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Amtrak's Northeast Corridor Long Term Trends

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[quote user="V.Payne"] Mike, sorry for misspelling the last name. I was in government, at a state DOT, until this month and have always really appreciated the people who actually work to make the system function for what is often poor pay. As a engineer I refer to textbooks whose first printing may have been 80 years ago. Sometimes, those books are a lot better at providing context to a problem as they trace the development of thought on a question. The links provide a good synopsis of the development of problems during the history of NRPC cost accounting. IIRC there have been three route level accounting methods used in the last ten years, and the current APT method that produces only Total Costs, assigning all overhead to routes, has the least application to whether a route should be continued or not. Consider this summary from NPRC's annual report right after the Claytor years, note the amounts in the Corporate column that are looking for a revenue center to be assigned toward. In particular note the cash loss in the Intercity column. I think this was the beginning of the new equipment orders, hence the jump. <a href="http://i1346.photobucket.com/albums/p698/VPayne1/1996-Chart_zpsdfca791b.gif"><img src="http://i1346.photobucket.com/albums/p698/VPayne1/1996-Chart_zpsdfca791b.gif" alt=" " border="0" /></a> As to authoritativeness of references, this is a Discussion Board. I don't think I can get fired for under-performing here:) [/quote] You are correct.  You cannot get fired from this discussion board.  But relying on very old data, which may not be relevant, destroys any credibility, although I get the impression that you don;t care. You don't have any access to Amtrak's current accounting methodologies; yet you imply that the numbers that were cobbled together decades ago are relevant to your argument. Good luck with that!
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