Amtrak Success Stories

travelrobb wrote:The Downeaster was the only regular Amtrak route — short- or long-distance — to see a decline this July versus July 2009. Ridership was down .6 percent; revenue was down .2 percent. The route even underperformed the anticipated results for revenue; "budget" for the Downeaster was a very small increase in revenue. However, the route still outperformed the ridership "budget," which was a decline of 5.6 percent.

Anybody want to hazard a guess why?

I think all of the posters here are missing the boat by looking inward, and should be looking at competitive modes of transportation:

http://www.bostonroads.com/roads/nh-turnpike/

...
Just prior to the 2010 Memorial Day weekend rush, the NHDOT opened the state's first open-road toll lanes at the Hampton toll plaza. The $18 million project reconfigured the toll plaza with two highway-speed (65 MPH) EZ-Pass lanes and six traditional cash / EZ-Pass lanes in each direction.

We often forget that trains are preferable over short distance for a few reasons, and a lack of desire to drive is a major reason. With open road tolling, the Turnpike is probably far less annoying to drive, and drivers can count on fewer traffic jams at the dreaded toll plazas.

I might be off, considering it's been at least 15 years since I've been that way, but something tells me I'm not.

jstolberg wrote:Travel on the new train to Lynchburg continued to be strong, at 188% of the pre-launch estimates. Travel on the Crescent rose too, with 14% more riders. The State of Virginia and the Norfolk Southern Railroad have just completed six projects to increase capacity and reduce travel time on the Crescent corridor. “Funded by $43 million from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) and nearly $20 million from Norfolk Southern, the projects lengthened or built new passing tracks between Manassas, Va., and Front Royal, installed five miles of double track near the Virginia Inland Port, improved signal and traffic control systems, and increased train speeds through Riverton Junction near Front Royal.” http://www.drpt.virginia.gov/news/details.aspx?id=512

Just to clarify, while they overlap in places, the "Crescent Corridor" is not the same thing as the route of Amtrak's Crescent. The "Crescent Corridor" initiative is aimed at improving freight transportation on NS. In particular, the track between Manassas and Front Royal (the B-Line, I believe it is called), is freight-only. It goes (very roughly) northwest from Manassas, while Amtrak's Crescent runs on the old SOU main southwest of Manassas. While the overall improvements may have some positive impact on the Crescent, that is not the aim of the "Crescent Corridor."

mtuandrew wrote:We often forget that trains are preferable over short distance for a few reasons, and a lack of desire to drive is a major reason. With open road tolling, the Turnpike is probably far less annoying to drive, and drivers can count on fewer traffic jams at the dreaded toll plazas.

I might be off, considering it's been at least 15 years since I've been that way, but something tells me I'm not.

Although it's possible this change helped somewhat there are still tolls in Kittery that cause severe backups as well, often stretching for well over 20 miles and in some cases reaching almost all the way back to the New Hampshire Tolls. At least on the very southern end of the Maine Turnpike these volumes of traffic would have problems almost regardless of tolls, although obviously not as severe.

New Buffalo, Michigan has a new station and more frequent stops. The public has begun to respond to the improvements in increased numbers.

Statistics from http://mdotwas1.mdot.state.mi.us/public/railstats/

Dick H wrote: One other issue of concern is the change in weekend consist
assignments. One trainset has five cars and the other has four.
During the week, the five car set handled #680 and #685, but
on the weekend, they put the five car set on #692 and #697, and
even with the five cars #692 quite often sold out. However, since
at least mid-August, they run the four car set on #692 and it sells
out the day before and passengers are turned away.

What is the reason they do not add cars to the sets? If they could sell more seats, why wouldn't they?

Eastwind,

There are numerous possible reasons, car shortages of Amfleets in the Amtrak system that do not permit rentals, issues with cost-effectiveness of car rental charges from Amtrak for additional cars etc.

NNEPRA's contract specifies that Amtrak is only required to provide enough rolling stock to have nine cars in operation at any given time. For operations this usually means there will be on five car consist and one four car consist running between Boston and Portland. Typically, Amtrak will man the minimum with two or three additional 'protect' cars stationed in Portland. When NNEPRA wants more coaches added on to the Downeaster consists they have to request these from Amtrak and pay an additional monthly rental fee. If others know better please inform us but that's my understanding from previous discussion.

[EDIT:Spelling]

gokeefe wrote:When NNEPRA wants more coaches added on to the Downeaster consists they have to request these from Amtrak and pay an additional monthly rental fee. If others know better please inform us but that's my understanding from previous discussion.

Does anyone know what the monthly fee is?
The reason I'm asking is, I'm doing a study on whether it would be cost-effective for NNEPRA to own their own fleet.

According to MO River Runner's twitter page ridership was up 22.5% in Sept. I presume that's year-over-year. Missouri's spending to improve OTP is paying off. The stimulus funded projects will only help (primarily an additional bridge over the Osage river). Time to add 1-2 more STL-KCY runs Missouri!

