It depends on your definition of subsidy and what is "wastefull" Check out the writings of Andrew Selden of the UPRA. I have seen from Caltrans statistics that the supposedly "lowly" , useless Coast Starlight (one train a day each direction long distance train--about 40, 000 passengers per month) generates nearly as much fare revenue per month as the Pacific Surfliners--multiple daily trains, about 250,000 monthly passengers.
So to Sam1 and others who are so cocksure of their info, which train generates more fare revenue per passenger--the Coast Starlight by a wide margin
Great point. Airlines are generously subsidized, but it is carefully buried in the depths of the FAA, DOT, and hundreds of local airport authorities.
LIke your example of Wichita, if an airport like that applies for and gets $100 mil for runway expansion, is that cost ever fully expressed through ticket prices?
The financial report for the South Bend Indiana Regional Airport ( another medium sized airport) a couple of years ago showed that they need about $2 mil to $3 mil per year of local property tax money to balance the books--and that is not counting the $150 mil runway expansion they are now in the middle of. Not sure why they are doing it. 80% of their flights are commuter flights with turboprops and regional jets, and the current runways could handle up to 757' s already
mdw It depends on your definition of subsidy and what is "wastefull" Check out the writings of Andrew Selden of the UPRA. I have seen from Caltrans statistics that the supposedly "lowly" , useless Coast Starlight (one train a day each direction long distance train--about 40, 000 passengers per month) generates nearly as much fare revenue per month as the Pacific Surfliners--multiple daily trains, about 250,000 monthly passengers. So to Sam1 and others who are so cocksure of their info, which train generates more fare revenue per passenger--the Coast Starlight by a wide margin
Revenue alone is a meaningless number. You have to take revenue and cost together and normalize by the unit of production.
What is the net per passenger mile?
The "cocksure" info comes directly from Amtrak's monthly reports published on their web site. As Casey Stengel said, "You could look it up."
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
mdw Great point. Airlines are generously subsidized, but it is carefully buried in the depths of the FAA, DOT, and hundreds of local airport authorities. LIke your example of Wichita, if an airport like that applies for and gets $100 mil for runway expansion, is that cost ever fully expressed through ticket prices? The financial report for the South Bend Indiana Regional Airport ( another medium sized airport) a couple of years ago showed that they need about $2 mil to $3 mil per year of local property tax money to balance the books--and that is not counting the $150 mil runway expansion they are now in the middle of. Not sure why they are doing it. 80% of their flights are commuter flights with turboprops and regional jets, and the current runways could handle up to 757' s already
First of all, I am not anti-passenger rail. Neither are Paul M, Phoebe Vet or oltmannd, to name a few. On the contrary, I favor the expansion of passenger rail into new corridor services, which by definition, are 300-500 miles - elapsed time <5 hours - in length, with speed increasing to HrSR and HSR levels.
However, long distance routes, like the Coast Starlight, CZ, EB, etc. are untenable and should be phased out. You point out that they generate considerable revenue, at least on certain routes, which is quite true. But you overlook the operating expense side, so that those trains end up being huge money losers. That loss detracts from other Amtrak routes and given Amtrak's limited budget (which may well decrease, at best), prevents expansion of service on the shorter routes. The equipment costs for Superliners, especially sleepers, would be better spent on modern coaches that can be intensively used in fast, frequent corridor services.
It is also a futile argument to keep pointing out how much subsidy air travel (in all forms, including private and corporate, BTW) gets. The "he's getting a puppy, how about me?" argument doesn't work with children and it hasn't worked in the 40 year history of Amtrak.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
oltmannd mdw: It depends on your definition of subsidy and what is "wastefull" Check out the writings of Andrew Selden of the UPRA. I have seen from Caltrans statistics that the supposedly "lowly" , useless Coast Starlight (one train a day each direction long distance train--about 40, 000 passengers per month) generates nearly as much fare revenue per month as the Pacific Surfliners--multiple daily trains, about 250,000 monthly passengers. So to Sam1 and others who are so cocksure of their info, which train generates more fare revenue per passenger--the Coast Starlight by a wide margin Revenue alone is a meaningless number. You have to take revenue and cost together and normalize by the unit of production. What is the net per passenger mile? The "cocksure" info comes directly from Amtrak's monthly reports published on their web site. As Casey Stengel said, "You could look it up."
