Amtrak Success Stories

From the above linked press release:

With ridership of 11.7 million, the Northeast Corridor (NEC) had its highest ridership year ever in Fiscal Year 2015, up 0.5 percent from the prior year, led by Northeast Regional service that saw a 1.5 percent increase and set a new ridership record with more than 8.2 million trips.

Given the loss of rides on the NEC after the Philadelphia accident I think this is very significant. Its was a terrible year for the NEC to have such a tragedy occur and hopefully 2016 will be not only safer but also successful as well.

Where are all these individual cities getting their ridership numbers from? Can "the public" get them?

Meanwhile, it is officially time for October's numbers to be released (6wks from Oct 31) and we still don't have September's performance report (10 weeks since Sep 30)

Arlington wrote:Where are all these individual cities getting their ridership numbers from? Can "the public" get them?

Individual city ridership #'s in fact sheets posted on Amtrak website c. Dec. 5.

The September and October 2015 monthly performance reports have finally been posted to the Amtrak Reports and Documents page. Overall, they are not good reports for ridership nor revenue so extended discussions of the reports may not fit into this "success stories" thread.

Actually on the financial side, Amtrak now has 9 profitable routes. (page C-1 of the September Performance Report)
Acela
Northeast Regionals
Washington-Lynchburg
(we've seen those for awhile now)

Washington-Newport News
Washington-Norfolk (break-even)
Washington-Richmond
(those could be anticipated and may include some contributions from the Commonwealth of Virginia)

But now also
Vermonter
Carolinian
and the long-distance Auto Train.

Think of it -- profitable trains on a corridor that now stretches from Rutland, VT to Sanford, FL!

The Vermonter and the Carolinian might both include contributions from their respective states.

However, the Auto Train most certainly does not.

All 4 Virginia trains are basically Ticket Revenue = Total Revenue within what is roughly, the difference that food makes (i.e. they have essentially no need for and do not actually receive "State Support" to show the operating profits they do) This is seen by comparing the FY15 Ticket Revenue numbers on table A3.3 vs the Total Revenue numbers on Table C1

gokeefe wrote:The Vermonter and the Carolinian might both include contributions from their respective states.
However, the Auto Train most certainly does not.

100% Correct.

While Table C shows the Vermonter with ~$11m in "Revenues", Table A 3.3 shows that of this, only half ($5.8m in the FY15 column) is from tickets, which implies that the State of Vermont pays about $5m in support.

The Carolinian comes pretty close! with ~$23m in Revenues, of which Table A 3.3 says $19m is tickets (so think North Carolina is paying $4m)

Arlington wrote:
While Table C shows the Vermonter with ~$11m in "Revenues", Table A 3.3 shows that of this, only half ($5.8m in the FY15 column) is from tickets, which implies that the State of Vermont pays about $5m in support.

The Carolinian comes pretty close! with ~$23m in Revenues, of which Table A 3.3 says $19m is tickets (so think North Carolina is paying $4m)

I am very familiar with the Carolinian, but never ridden the Vermonter -- how is the Carolinian bringing in more than double the revenue? Is it average fare / distance to NYP? Capacity? Lack of a large endpoint on the Vermonter? Something else?

Would extending the Vermonter to Montreal make it perform more like the Carolinian? (assuming the border thing could be worked out)

The Carolinian is very heavily patronized. Essentially an extended Northeast Regional corridor train. The Vermonter isn't as heavily patronized but it too is simply an extension of an NEC train. The key difference is the population base of the areas each train services. Vermont has far fewer than North Carolina.

Carolinian is very heavily patronized. Essentially an extended Northeast Regional corridor train. The Vermonter isn't as heavily patronized but it too is simply an extension of an NEC train. The key difference is the population base of the areas each train services. Vermont has far fewer than North Carolina.

gokeefe

Makes one wonder what another train on the Carolinian might do/

west point wrote: Makes one wonder what another train on the Carolinian might do/

The new Charlotte coach yard should be open within a year (although construction has not started yet!). When its open they will have the storage capacity to add a coach or two to the Carolinian. The length of the current layover siding has been the limiting factor to car counts on the train (as I understand it).