I'm glad ridership increased since last year, but keep in mind the deep trough River Rider numbers had gone into. They have a lot to do just to get back to the numbers from 2001. I don't know that there's reason to cheer yet. A sigh of relief, sure.

^How do this year's ridership compare to 2001's?

This week's National Corridors newsletter:
http://nationalcorridors.org/df2/df1025 ... shipClimbs

carries a piece mentioning that revenue is up by more than 9% this year.

That's clearly more than inflation, and I feel like this has been true for a couple years. What I'm wondering is whether the revenue increases merely keep pace with the costs associated with new services like the Illinois service, or whether the "farebox percentage" of revenue is increasing.

A related question, but somewhat different, when they say revenue is up 9%, are they including state subsidies in the revenue figure?

ne plus ultra wrote:That's clearly more than inflation, and I feel like this has been true for a couple years.

Inflation was actually negative (-0.4%) in 2009...http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpid09av.pdf

...and very low (+0.7%) for the first half of 2010...http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpid10fv.pdf

...making for an aggregate of +0.3% (0.2972%) for 2009 and the first half of 2010 combined.

so you're right on both counts. It is more than inflation (in fact substantially so) and that has been the case for the past two years +/-.

Someone else will have to help you with the other issues. You might want to ask the question in the 'New Illinois Trains' thread. There are several people who watch that thread that will be able to speak to IL specifically. In Maine the Downeaster's farebox recovery has very slowly but steadily climbed as the passenger count has increased faster than variable and fixed costs, even considering there has been a service addition (fifth roundtrip). At this point if continued farebox recovery improvement is desired NNEPRA will have to continue to focus on capital improvements to the Boston-Portland line. Improvements in speed are what will ultimately allow the mythical 'sixth roundtrip' without incurring substantial new additions to cost.

Certainly if the speed improvements are marginal then it won't be possible to do the 'sixth roundtrip' with the current equipment allocation but major improvements on speed in MA might actually allow for the 'sixth roundtrip' to happen without adding another set of equipment. Because any improvement in roundtrip times would be cumulative over the course of the day 20 minutes (or better) faster several times a day may make this change possible without having to add equipment. NNEPRA appears to be attempting to do exactly this with their current capital improvement proposals for the Boston-Portland corridor.

The CPI usually doesn't include the cost of fuel (or food), so while the CPI hasn't risen over the last 2 years, Amtrak's operating cost per train mile has risen significantly because of the 2008 labor settlement and the cost of fuel, which has been on a rollercoaster ride. In August 2007, Amtrak reported the cost of operating a train mile at $50.45; in August 2010, Amtrak reported the cost at $65.27 per mile. The cost of diesel moved from $2.27 in 2007 to $2.45 in 2010.

In August 2007, the Downeaster reported ridership of 37,857 and ticket revenue of $558,602.
In August 2010, the Downeaster reported ridership of 48,841 and ticket revenue of $727,924.

The cost reporting methods changed significantly between 2007 and 2010, so it's difficult to compare year to year; but,
thru August FY 2007 (11 months), the Downeaster reported revenue of $8.1 million and a loss of $1.2 million.
thru August FY 2010 (11 months), the Downeaster reported revenue of $10.3 million and a loss of $1.6 million.

ne plus ultra wrote:This week's National Corridors newsletter:
http://nationalcorridors.org/df2/df1025 ... shipClimbs

carries a piece mentioning that revenue is up by more than 9% this year.

That's clearly more than inflation, and I feel like this has been true for a couple years. What I'm wondering is whether the revenue increases merely keep pace with the costs associated with new services like the Illinois service, or whether the "farebox percentage" of revenue is increasing.

A related question, but somewhat different, when they say revenue is up 9%, are they including state subsidies in the revenue figure?

The 9% increase in revenue is ticket revenue only, according to the Amtrak press release.

As to the broader question, ridership revenues have increased faster than inflation, but as the previous poster mentioned, expenses have increased faster than inflation as well. The operating ratio has been pretty consistent at between 1.5 to 1.6; it was a bit higher during the Gunn years as Amtrak spent the money to move the railroad toward SOGR. That translates into operating revenues covering about 2/3 of operating expenses (incl. depreciation).

mkellerm wrote: As to the broader question, ridership revenues have increased faster than inflation, but as the previous poster mentioned, expenses have increased faster than inflation as well. The operating ratio has been pretty consistent at between 1.5 to 1.6; it was a bit higher during the Gunn years as Amtrak spent the money to move the railroad toward SOGR. That translates into operating revenues covering about 2/3 of operating expenses (incl. depreciation).

For any passenger railroad operation, expenses will always increase faster than inflation due to the unionized workforce. This is precisely why it's unreasonable to expect any passenger rail operation to break even. Basically, the choice is between subsidizing trains or not having passenger trains at all.

HSR has raised the stakes, since a nationwide HSR system would cost the taxpayers tens of billions per year in annual subsidies, or 10 to 15 times more than the current Amtrak subsidy.