mdw: It depends on your definition of subsidy and what is "wastefull" Check out the writings of Andrew Selden of the UPRA. I have seen from Caltrans statistics that the supposedly "lowly" , useless Coast Starlight (one train a day each direction long distance train--about 40, 000 passengers per month) generates nearly as much fare revenue per month as the Pacific Surfliners--multiple daily trains, about 250,000 monthly passengers. So to Sam1 and others who are so cocksure of their info, which train generates more fare revenue per passenger--the Coast Starlight by a wide margin
Andrew Selden has an interesting hypothesis regarding Amtrak long-distance trains. It is what I call the bus-on-steel-wheels.
Amtrak financials are all pooled and then allocated to the different services (such as "Empire Builder" or "Acela" or "Auto Train" and so on). There is almost no data on what individual services are doing. For example, one of the dead horses I keep beating on is to get a breakout of fuel consumption by the different services as a way of supporting (or perhaps not) that increased train service, especially on "corridors" would be fuel saving.
The Selden/URPA view is that the long distance trains pay some nominal fee to use the tracks, but beyond that you are running a "bus on steel wheels" (actually my words of interpretation), and in the opinion of URPA, the LD trains are pretty much covering their above-the-rails costs. This is especially true of a long-distance train that runs pretty much day and night with some layover at the endpoints, compared with, say, a Hiawatha consist that runs at most 12 hours/day or so. The claim is that is what is expensive is running a railroad, that is the tracks, and on the NEC Amtrak is indeed a railroad, and the passenger trains they run will never cover those expenses. Not only that, URPA is claiming that the high NEC expenses are "spread over the entire network" through Amtrak's accounting system.
I used to believe URPA after reading their Web site. Even Trains Magazine took up the cause of the LD trains not being the money pits people thing, but Sam1, our local vigorous defender of accounting practices would have none of what URPA is claiming, and I have swung over to the URPA-skeptic side because it seems the URPA narrative is heavy on story and thin on particular numbers. I once talked to some local advocacy people who know of Selden, and the explanation is that Selden is a kind of passenger-train Bob Woodward, with "connections to Amtrak headquarters where he gets his numbers, which he cannot divulge in order to protect sources."
So why isn't URPA right, why isn't operating the Empire Builder like running a stainless steel bus. One of the insights is the dreaded Inspector General Report that wanted to pull the baggage, dining, lounge, and sleeper cars off the LD trains and those numbers. Besides the high crew costs of the LD trains for their on-board personnel (Lamars-Greyhound stops at Hardy's -- Amtrak has to staff dining cars over long away-from-home runs), I noticed that maintenance costs of train cars runs into a lot of money.
Part of this is that you get what you pay for. As intercity buses average 20 passengers/bus, operated by a single onboard employee, the driver, who also serves as baggage handler, conductor, and whatever else, Amtrak would have to average 40 passengers/train-car-in-the-consist, what with baggage-diner-lounge-sleepers-crew dorm they don't. In other words, all of the "room to get up and walk around" along with "chat with strangers in the lounge car" comes at a cost of needing to run a lot of rolling stock per revenue passenger mile, and rolling stock costs money to operate, whether it has seats in it or not.
The other part is that maybe trains, the way Amtrak or maybe others operate them, cost a lot of money to purchase, maintain, and operate. We got into that dust-up where the multi-thousands in Amtrak maintenance were compared with the single-thousand at NS maintenance, and the anguished cries of "you cannot compare a passenger operation to one only maintaining a fleet of freight locos." I did a back-of-the-envelope comparison of maintenance hours per seat mile of airlines and that of Amtrak based on aggregates of employment, and it seemed, counter to intuition, that on a seat-mile basis, a Superliner requires multiples of the maintenance of a jet.
