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[quote user="dakotafred"] There's an interesting 3-part L.A. Times interview with Amtrak president Joseph Boardman on today's BLET Web site (<A href="http://www.ble.org/">http://www.ble.org/</A>). The best part of it to me is Boardman's unequivocal support for Amtrak's long-distance trains. "They run full," he says of the likes of the Southwest Chief and the Builder, are needed by rural America and are safe "on my watch."[/quote] Amtrak's long distance trains had an average load factor of approximately 56% through the first nine months of FY10.  This compares to 54% for the comparable FY09 period.  This does not meet my definition of "full". For the first nine month of FY10 the long distance trains generated approximately 22 % of Amtrak's revenues, but they accounted for 73% of the carrier's operating costs before interest and depreciation.  They carried approximately 15% of Amtrak's riders.  They lost approximately 25 cents per passenger mile compared to a loss of 14 cents per passenger mile for the short distance and corridor trains vs. nearly 1 cent per passenger mile profit for the NEC trains.  In FY09 the long distance trains carried approximately 4/10s of one per cent of the intercity passengers traveling on a commercial carrier (airlines, buses, etc.). Most rural areas of the United States are not dependent on long distance trains for commercial carrier services.  One look at Amtrak's long distance train map makes this fact crystal clear.  Moreover, for those areas that have reasonable access to the long distance trains, once a day train services, with many communities served in the middle of the night, is not a serious transport option. If Amtrak were operated like a business, the first thing that the managers would do, after reviewing the dismal numbers associated with the long distance trains, is drop them and use the resources to beef up the high density corridors where passengers trains make sense.
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