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[quote user="schlimm"] As I posted on the other thread, I wonder what the train/mile expenses for the various routes are?  The monthly Amtrak metrics give expenses for each route and passenger/mile or seat/mile contributions, but that takes revenue and ridership into account.  I would like to see a clearer picture of how much more expensive and wasteful most of the long distance routes, as well as some of the short distance and state-supported routes are.  That way, a more realistic determination of where to get the most bang for the buck could be made, instead of diluting funding by continuing to throw funds down a black hole and short-changing the routes that are worthwhile. [/quote] Amtrak's Financial Performance of Routes Report includes the allocation of all costs, except depreciation and interest expense, by route.  It also includes the contribution or loss per passenger mile and seat mile by route.  One can use these numbers to estimate the subsidy a passenger gets on average, for example, from Dallas to Chicago.  However, the subsidy cannot be determined for coach passengers vs. sleeping car passengers.  Independent studies have suggested that the per passenger mile subsidy for sleeping car passengers is greater than the comparable subsidy for coach passengers, although given the cost of sleeping car accommodations, which have reached the price of up-market hotel rooms in major cities, it is hard to see how this is the case today. In FY10 the long distance trains had an operating loss of $575.5 million before depreciation and interest.  The operating loss for the short corridor trains was $231.1 million.  The NEC trains had an operating profit of $51.5 million, thanks to a solid operating profit of $100.6 million for the Acela trains, offset by an operating loss of $48.8 million for the NEC regional trains and $.2 million for NEC Special Trains.   The long distance trains accounted for 76.2% of Amtrak's operating loss, before depreciation and interest, whilst bringing in approximately 25% of revenues.  They carried 15.6% of Amtrak's passengers.  No matter how the numbers are sliced and diced, the long distance trains are the financial albatross around Amtrak's neck.  If Amtrak were operated as a competitive, private enterprise, management would drop the long distance trains, just as it would drop any product line or service line that continually loses money and does not have a reasonable probability of covering its costs. As highlighted in the footnotes, Amtrak does not allocate depreciation by routes.  It claims to do so would be unfair.  It says that it is working on a capital asset allocation model that will correct this cost accounting shortcoming. The long distance trains probably wear very little depreciation and interest cost.  Amtrak depreciates its locomotives, passengers cars, and other rolling stock over a period ranging up to 40 years.  It groups assets for depreciation purposes and applies straight line depreciation to the assets in the group.   Most of the capitalized cost of the long distance equipment has been or is near being fully depreciated, which means that the long distance trains wear a minimum amount, if any, of the locomotive and the passenger car depreciation and interest.   The hoist freight railroads that carry Amtrak's long distance trains bill the company for doing so. Included in the rent (bill) could be a small amount of the depreciation for the plant and equipment that is used to support Amtrak's long distance trains, but I suspect that the amount is rather small. In FY10 Amtrak's depreciation was $593.1 million; interest charges were $135.5 million, offset by interest income of $34.6 million, although the interest income would not be netted against the capitalized interest.  I suspect that most of Amtrak's depreciation is tied up in the NEC, including the Acela equipment, as well as the other properties that Amtrak owns outright.  However, without being able to look at the property accounting records, one cannot know how Amtrak's depreciation and associated interest are allocated.
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