losses per passenger mile were 11.5 cents and 12.3 cents.
The Chicago-St. Louis trains improved their spread from the overall categorical losses from .8 cents in FY10 to 5.7 cents in FY11, thereby indicating a greater improvement in financial performance than the category as a whole.
John WR You're a guy who likes statistics, Sam. Amtrak's state Fact sheets shows about 159,000 boardings and alightings in Springfield and about 310,000 in Saint Louis. However, we don't know that the station at the other end of the trip was Chicago so I'm not sure about what conclusions we can draw from these numbers.
I understand that the St. Louis numbers count all passengers who board or alight at that station. Amtrack publishes a Fact Sheet for each state. Among other things there is a table called "boardings and alightings" with a list of stations and the number of passengers.
Since STL has Amtrak service to KC (Missouri River Runners), as well as the Texas Eagle, there is no way to sort out the destinations of STL passenger boardings or origins of arrivals.
WAs the track work season different last year compared to this year? Could account for some of this growth.
Another matter that needs improvement on the CHI-STL route is the 37 miles between Joliet and Union Station, which currently is scheduled for 50-57 minutes. This is too slow. Whatever track improvements can increase the speed need to happen to bring the times to Bloomington, Springfield and STL to an acceptable standard.
The Joliet-CUS portion is going to be difficult to improve for a variety of reasons. The line crosses NS at Brighton Park, BRC as Nerska and IHB at Argo, all are major freight routes and there isn't room for a grade separation. Glenn Yard is also in this stretch, and one of the tracks is often tied up with trains entering and leaving that yard, with occasional flat switching on the west end. You also have a scattering of industrial leads.
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