There is something expensive about Amtrak, and all of the talk about Amtrak being "civilized travel" or "people who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing" doesn't change it. I would like to know what is it about trains that costs so much.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
I'm one of those who rides because I love trains. And nostalgia too,My parents worked for Frisco, that's how they met and we traveled all over the US on Dad's pass. So when I ride a train, I think of my many trips with them and all the wonderful memories come flooding back.
Airlines today are such a hassle, unless you have to get somewhere in a hurry, I'd rather take a train.
Sleepers are more expensive, but for long trips, I would prefer them to coach. Spent many long trips on coaches with my parents and with people milling around all night, noises and many stops, we never had a good night's sleep. But it was free, so what the heck. And in those days, smoking was allowed on the trains, so there was a steady stream of people going back & forth from the men's and ladies lounge areas for their smokes.
I''ve ridden the Builder, Coast Starlight and Southwest Chief and have enjoyed every one of the trips. Money is the only thing that prevents me from taking more train trips.
Paul: Great post, although not sure about the comparison of Seiden to Bob Woodward, whom I know.
Long distance Amtrak is great. I have travelled across the country 3x. Also took Amtrak from Seattle in L.A and from NC to Boston. Each trip has been fantastic. As for flying I can't stand it nowadays and avoid the airlines as much as possible. Shame, as I used to enjoy flying almost as much as train travel.
I always felt that long distance, overnight Amtrak was no worse than in Europe.
I ride Amtrak anytime I can. It is far more comfortable than air travel. I am not wealthy but It is a great way to get to see my folks and the country. The Empire Builder's route is a wonder in all seasons. I just wish I had more time off. I would love to do a week going from Chicago, Washington, to Boston and home.
Ray Watters,Chicago, IL.
It was half way through October 2009 when my wife decided she wanted to see USA. I was reluctant so said I want a real train ride. Mid November we took off from Sydney in overnight (plus a bit) cattle class international air connecting at LA with domestic US air to JFK. Then I got my train rides with Amtrak. Penn to DC (coach morning) then to Chicago (roomette overnight) followed by two nights double bedroom to SanFrancisco and coach to LA (well almost, a bus for the last bit) The sleeping car, or at least the dining car gave us the oportunity to meet a new bunch of real Americans at every meal, a highlight of our visit to your country. As we took off from SF in our next overnight cattle car my other half was asking me what other train runs were available and when we could go again. Start selling just a little harder, as my wife is, and you just might get more of us foreigners to visit your country.
I will not accept your brush off of the futility of pointing out the subsidies air and roads get. That is exactly the primary point of all of this. When a vast infrastructure has been created that massively skews the demand curve of transportation to two forms of travel, it has to be pointed out. You cant say it doesn't matter federal spending on roads and airports, etc. completely stomped the 2010 equivalent of $800 million of private money invested by the private railroads from 1945 to 1955 in new and improved passenger services. The railroads were massively out spent, beaten financially and pounded into the ground. Also, you never answered my comments on the airports. What else can you call it but subsidy? Oh, wait, I'm sorry, I'm not supposed to bring that up....it doesn't matter.
Though what you said is largely true, that argument does nothing to advance the objective. It has been used over and over for the 40 years of Amtrak and has gotten us where we are now. The defintion of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over in futility and expecting the next time you will have success.
mdw I will not accept your brush off of the futility of pointing out the subsidies air and roads get. That is exactly the primary point of all of this. When a vast infrastructure has been created that massively skews the demand curve of transportation to two forms of travel, it has to be pointed out. You cant say it doesn't matter federal spending on roads and airports, etc. completely stomped the 2010 equivalent of $800 million of private money invested by the private railroads from 1945 to 1955 in new and improved passenger services. The railroads were massively out spent, beaten financially and pounded into the ground. Also, you never answered my comments on the airports. What else can you call it but subsidy? Oh, wait, I'm sorry, I'm not supposed to bring that up....it doesn't matter.
I would argue that the government help people get what they wanted during that era. A Suburban/automobile centric lifestyle. Isn't that what representative democracy is supposed to do?
