Home
»
Trains Magazine
»
Forums
»
Passenger
»
Long distance routes: Which to continue, which to cut?

Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
Most accountants and financial analysts believe a full year of data should be examined to determine how well an operation is functioning. Looking at just one or two months runs the risk of missing the seasonal peaks and valleys. Amtrak's fiscal year runs from October 1st to September 30th.  Thus, the September 2012 Monthly Report contains data for September and for September 2012 Year to Date, which is for the fiscal year.   It is possible, of course, to take the March or April 2013 Monthly Operating Report and using the reports for the last twelve months pull together year to date data for the last twelve months, but that is getting there the hard way.  Moreover, it may miss any 2013 year end adjustments. Amtrak provides a pretty good picture of its revenues and costs per route.  Missing is the amount of depreciation, interest, and miscellaneous charges per route.  To require the company to report publicly revenues, operating costs, fixed costs, etc. for each segment, i.e. each segment of the Texas Eagle, for example, would be a significant cost burden. This would be especially true for the allocation of depreciation, interest, and miscellaneous charges. It would be an accountant's workfare program, to be sure, but it probably would have little public benefit. If having segment information is important, a person can submit a Freedom of Information Act request to the Office of the Amtrak Inspector General. That might produce segment information to the extent that Amtrak has it. However, as Amtrak explains in its footnotes, which are an integral part of the operating and financial reports, it does not assign depreciation by route.
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag