Amtrak FY 2014 - Nov 2013 performance

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Part  "A"

The report had many revelations and some report omissions which will be posted in parts.  A big difference from 2013  vs  2012 is that the Thanksgiving holiday spanned two months which may have effected ridership and revenue. . A better insight will be December's report with the 1st quarter included.  The MNRR high speed derailment DEC 1st will affect Dec's ridership slightly. 

Amtrak did not list the rolling stock availably.  That along with the revelation that Capital expenses for car & locos  overhauls were down over $6M  from budget and NOV 2012.  ( Not Good ).  The only CAPEX increase listed were Cross ties up $10M for 55,000 ties and new track of ten miles.  These may be Michigan work but not delineated. 

Net loss in Nov 2013 $60M 2 months total $125M down $67M from 2012.  Almost all losses from LD.

LINK

 

http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?c=Page&pagename=am%2FLayout&cid=1241245669222

Amtrak-Monthly-Performance-Report-November-2013

 

 

Continued in part  "B". 

[erikem]

November 2014 report?? Sounds like sci-fi to me. 

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Part "B"

Erikem  -  Thanks I was only thinking about the FY and understand the confusion it could have caused  - Edited to clarify.

 

The ridership is also effected by the Thanksgiving going over 2 months.   Total # of riders were 2.55M up 49K from 2012 but the total Revenue Passenger Miles (RPMs) were down 14 M less.  Also available seat miles were less.  Average load factor was also down to 48.7% down 1.8%  which cannot all be attributed to holiday differences.

Interestingly the available % of equipment is missing from the report.  Revenue available seat miles are also missing (RASMs). A very mixed bag which SAM1 will like looking at. Ridership and revenue missing from this part of report.

Acela and Regional ridership is show as up.

More later part "C" 

 

[schlimm]

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A very mixed bag which SAM1 will like looking at. Ridership and revenue missing from this part of report.

Acela and Regional ridership is show as up.

More later part "C" 

Sam1 will hopefully return with some insights.  If Acela and regional ridership are up, revenue passenger miles down could be explained by the continuing decline of LD services?

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schlimm

  If Acela and regional ridership are up, revenue passenger miles down could be explained by the continuing decline of LD services?

Very difficult to answer but here is wild guess. 

1.  First the ridership figures for this FY are actual numbers instead of the estimated that occurred in previous years because multi ride tickets were estimated at the maximum number of times a multi ride could be used.

2.  All three groups of travel show reduction in revenue which might indicate that riders are going shorter distances ?  The SD routes show the most decrease of revenue vs ridership. 

3.  The combined NEC showed riders up 11.2% but revenue only up 8.7%

4. LD riders dn 8.0% Revenue down 7.6%

5. SD which ar 5 or 6 times riders of LD down 1.7% and revenue Down 2.6 %.  The only SD route to show significant increase was NYP -- Albany at 15%

6.  All LD riders down but revenue down more. So are we to suspect that the riders went shorter distances in all 3 groups ?

 

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Part  "C"

Part  "C"

The above post will be part of part "C"

The Acela and regional ridership is interesting with higher ridership than revenue certainly indicates average shorter rides on the NEC.   Still loads must be up but again Amtrak will not provide specific figures fr each rain or even routes

NYP --  Albany was up a whopping 25% and revenue 25% as well.  Adirondack up as well.  Lynchburg stayed same.  Some confusion as WASH - Richmond is now broken out this year but not last.  Combined RVR, RVM, Norfolk, NPN was up from 53K to 57K with revenue about the same percentage.  Norfolk seems to be bleeding NPN.

One other big looser are the NC DOT trains as both the Carolinian and Piedmonts down significantly.

LD also down about 8% and revenue down about 6%.

Part "D" later   

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Part  "D"

The capital spending for loco and passenger cars was severely restricted in NOVEMBER.  As well for some reason Amtrak did not post their availability which may or may not be an indication of the very high loco failure during these past few weeks.

Mechanical report stated 18 Amfleets released from Bear up from planned 12 for month.  But Superliners from Beech Grove were 38 planned but only 27 out  ( 2 month period ).

Concluded in part "E"

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One other big looser are the NC DOT trains as both the Carolinian and Piedmonts down significantly.

Any idea why?  i thought the NC DOT services were so successful.   Could those incidents with train equipment failures stranding passengers for hours 1-2 miles from the next station have scared folks away?

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PART   "E"

 

schlimm

Any idea why?  i thought the NC DOT services were so successful.  

NO idea only pure speculation maybe the reallocation of WASH - Richmond ?  Piedmont ???.

Delays:  Are measured by number of minutes delays per 10,000 train miles

CSX had the worse over all other major RRs by almost 25 %.  All the others were at about 900 minutes / 10K.

BNSF's worse were of course the Empire Builder,  NS's worse were the Michigan trains The others no one route stood out.

For all trains where each agency is measured the Sun Rail double tracking construction had all three trains ( Star, Meteor, Auto Train )  delayed much more than any other agency by almost 300%.  

The best on time end to end was the Ethan Allen with VTR the best on time RR in nation.  BBrRR was in middle of the pack

The all station on times are not detailed enough to know what locations are suffering.

This concludes report.

 

[dmikee]

Who prepares these funny reports? Does Amtrak even have a PR department?

It is a shame to see such minimal advertising effort and more reductions in service and poorer maintenance.  Next thing you know we will just have mixed freights with a drover caboose.