Bob Roberts wrote:The new Charlotte coach yard should be open within a year (although construction has not started yet!). When its open they will have the storage capacity to add a coach or two to the Carolinian. The length of the current layover siding has been the limiting factor to car counts on the train (as I understand it).

The Carolinian is a bright spot. I feel like we've been talking about expansion at CLT *forever* though. How sure are we that the expansion is actually coming, and how extensive will it be?

Arlington wrote:

Bob Roberts wrote:The new Charlotte coach yard should be open within a year (although construction has not started yet!). When its open they will have the storage capacity to add a coach or two to the Carolinian. The length of the current layover siding has been the limiting factor to car counts on the train (as I understand it).

The Carolinian is a bright spot. I feel like we've been talking about expansion at CLT *forever* though. How sure are we that the expansion is actually coming, and how extensive will it be?

Yes it has been a long wait. Phase one of the Charlotte service yard is fully funded by ARRA and as all such projects must be complete by 2017. The NCDOT project page is here. http://www.ncdot.gov/projects/CharlotteRailMaint/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Sadly it says that it should have started construction in 'mid 2015' (it has not yet broken ground). Phase one will accomodate overnight storage on a longer Carolinian as well as some Piedmont gear. I dont know the specifics of storage space at the moment.

Double tracking on the NCRR between Charlotte and Greensboro is nealy done and Charlotte just recieved a $25 million TIGER grant to get started on Gateway station. The service / layover yard is needed for additional Piedmont frequencies.

The November 2015 monthly performance report (63 page PDF) has been posted for those who want to review the latest numbers. Ridership overall continues to drop off a little, but the LD trains saw an increase in November.

Ridership and Revenue summary for the month of November compared to 2014:
System: ridership -0.7%, revenue: -0.1%
Acela: ridership -0.3%, revenue: +1.9%
NE Regional: ridership -2.9%, revenue -2.0%
State supported corridors: ridership -1.1%, revenue -0.4%
LD trains: ridership +4.9%, revenue -0.1%


Ridership and Revenue summary for the YTD from October to November:
System: ridership -1.6%, revenue: -1.3%
Acela: ridership +0.3%, revenue: +0.3%
NE Regional: ridership -2.3%, revenue -0.6%
State supported corridors: ridership -1.9%, revenue +0.1%
LD trains: ridership -0.6%, revenue -5.7%

Some good news in the monthly report is the improvement in On-Time Performance for the month and October-November over the same period in 2014. Most services are seeing better OTP, with the notable exception of some of the east coast trains: the Silvers, Palmetto, Auto Train, Piedmont, Carolinian, Richmond/NPN/Norfolk Regionals and, further north, the Adirondack. How much any ongoing track improvement projects in VA and NC on the CSX and Piedmont lines are causing delays for the Amtrak trains, don’t know.

On-Time Endpoint Performance for the month of November compared to 2014:
System: 74.6%, 2014: 67.8%
NE Corridor: 72.4%, 2014 70.7%
State supported corridors: 77.7%, 2014 69.8%
LD trains: 61.0%, 2014 48.7%

afiggatt wrote:Some good news in the monthly report is the improvement in On-Time Performance for the month and October-November over the same period in 2014. Most services are seeing better OTP, with the notable exception of some of the east coast trains: the Silvers, Palmetto, Auto Train, Piedmont, Carolinian, Richmond/NPN/Norfolk Regionals and, further north, the Adirondack. How much any ongoing track improvement projects in VA and NC on the CSX and Piedmont lines are causing delays for the Amtrak trains, don’t know.

OTP improvement oddly correlated with a dropoff in freight volumes.