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In FY09 salaries, wages, and benefits accounted for 72 per cent of Amtrak's revenues and 48 per cent (rounded) of its expenses for continuing operations before extraordinary items.  A sample comparative analysis shows that the percentages for American Airlines were 34 and 32; Southwest Airlines 34 and 34; United Airlines 23 and 23; Delta Airlines 24 and 24; and Greyhound Lines 41 and 42.  To fully understand the numbers one would have to drill into all of the financial statements, put the key numbers in a spreadsheet, run a variety of financial analytic tools, and perform a cross industry analysis.  Needless to say, this would be a time consuming effort. Amtrak has a legacy pension plan as does American Airlines and Greyhound.  On the other hand, Southwest Airlines, Delta Airlines, and United Airlines never had a defined benefit plan or were able to throw it off in bankruptcy proceedings.  It would take a considerable amount of time just to analyze the pension plan costs. Outside of the NEC, as well as the California and Chicago corridors, Amtrak is hobbled by high fixed costs per unit of service, i.e. only one or two trains per day, with many of the infrastructure facilities staffed at least 8 to 10 hours per day.  For example, the El Paso Station has at least five Amtrak employees or contract employees for six trains a week.  Moreover, the last time I was in the station, which was last year, they had at least three if not more computers. Whether Amtrak employees are paid on a par with other transport employees performing similar functions would require an exhaustive job survey.  My employer, which was a Fortune 250 energy company, had two or three full time employees in HR whose sole responsibility was to perform these surveys.  I say that to say this:  it would take a considerable effort to determine if Amtrak's employees are overpaid or under paid.  A similar study would be required to determine how effective they are managed and how efficiently they perform their assigned tasks.
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