But, even if you disagree, that is all history. The question now, is "now what"? What do we spend?Where do we spend it? How does it get spent? And, most importantly, what do we get for what we spend.
There is plenty of evidence that owning is operating passenger trains is VERY expensive compared to alternatives - at least how we are doing it these days. I would argue that, even so, there are places where it makes sense. The NEC being the prime example. And, that it likely makes sense to target passenger train to leverage (I hate this use of that word...just too dim-witted to come up with a better one) those existing service to provide expanded routes and services. The new Lynchburg train is a good example. An NEC extension to Norfolk would be another. Improved DC to Richmond, another. Integrating the Piedmonts into NEC schedule, yet another.
Historical "fairness" is fun to study, but useless going forward.
But Don, your saying that rail passenger service is "VERY expensive" is not conclusive nor neccessarily accurate. Initial cost maybe, but in terms of capacity, fuel usage, and environmental emissions, it often is much less expensive. I agree, rail passenger service does not fit in all cases but it cannot be declared "VERY expensive" out of hand. One of the problems is that there is no one uniform formula which attrributes all and total costs of any one or all system of trainsportation. Your statement is true if we were to consider a 50 mile route for one person to ride each way each day is one cost but for 50,000 per day the costs are quite different. We also have to stop using the term expense and use cost, return, and cost effectiveness.
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 Initial cost maybe, but in terms of capacity, fuel usage, and environmental emissions, it often is much less expensive. We also have to stop using the term expense and use cost, return, and cost effectiveness.
Initial cost maybe, but in terms of capacity, fuel usage, and environmental emissions, it often is much less expensive.
We also have to stop using the term expense and use cost, return, and cost effectiveness.
Oh yeah? Prove it! How much fuel does the Pacific Surfliner use?
What I am saying is that we keep coming back to fuel usage and by extension environmental emissions, which are proportional to fuel used, as the front-and-center reason to have passenger trains, and we cannot even document that.
As to the call to do away with the term "cost effectiveness", I gotta try that line on my wife some day when I want to buy a fancier car than what our budget permits.
Seriously now, if trains were indeed more cost effective in terms of the amount of trains we could have per unit of subsidy dollar, we would have a lot more trains. We would subsidize trains, people would ride them and find out how great they are, this would add to the political support and more subsidy would get appropriated, and even more people would ride and find out how great they are.
Criticize this as FDR's famous tax-and-spend, elect-and-elect formula, but this government spending leveraged growth effect has seemed to work for every other government program -- military, education, health care, disability, poverty, and unemployment protections. Such leveraged growth in spending (a spending program is popular, which leads to more spending) is so effective that some are worried whether we have maxed out the national credit card as it were.
The funny thing is that leveraged growth has not occurred with passenger trains. Some people here look enviously at the leveraged growth in the military budget as money that ought to go for trains, ignoring education, health care, and the social safety-net income programs. No, it isn't a grand conspiracy of the Cato Institute, the Concrete and Asphalt Lobby, and people who bitterly cling to the steering wheel of their beloved car. The advocacy community needs to look at the expense side to trains rather than blaming it all on other people.
henry6 But Don, your saying that rail passenger service is "VERY expensive" is not conclusive nor neccessarily accurate. Initial cost maybe, but in terms of capacity, fuel usage, and environmental emissions, it often is much less expensive. I agree, rail passenger service does not fit in all cases but it cannot be declared "VERY expensive" out of hand. One of the problems is that there is no one uniform formula which attrributes all and total costs of any one or all system of trainsportation. Your statement is true if we were to consider a 50 mile route for one person to ride each way each day is one cost but for 50,000 per day the costs are quite different. We also have to stop using the term expense and use cost, return, and cost effectiveness.
It is VERY expensive. Lots of things are expensive. I'm not talking productive (cost per unit of production) but just plain expensive. $4-6M for a locomotive? $2M per passenger car? $2B for a Tampa to Orlando HSR route? That's a lot of money! You have to generate all kinds of benefits to balance these costs. You might justify a $6M locomotive if you pull 1000 seats 1000 miles a day with it, but what if you could do it with a $2M locomotive? You could justify more AND do more.
