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Amtrak's Northeast Corridor Long Term Trends

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[quote user="V.Payne"] "Don Phillips, Fred Frailey, etc. have claimed directly or indirectly that Amtrak distorts its financial results because of inappropriate cost allocation formulas. When challenged, however, none of them offered any solid evidence that Amtrak is materially misstating its financial results." The people that made this argument have also been inside Amtrak such as <a href="http://www.railpac.org/2014/01/31/enewsletter-for-january-27-2014/">Claytor</a> and a early NRPC board member Joseph V. <a href="http://www.unitedrail.org/1984/06/04/highcost/">McDonald</a>. There have also been multiple cost allocation schemes, both RPS with its <a href="http://www.railpac.org/2005/07/01/amtrak-food-fight/">errors</a>, the new APT with its <a href="http://www.railpac.org/2013/04/26/enewsletter-for-april-22-2013/">estimation</a> and others such as the Penn Central allocation formulas from the early 1970's. Nothing in the links is authoritative, but it isn't nothing at all. [/quote] When was Claytor associated with Amtrak?  When was McDonald associated with Amtrak?  What are the current accounting period errors?  Please point them out! Numbers please!  Had I presented the executives and senior managers of the Fortune 250 corporation that I worked for with the unsupported, aforementioned historical data statements, I would have been fired.   I wrote to Phillips and Frailey, via snail mail to emphasize the seriousness of my request, asking them to support their implications that Amtrak's cost allocation system is deeply flawed. The system for the current period; not the system that was in place at some time in the past! Phillips had implied that he had a contact in Minnesota who could verify that Amtrak's cost allocations were flawed. I am still waiting for a reply.  And I will be waiting for a very long time, I suspect, because he and his ghost contact in Minnesota don't have access to Amtrak's books. Frailey claimed that Amtrak's Guest Rewards Program paid dividends for the company.  When I asked him for hard numbers, he at least had the decency to admit that he did not have any numbers or any special access to the Guest Rewards Program.  I have submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to Amtrak's IG regarding a number  of Amtrak's accounting practices, including how it accounts for and allocates depreciation.  Instead of speculating about what might be, especially based on ancient history, I suggest that you do the same thing.
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