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Amtrak's February 2010 financials, which are an important part of the picture, don't look so good.  The FY2010 net loss through February 2010 was $580.7 million compared to $491.7 million for the same period last year.  Part of the ridership increase in the NEC can be attributed to pricing incentives, i.e. year to year ridership increased 2.3 per cent whilst revenues declined .7 per cent.   The State Supported and Other Short Distance Corridor Trains (SDCT) saw the increase in revenues outpace the increase in ridership, but the long distance trains increase in ridership was offset by a decline in revenues, again indicating that pricing incentives, as well as differentiated space demands, contributed to the increase in ridership.   The NEC turned in a FY10 YTD loss of 1.5 cents per passenger mile compared to a contribution of 3.7 cents for the corresponding FY09 period.  The loss for the SDCT increased from 14.3 cents to 14.9 cents per passenger mile, whilst the loss for the long distance trains increased from 23.4 cents to 25.7 cents for the same metric.  These losses are before the allocation of depreciation and interest, which would make the numbers look even worse. The Acela contributed 12.1 cents per passenger mile before depreciation and interest, but the other NEC trains caused the corridor to turn in a negative operating performance.  Of the SDCT trains, only the Lynchburg and Piedmont trains covered their operating costs.  None of the long distance trains covered their operating expenses.  The Sunset Limited continued to show the biggest loss per passenger mile of the long distance trains (59.2 cents compared to 60.1 cents in FY09).  Amtrak's financial performance is deteriorating, due in part to the recession, as well as a series of internal financial drivers.  In FY09 its federal and state subsidies averaged $64.87 per passenger compared to $48.50 in FY08, due in large part to the additional monies received from AARA.  The average subsidies per passenger mile increased from 22.61 cents per passenger mile to 29.88 cents. Interestingly, at least to accounting and financial persons, Amtrak is not allocating depreciation and interest to any of its routes.  It states that to do so would distort the results of certain routes because of lease back arrangements for some of the equipment.  It is, however, developing a capital allocation method.  When the method is implemented, it will probably increase the losses per passenger mile.  It will be very interesting to see the impact of the allocation model on the NEC trains, especially the Acela.  The Acela has covered its operating costs by a comfortable margin for the past three years, but I suspect that the allocation of the NEC capital costs to its operation will show a different picture.
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