Paul has asked and pondered why it is so expensive many times. My hunch is that is doesn't have to be. The costs are partly a function of the disfunctional way we are going about these things.
So, what's a $6M passenger locomotive got that a $2M freight locomotive doesn't? (other than a larger price tag?) How about a rebuilt GP40-2 for $1M?
Why does it seem nobody is interested in reducing the life cycle of the projects?
Why did they just write specs for new 1950's style standard passenger cars? Standard design help reduce costs, sure, but why was that then end of it? Why not try to help the "benefits" side of things along a bit? How about some light weight, fuel efficient designs?
The whole process of doing passenger rail projects is so "siloed" and bureaucratic it's a wonder anything ever gets done.
henry6 We also have to stop using the term expense and use cost, return, and cost effectiveness.
Perhaps we should use these terms more precisely. Costs would more likely refer to asset cost basis, such as upgrades of RoW, new coaches, engines, trainsets, signaling equipment and electrification. When we talk about expenses, we are likely referring to operating expenses, such as salaries and wages, fuel, supplies.
Paul, neither your nor I can prove anything because there is no single complete and comprehensive formula to use to comparing. Where do you start the comparison? From the cost of purchasing, financing, insuring, licensing, maintaining, housing, and wear and tear on a private automobile plus cost of road building (including land use), policing and law enforcement, fuel, fuel efficiencies, emmissions, clean up, road mainenance, parking facilities (either on street spaces or special garages), and the physical and mental wear and tear on the driver could all be considered in the cost of driving an automobile. Likewise the cost of land, roadway, labor, equipment, fuel, fuel efficiencies, policing, maintenance of roadway and equipment, financing, insurance, etc. for bus, truck, or train have to be comparing apples to apples and not comparing an apple to an orange. You can't say unequivocally that one system of transportation is better than another because they aren't. Each has an inherent plus quality offsetting all others at a given time while having a minus quality offsetting all others at a given time. You cannot out of hand dismiss one over the other or say one is more expensive or more efficient because there are circumstances in which any one of them is cheaper or better or whatever over the other and thus also worse than the other. We have no definitions by which to compare and decide. But that does not mean we ignore one over the other. The truth is both to forget doing anything because it costs money or to put money into a sound and broadly based system utilizing the best of each. Which one do you think costs more?
Forgetting for one moment the high costs of building decent a infrastructure for HSR or HrSR, you have the unavoidable fact of very high operating expenses with Amtrak currently and likely whoever runs an improved passenger service in the future. If you attempted to cover the OE's with farebox revenues, you'd never get many riders. Hence subsidies which unlike the highway and air ones, are not easily hidden. Result: taxpayer "outrage" at huge subsidies for Amtrak or any other operator. The biggest barrier to a modern HSR system is not the infrastructure, as costly as that is. It is the high operating expenses, much of which is wages and salaries of a terribly inefficient operation. Don Oltmann has pointed out the high costs of the Beechwood shops as one example previously. This is an area that needs investigation/reform, if any progress is to be made, not rehashing ad nauseam the tired arguments about road and air subsidies, external costs and expenses (environment), fuel savings, etc..
The real problem HSR and passenger rail and this and everyother discussion has is that we (yes, me, too!) suffer from referencing everything to the status quo, to the current model, to the history that has brought us to today. What I keep talking about is that we have to wipe the slate of mind clean of anythng and everything that refers to what exists and how it exists and start thinking from scratch. Don't dwell on what was or what is but think in terms of what has to be and what can be and how that all can be achieved. Politics, union agreements, the price of steel or cement, electricity and gas, all have to be ignored and planning and building in a present blank toward a future of what is needed to move people and goods around the nation or its regions.
henry6 Paul, neither your nor I can prove anything because there is no single complete and comprehensive formula to use to comparing.
Paul, neither your nor I can prove anything because there is no single complete and comprehensive formula to use to comparing.
I can indeed prove some things.
