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For the fiscal years ended September 30, 2007, as per the 2007 Amtrak Annual Report, the railroad received a total of $1,391,620,000 in federal paid in capital and proceeds from federal and state capital payments.  The subsidy required to cover the attributable operating expenses, including interest and depreciation, as per the Financial Performance of Routes - Strategic Business Line (SBL) Report for September YTD, Page C-1 of the Monthly Performance Report for September 2007, was $1,051,500,000.  The direct loss from operations before interest and depreciation was $501,000,000.  Interest was $95,900,000 and depreciation was $456,600,000.  The $2,000,000 difference is attributable to Federal and State Capital Payments.  Under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, interest and depreciation attributable to an activity are ultimately shown in the statement of income, which reflects the total operations of an entity, including net income or net loss.   It is the underlying activity, i.e. operation of rail passenger trains that drives the expense.  Appropriations and expenditures, as well as amortization of interest and depreciation, are two different accounting phenomena.  Many people who argue for a point of view slant the data to support their position.  They cherry pick the points that support their argument and ignore the ones that don't support it.  People of high integrity recognize both sides of the argument and state them.  If they have a strong argument, showing both sides can be an effective tool for getting buy-in.  If they have a weak argument, they understandably don't want to show the negatives.The information regarding the subsidy for the Sunset Limited can be found in the aforementioned report. Rail passenger advocacy groups, including NARP, probably don't carry much clout in the scheme of things.  Amtrak management makes the major decisions, with the concurrence of the Board of Directors.  Of course, given the nature of the organization, Amtrak management and the board are influenced by the politicians, as well as the freight railroad managements that they must interact with.  Irrespective of how much the rail advocates push on Amtrak, the Coast Starlight will not be resumed north of Sacramento until the UP is ready to have it happen.  As an aside, in 2007 the Crescent was on time at its end points 42.9 per cent of the time.  The end point on-time performance record for the long distance trains was 41.6 per cent.  So it appears that it turned in a pretty average performance.
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