Amtrak California Ridership

[passengerfan]

California's three trains The Capitol Corridor, San Joaquins and Pacific Surfliners are reporting ridership is 51% of Northeast Corridor.

Al - in Stockton

[oltmannd]

...but 12% of the revenues.

Taken together, though, California and the NEC carry 55% of Amtrak's passengers and 57% of the revenues.  The NEC has 35% of the passengers and CA has 20%.

Those 20 Acela train sets alone account for 25% of Amtrak's revenue and 10% of the passengers.

Here's how the routes stack up for June w.r.t covering their direct costs:  (the eye opener here, for me is how the Carolinian and Piedmont do compare to the "Silver" trains and the Crescent.)

train	direct cost/revenue
Acela	28%
Regional	35%
Hiawathas	47%
Keystone Service	51%
Chicago-St.Louis	53%
Illini	56%
Carolinian	59%
Washington-Newport News	59%
Piedmont	63%
Adirondack	66%
Ethan Allen Express	67%
The Downeaster	70%
Pere Marquette	73%
Cascades	73%
Pacific Surfliner	76%
Heartland Flyer	76%
Illinois Zephyr	77%
Empire Service	79%
Auto Train	80%
Blue Water	80%
San Joaquins	86%
Albany-Niagara Falls-Toronto	89%
Capitols	90%
Pennsylvanian	97%
Vermonter	102%
Kansas City-St.Louis	106%
Palmetto	107%
Wolverines	112%
New Haven - Springfield	119%
Silver Meteor	132%
Empire Builder	137%
City of New Orleans	144%
Capitol Limited	146%
Crescent	147%
Silver Star	149%
Lake Shore Limited	151%
Southwest Chief	153%
Texas Eagle	179%
Coast Starlight	184%
Cardinal	194%
California Zephyr	196%
Sunset Limited	331%
Hoosier State	340%

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

It would be interesting to see how NARP and similar groups in the advocacy community interpret those figures.  The high percentages for the long-distance trains are not that different than comparable numbers from the pre-Amtrak era and go a long way in explaining why Amtrak exists and why privatizing long-distance passenger service isn't going to happen.

[oltmannd]

Some complain about how allocation of shared costs unfairly burden the LD trains, so I purposely just compared the direct cost.

Now, you can spend capital to reduce operating costs, and the avg higher speeds on the NEC, that have been purchased with capital, certainly help both the revenue and cost side of things.

But, when the Carolinian, which is not a short haul train, and has pretty lousy time keeping, and runs on a circuitious and fairly pokey route, can easily cover it's direct costs and the Silver trains and Crescent don't come close, I can only draw one conclusion.....

There may be hope for sleepers and food service, but it ain't the status quo.

[HarveyK400]

The numbers surprised me for a few services.  The question is not what the rail advocacy community makes of the numbers; but why do services come out the way they do.  Obviously it's not just sleepers and diners.

Given an average ridership of 46 passengers per train for the Hiawathas and a give-away commuter fare averaging only $7.30 a trip, it's amazing the cost/revenue comes out so well.

The biggest anomaly would seem to be the Hoosier State coming in at 340%, the worst, while the long-distance Cardinal comes in at 194%, 57% better.

The Auto Train does very well for a long-distance train coming in at 80%, comparable to many corridor trains and better than the Palmetto on the same line (while not named for the bug, the connotation is unfortunate) and the "Silvers."

The Wolverines do poorly at 112%, while CSX and the State want to change the Pere Marquette that is compratively successful at 73%.

Another mystery is why the Palmetto comes in at 107% while its counterpart, the Carolinian, achieves a respectable 59%.

[vsmith]

Amazing to me we're a really big chunk of Amtraks ridership yet we cannot get any sort of HST program past the planning stages, yeah I know all the reasons given, just really amazing to me that a state that has so much ridership is still slogging along at 50mph.

[oltmannd]

The numbers surprised me for a few services.  The question is not what the rail advocacy community makes of the numbers; but why do services come out the way they do.  Obviously it's not just sleepers and diners.

Given an average ridership of 46 passengers per train for the Hiawathas and a give-away commuter fare averaging only $7.30 a trip, it's amazing the cost/revenue comes out so well.

The biggest anomaly would seem to be the Hoosier State coming in at 340%, the worst, while the long-distance Cardinal comes in at 194%, 57% better.

The Auto Train does very well for a long-distance train coming in at 80%, comparable to many corridor trains and better than the Palmetto on the same line (while not named for the bug, the connotation is unfortunate) and the "Silvers."

The Wolverines do poorly at 112%, while CSX and the State want to change the Pere Marquette that is compratively successful at 73%.

Another mystery is why the Palmetto comes in at 107% while its counterpart, the Carolinian, achieves a respectable 59%.

The obvious places to look are equipment and crew cycles.  That'll take a bit more doing than just looking at Amtrak's reports.  I suspect the Hiawatha's get pretty good equipment and crew turns.

[oltmannd]

The numbers surprised me for a few services.  The question is not what the rail advocacy community makes of the numbers; but why do services come out the way they do.  Obviously it's not just sleepers and diners.

Given an average ridership of 46 passengers per train for the Hiawathas and a give-away commuter fare averaging only $7.30 a trip, it's amazing the cost/revenue comes out so well.

The biggest anomaly would seem to be the Hoosier State coming in at 340%, the worst, while the long-distance Cardinal comes in at 194%, 57% better.

The Auto Train does very well for a long-distance train coming in at 80%, comparable to many corridor trains and better than the Palmetto on the same line (while not named for the bug, the connotation is unfortunate) and the "Silvers."

The Wolverines do poorly at 112%, while CSX and the State want to change the Pere Marquette that is compratively successful at 73%.

Another mystery is why the Palmetto comes in at 107% while its counterpart, the Carolinian, achieves a respectable 59%.

Another thought on the Palmetto vs. Carolinian.  Florence/Charleston/Savannah aren't quite the metorpolitan areas that Raleigh/Cary/Durham/Greensboro/Charlotte are. 

Here's some more numbers:

train	rev	labor	other
Carolinian	$14.50	$3.00	$5.50
Palmetto	$10.40	$3.60	$7.40

Ridership for June:

Carolinian 218k

Palmetto 128K

You gotta run where the people are....and stop to pick them up.

[passengerfan]

For the month of August the Pacific Surfliners carried 313,570 and Acela Express carried 250,440. This is the fourth month in a row that the Pacific Surfliners have outshone the Acela Express services.

And just as important the Capitol Corridor route was ranked #1 in customer satisfaction.

Al - in - Stockton

[oltmannd]

For the month of August the Pacific Surfliners carried 313,570 and Acela Express carried 250,440. This is the fourth month in a row that the Pacific Surfliners have outshone the Acela Express services.

And just as important the Capitol Corridor route was ranked #1 in customer satisfaction.

Al - in - Stockton

Nice stat, but I'm not sure it tells me anything.  A better comparison might be coach vs. coach i.e. NEC regional vs Surfliner.  Acela is 100% business class.  ...and lets not count passenger miles   ...or revenue.  ...or contribution.

The Surfliners are great. I had a chance to ride LA to SC last summer.  Train was full (but previous train out of LA was annulled....).  Smooth ride.  Speed crept up into the high 80s a few time per my GPS.  I can see why people are riding them!

The Capitols seem to be growing nicely, too.  They finally passed NJT's Philly to AC line in ridership.