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[quote user="ComradeTaco"] "The Northeast Corridor routes carried more than half of the railroad's 25 million passengers in fiscal year 2004, generating more than $600 million in ticket revenue. If this excerpt from the Washington Post is correct, than the NEC route,is,infact,making a profit.[/quote] For FY08 the NEC had an operating profit of $369 million.  But operating profits are only part of the story and do not take into consideration the other charges, which in Amtrak's case consist of interest, depreciation, federal and state capital payment adjustments, and discontinued operations.  The aforementioned charges allocated to the NEC are not set forth in the documents that Amtrak makes public.  Moreover, although I have asked Amtrak for the charges allocated to its three categories of train operations (NEC, State Supported and Other Short Distance Trains, and Long Distance Trains), they have not responded.  Most of the interest and depreciation is driven by the capital investments in railway equipment and right-of-way infrastructure.  The NEC, which is owned mostly by Amtrak, represents the railroad's biggest outlay for capital investment and, thus, accounts for the largest portion of the interest and depreciation.  Also, the newest equipment runs in the NEC, for the most part, and it attracts the highest per unit allocation of interest and depreciation.  Most of the state supported and long distance equipment attracts interest and depreciation, but this equipment depreciation is relatively small compared to the facilities depreciation attributable to the NEC.  Moreover, inasmuch as Amtrak's trains run over hoist railroads, for the most part, outside of the NEC, any depreciation associated with those facilities is charged to Amtrak through rents and is shown as an operating expense. All this is to say that the NEC wears the bulk of the interest and depreciation.  Assuming that 75 per cent of it is attributable to the NEC, which I believe is a conservative figure, the charges in FY 2008 would have been $445 million, which would have wiped out the operating profit and left the NEC with a $76 million loss.  In addition to these items, Amtrak incurred net costs of $220 million for infrastructure management, ancillary businesses, unallocated system charges, and eliminations.  Assuming 75 per cent of these charges were attributable to the NEC, it would have worn another $165 million in charges, thereby bringing the loss to $241 million.  In FY08 the NEC carried 10,897,852 passengers or 37.9 per cent of the total system load of 28,716,407. For FY08 Amtrak had a net loss of $1,132,778,000 before adjustment for extraordinary items.  After taking these adjustments into consideration, the net loss was $1,049,947,000.
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