A while back there was a discussion about Beech Grove having, what was it, some 4000 employees to give Amtrak's fleet maintained and how Norfolk Southern had some 1000 employees to run their central maintenance facility.
Yeah, yeah, I know apples and oranges comparisons, and I am sure the 4000 maintenance workers employed by Amtrak are good people, who work hard for their money, and are upstanding people all around. What I did at the time was make some estimate of the maintenance worker-hours per passenger-mile on Amtrak and compare it with the maintenance hours per passenger mile that someone was quoting for one of the major airlines. It came out that the Amtrak maintenance hours required to produce a passenger-mile by rail was multiples of the maintenance hours to produce a passenger-mile by air.
I don't have the numbers handy, but if someone doubts me, I could search through the archives on this Web site to find that old thread.
But we are not talking some percent difference, we are talking about the train being multiples more expensive to keep going than an airliner. How can that be? Aren't trains these very heavy and rugged things with simple mechanicals and aren't airplanes this very lighweight and fragile things with very complicated mechanical and electrical systems?
For one thing, airplanes move 5-10 times faster than planes. Airlines get many more passenger miles out of each airline seat-hour. This saves on crew costs, and apparently this saves on maintenance costs pro-rated per passenger mile, even though an airliner may be more expensive to purchase and more expensive to maintain than a railroad coach with the same number of seats.
For another thing, it may go back to Don's 6-million dollar passenger locos and 2-million dollar coaches (probably more like 3-million). Because the equipment costs that amount of money, Amtrak spends so much in maintenance rather than junking their old stuff and buying replacements.
Another perspective is that maybe the shock and vibration environment of steel rolling on steel is such that there is a lot of wear-and-tear on some heavy structures (mainly trucks?) that require expensive overhaul?
Someone is going to get back to me and say "That is only maintenance, what about emissions, what about fuel, what about land use?" I don't know how to quantify those other things (one could quantify fuel if more data were available). But maintenance is something I can quantify. If the passenger train mode takes multiples in maintenance of the air mode, and we are talking about an operating expense and not a capital charge (OK, Sam1, don't get on my case that I am not considering capital and its interest and amortization as a recurring charge), the passenger train has some kind of trouble competing.
The whole advocacy situation stems from the situation that trains are just chock full of inherent goodness that the fact that trains are expensive just cannot be right, someone just isn't adding up the number right or financial numbers are the wrong metric or something. My position is that if half the energy spent on a blanket defense of trains were put into understanding trains, where they can compete and where they cannot, into understanding why we are stuck on a .1 percent share of passenger miles and why we cannot get a government-leveraged subsidy expansion in service instead of blaming it "on the nay-sayers and Concrete Lobby", we would be further along.
henry6 Politics, union agreements, the price of steel or cement, electricity and gas, all have to be ignored and planning and building in a present blank toward a future of what is needed to move people and goods around the nation or its regions.
Politics, union agreements, the price of steel or cement, electricity and gas, all have to be ignored and planning and building in a present blank toward a future of what is needed to move people and goods around the nation or its regions.
henry: And just how would anyone do that? Ignoring history and present reality is not going to move anything. if that is all we can do, then we should just give up because that can only be used to create some fantasy land stories, not a viable passenger rail transportation system. I believe it can be done, but only with some hard-nosed analysis, which includes the sort of questions that Paul asks [sorry, Paul, I thought the maintenance issue had been raised by Don].
I also wonder why passenger trains cost so much money. I look to the cruise ship industry that’s in the passenger hauling business and yet makes a profit. The differences are stark. Cruise ships are built in foreign shipyards, maintained offshore, and staffed with foreign nationals. Perhaps if Amtrak trains were built in China, maintained in Mexico and staffed with Filipino nationals, subsidies would not be needed.
My point is that we don't have to accept what is nor what was but have to think outside the box as the saying goes. We've got to stop thinking that rail is only private enterprise or that highway is only public and look at what is the most practical in a given situation. Can we ignore everything? NO! But we have to do our best to do so and not do something or accept something because that is the way it always has been.
