Amtrak has issued its Feb 2010 operating stats and they are very encouraging. Comparsions are for month 2009 or for FY 2010 vs FY 2009
1. All these figures need to be looked at with one eye on the bad weather in FEB and the various cancellations on routes around WASHINGTON.
2. Revenue up 6% over 2009 with ridership up 88,000 this year for a total of 23M.
3. Load factor up 1% to 47.7% with this figure up every month this FY except OCT.
4. Train miles and available seat miles down. WX?
5. Gallons per train mile 2.3 vs 2.4 – 2009. This is a non meaningful number since it does not refer to the average trailing tons of trains.
6. Acela ridership same even though many cancelled. NE regional up 3.8%. short and long distance up 7.2%.
7. SD Lynchburg 6,192 122% above budget even though some cancellations. All SD up except Newport News, Carolinian. Also slightly down Heartland, Capitols, Carbondale. Total SD 945K up 7.2%
8. LD down Cardinal, Palmetto, Meteor, Auto Train – WX and Capitols. LD big ups E.B., City NO, Eagle, Sunset (35%),CAL Z, Lake Shore, Coast Star,Crescent.
9. Sleepers down Cardinal, Meteor, Capitol, Auto Train – All WX. Big ups Crescent (66% maybe another sleeper?), LAKE SHORE, CZ, EB, Coast Star,
These figures may be very good with total train miles down and some routes blocked out due to the various weather factors. Unfortunately March is not going to be any better and the flooding in New England will also effect April figures.
On time figures were worse than 2009 especially anything doing with the northeast. NS and BNSF virtual tie for best and CSX still worse however---WX. Acela was 22% worse in 2010. System 5.4% worse. Those 90% or better OT were Capitols, Missouri ( what a change) San Joaquins, City New Orleans, Coast Star, SW Chief:. Eagle, Sunset close at 85%.
Rolling stock is as follows.
1. P-40 Loco work (4 scheduled) delayed due to missing Cab signal and new GE software equipment.
2. 16.7 % of locos out of service.
3. AEM-7s 7 planed; 5 out. Were not overhauled due to high # BO due to WX .
4. HHP 2 planned none out. Same as AEMs
5. Passenger cars 150 due out since Oct 1 actual 144. This includes repairs, mid-life and stage I – III. Stimulus has 3 returned to service vs 4 planned.
Notes on the various cars to be returned to service indicate a lack of parts slowing completions. I guess this is a result of how old some of the equipment is. Amfleets are the only cars ahead of schedule (70 vs 73). Of this number stimulus - - 10 planned 6 repaired. Super Liners 4 plan 3 repaired.
blue streak 1Big ups Crescent (66% maybe another sleeper?),
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Amtrak's February 2010 financials, which are an important part of the picture, don't look so good. The FY2010 net loss through February 2010 was $580.7 million compared to $491.7 million for the same period last year.
Part of the ridership increase in the NEC can be attributed to pricing incentives, i.e. year to year ridership increased 2.3 per cent whilst revenues declined .7 per cent. The State Supported and Other Short Distance Corridor Trains (SDCT) saw the increase in revenues outpace the increase in ridership, but the long distance trains increase in ridership was offset by a decline in revenues, again indicating that pricing incentives, as well as differentiated space demands, contributed to the increase in ridership.
The NEC turned in a FY10 YTD loss of 1.5 cents per passenger mile compared to a contribution of 3.7 cents for the corresponding FY09 period. The loss for the SDCT increased from 14.3 cents to 14.9 cents per passenger mile, whilst the loss for the long distance trains increased from 23.4 cents to 25.7 cents for the same metric. These losses are before the allocation of depreciation and interest, which would make the numbers look even worse.
The Acela contributed 12.1 cents per passenger mile before depreciation and interest, but the other NEC trains caused the corridor to turn in a negative operating performance. Of the SDCT trains, only the Lynchburg and Piedmont trains covered their operating costs. None of the long distance trains covered their operating expenses. The Sunset Limited continued to show the biggest loss per passenger mile of the long distance trains (59.2 cents compared to 60.1 cents in FY09).
Amtrak's financial performance is deteriorating, due in part to the recession, as well as a series of internal financial drivers. In FY09 its federal and state subsidies averaged $64.87 per passenger compared to $48.50 in FY08, due in large part to the additional monies received from AARA. The average subsidies per passenger mile increased from 22.61 cents per passenger mile to 29.88 cents.
Interestingly, at least to accounting and financial persons, Amtrak is not allocating depreciation and interest to any of its routes. It states that to do so would distort the results of certain routes because of lease back arrangements for some of the equipment. It is, however, developing a capital allocation method. When the method is implemented, it will probably increase the losses per passenger mile. It will be very interesting to see the impact of the allocation model on the NEC trains, especially the Acela. The Acela has covered its operating costs by a comfortable margin for the past three years, but I suspect that the allocation of the NEC capital costs to its operation will show a different picture.
Professor, I'm confused!
The LD trains show a loss of 25.7 cents/passenger mile, yet the Amtrak system subsidy is at 29.88 cents/passenger mile?
One distinction that I would like to make is between the above and below the wheel-rail contact patch subsidies and expenses. Don Oltmann might back me up on that one but Sam1 I suppose has little use for that distinction.
Why do I want to make that distinction? Whenever the subject of transportation subsidy comes up, the response that is inevitable as the spring rains is, "Oh yeah, Amtrak gets subsidy? What about the subsidy going to (autos/buses/airlines)? Boy, you better believe it that those other modes get subsidy! Why, the gas tax only covers (insert some small fraction) of the cost of highways!" And so on.
I guess another reason for making this distinction is to impose a level of accountability on the advocacy community. Fine, let's have a level playing field between the different transportation modes. Let's subsidize them, but in the same manner and at the same rates. Amtrak was supposed to be that level playing field, but dontcha know it, it was just a thinly disguised plan to rid the railroads of passenger trains -- yes I have been told that many times, but I mention this talking point so it doesn't have to be restated. Again. Yes, let's appeal equal subsidy treatment to the different modes, yeah, even throw in a subsidy supplement for the social goodness of trains, and then don't complain when trains don't have the market share we think they ought to have.
And with respect to above-the-rails operating cost, I would even allow for the train stations to be a municipal rather than an Amtrak cost, that the costs of airports are recovered by various fees notwithstanding. If you want the train to stop in Wisconsin rather than just breeze through to Minesota, have the State of Wisconsin fund the train stations.
When all is said and done, the train becomes a kind of bus on steel wheels. When all is said and done, it seems to me that trains everywhere else outside the NEC are a kind of bus on steel wheels. We can argue over whether Amtrak pays its fair share for trackage access or if the low fees payed to the host railroads constitute a kind of tax on those enterprises. But the trackage fees are a minor share of the expenses reported for Amtrak trains.
So, this is not the Sam1 accounting method, but according to Paul Milenkovic railroad accounting, the costs would be separated into the above-the-rails and the below-the-rails accounts. I suspect that on an above-the-rails basis, the subsidies of the trains remain in the above 20 cents/passenger mile zone, maybe even more. According to Paul Milenkovic accounting rules, the capital costs of the rolling stock, while not a direct operating cost, these costs are substantial and need to be entered in the above-the-rails column, and these costs are substantial.
Were one to "level the playing field", either institutionally by how funding Amtrak that way or as a thought experiment, by separating Amtrak costs into above and below the rail components, it seems that passenger rail requires high rates of subsidy not required for other transportation modes. Why is this?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
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