In any case, the original question of this thread was who rides Amtrak long distance. The answer seems to be not many. Sure, some ride for fun, some because they hate flying, can't drive, etc. No one seems to be using those trains as regular customers the way we use the air transport system. The operating expenses for long distance service are very, very high. In the January Amtrak report we see that operating expenses for the long distance routes carrying 15.2% of passengers and generating 22.8% of revenue, also result in 91.5% of the loss, which must be subsidized by Amtrak's appropriations. To me (and probably most of the public) that is a waste. There are better ways to use what funding Amtrak has.
I have ridden long-distance for a number of reasons as mentioned. Nostalgia-because I took a lot of train trips with my parents on Dad's Frisco pass. Seeing the country-there is no better way to view the scenery than from a train window. My motto about flying is: If you've seen one cloud, you've seen them all, except during a storm.
It's also relaxing and you get to meet many nice people along the way.
My own personal long-distance trips have been on the Empire Builder from Chicago to Portland. That was a dream trip that I'd always wanted to take. From Portland, I took the Coast Starlight to San Fran, where I met up with a friend who had flown out to meet me. We flew back together.
Then we did Southwest Chief from Chicago to Williams, AZ, took GCR to the Grand Canyon and back, pulled by steam engine #4960, which was a thrill of its own. My parents and I had taken many excursion trips pulled by her when she was owned by CB&Q. It was like seeing an old friend again.
I've taken a number of short trips by Amtrak to Kansas City and Chicago from St. Louis and I'd like to take more of the long-distance trips when I get a chance. I've always taken the deluxe bedroom, but I'd be willing to try a roomette. My parents and I always traveled by coach, of course, as it was for free, but it can be more noisy and you sleep better in a private room.
MY MANTRA: We run a lot of long distance trains but we don't provide long distance services.
schlimm In any case, the original question of this thread was who rides Amtrak long distance. The answer seems to be not many.
In any case, the original question of this thread was who rides Amtrak long distance. The answer seems to be not many.
Oh really? So why do most trains are sold out of their sleeping accommodations a week before departure? Doesn't sound like empty trains to me. Maybe Amtrak needs to provide a bigger ratio of sleeping cars to coach. This would lover the price of the first class, increase revenue and improve efficiency. But I bet Amtrak doesn't have spare sleeping cars just laying around. But in any case, Amtrak for the past couple of years demonstrated increased ridership on long distance trains so the point is moot. Airline industry has been trying to kill of competition for a long time now, but Amtrak just keeps on rolling. Good for them. I love LD trains.
Facts (from Amtrak, Oct. 2010--Jan. 2011):
Ridership Revenue Costs
NEC = 3,546,520 = 36.5%; $332,200,000 = 48.8%; $259,000,000 = 30.4%
Corridors = 4,698,898 = 48.3%; $188,500,000 = 27.6%; $247,700,000 = 29.1%
Long Distance = 1,467,520 = 15.2%; $160,700,000 = 23.6%; $346,300,000 = 40.5%
So while long distance routes contribute only 15% of the ridership, it accounts for 40% of the costs. You may love LD trains, as did I prior to Amtrak, but they are a huge drain on Amtrak's limited financial resources. Sensibly, the net savings could be much better used in developing and/or expanding short corridor services and the NEC.
While I don't have the time right now to check on the summer numbers, I notice that the summary numbers you cite are for late fall/early winter. I certainly would think that relative LD revenues would probably be much higher during the summer months. To be fair, shouldn't you use annual numbers to make your argument?
You also do not consider the negative impact that loss of LD service might have on the NEC & Corridor revenues, since it would seem likely that at least some of the LD passengers feed into the NEC & Corridors.
Finally, I would point out that businesses (if Amtrak were to try to act like one) actually have three ways of dealing with a losing line:
(1) drop it (as you are suggesting);
(2) treat it as a loss leader -- contributing some overall benefit to the total enterprise, even though it loses money on a stand-alone basis (as Amtrak appears to be thinking); or
(3) improve the service to the point that increased patronage makes it a profit center (as Amtrak has appears to have done with the Acelas, but that seems to be beyond their current thinkng for the LD services).
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