FY 24; Record Ridership

CNN reports that Amtrak attained record ridership during FY 24 which closed September 30:

CNN

Fair Use:

Amtrak has reached a historic milestone, carrying 32.8 million passengers on the passenger rail system in fiscal year 2024. That’s a 15% increase from the previous fiscal year when it carried nearly 28.6 million riders, according to a news release from Amtrak.

“This record ridership shows that travelers throughout the U.S. want efficient travel options, and we are committed to meeting that demand,” said Stephen Gardner, Amtrak’s CEO, in the release

Amtrak's press release

Highlights:

Grew Northeast Corridor route ridership significantly, with a more than 9% increase on Acela and 18% on Northeast Regional services when compared to FY23
Increased Northeast Regional capacity by adding 1 million seats; Northeast Regional service increased by 20% on weekdays and 10% on Sundays

Grew Long Distance route ridership to 4.2 million, an 8% increase compared to the previous fiscal year with a 29% increase on Capitol Limited and 13% on Lake Shore Limited when compared to FY23

Completed qualification testing on the NextGen Acela with Alstom and will submit results to the Federal Railroad Administration soon
Successfully conducted more than 900 test runs and clocked over 90,000 miles of testing on the Northeast Corridor

Grew Long Distance route ridership to 4.2 million, an 8% increase compared to the previous fiscal year with a 29% increase on Capitol Limited and 13% on Lake Shore Limited when compared to FY23

Even if I'm certain it's factual, I wouldn't "get too giddy" about this.

The LD equipment behind the engines is simply on its last "wheels". True, funds were appropriated for its replacement during the Biden administration, but the incoming Trump administration has strongly inferred that they intend to reach back into the Nixon playbook and impound funds for programs that are not to their liking.

True, the Judiciary had other ideas while Nixon was in office; but "things have changed" within that branch of government over the almost sixty years past. The new Administration may just try; not necessarily Amtrak at first, but success has a way of "breeding".

If only there was way to make Amtrak more relevant to the traveling public rather than being a rounding error. Something along the lines of better service, shorter routes, local management... too bad they haven't been given enough time to prove the concept.

Tadman wrote: ↑Wed Dec 04, 2024 9:12 am If only there was way to make Amtrak more relevant to the traveling public rather than being a rounding error. Something along the lines of better service, shorter routes, local management... too bad they haven't been given enough time to prove the concept.

I think the key is frequent service, running at a faster speed than the average car based route. The North East Corridor is not a rounding error, but represents a fairly large chunk of travel through the area. There are some other locations where that could work, but for whatever reason we aren't seeing it. If trains like the Surfliner and Cascades service ran faster and at two to three times current frequency, they would similarly succeed.

I actually think it's trickier than that. There is reasonable service from Chicago to certain regional destinations, but not others, leaving it an afterthought for most travelers. In smaller cities, the train may be prominent enough that serving the relevant metropolis frequently is sufficient.

In major league cities, you have to have a hub with strong enough spokes that travelers routinely stop to ask "could Amtrak get me there." Only a handful of places have that -- mostly NEC cities, but not even all of those. As a Chicagoan, I don't even think Chicago is there, largely because of the black hole in Indiana, but also because Twin Cities service remains infrequent. Amtrak is more than a rounding error here, but asking "could I use Amtrak?" is not a routine, reflex consideration.

The devil is always in the details.....

Tadman wrote: ↑Wed Dec 04, 2024 9:12 am too bad they haven't been given enough time to prove the concept.

I almost ruined my keyboard reading that little gem...

I haven't compared this to 2019 yet, but while there may have been record ridership at the top level, both the Autotrain and Sunset Limited FELL in ridership comparing 2023 to 2024.

Frankly, the Sunset is so far behind the other daily trains it's probably time to hang it up for good. Even if you doubled ridership to account for the three days a week nature of the schedule, it's still way behind the Chief or the Zephyr. Like almost half the ridership... Even the Cardinal carried more passengers than the Sunset did, which is a sad state of affairs on its own.

Autotrain falling by 6% YOY is a bigger surprise.... Perhaps it's a sign that Central Florida (and Disney in particular) may be starting to outprice itself as a vacation mecca?

RandallW wrote: ↑Wed Dec 04, 2024 7:31 am

Completed qualification testing on the NextGen Acela with Alstom and will submit results to the Federal Railroad Administration soon
Successfully conducted more than 900 test runs and clocked over 90,000 miles of testing on the Northeast Corridor

Heh. It was right. Thanks engineer #3705.

JuniusLivonius wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 10:04 pm Night 8/1 - morning 8/2
11:33PM - KP2022 to #3705: "works great" "Gotta continue to prove it" "We have 84,000 miles on it"
11:37PM - "we'll be here tomorrow"

As pointed out elsewhere riders increased % more than revenue. That probably means revenue passenger miles did not increase as much as riders? Or maybe average RPM per rider went down.

As far as the Cardinal and Sunset daily service I would think that riders and RPMs would increase more than 7 thirds. But equipment is still limiting. Even by end of FY 2025 not enough Superliners will be available to make Sunset daily as three more train sets will be needed + additional cars for the Eagle connection at SAS. Maybe Sunset could go to 4 times a week that would give either 2 or 3 consecutive days of operation each way. Interesting as to which direction would have the consecutive days for marketing on weekends?

Now the Cardinal might be able to operate daily with only one additional train set needed. Enough coaches should be available with deliveries by summer 2025. Sleepers?? Well?? The above for both makes the somewhat dubious assumption that there is not another incident taking SLs or single level equipment out of service.

eolesen wrote: ↑Wed Dec 04, 2024 6:08 pm The devil is always in the details.....

Frankly, the Sunset is so far behind the other daily trains it's probably time to hang it up for good. Even if you doubled ridership to account for the three days a week nature of the schedule, it's still way behind the Chief or the Zephyr.

I see it as an opportunity. We're so married to this sacred cow of long distance service across the southern desert, begging the UP to let them run daily trains rather than thrice-weekly across this vast emptines... it's time to shift gears and do something that can attract passengers and impact traffic and the environment.

Despite having that vast empty central space in the middle of the Sunset, you have AZ and CA on the west end with

LA - #2
Phoenix - #5
Tucson - #33
Plus all the universities and bases in teh area - UCLA, UA, ASU, USC, Davis Monthan, etc...

And then you have Texas with the cities
Houston - 5
Dallas - 9
Fort Worth - 11
Austin - 12
NOLA - 54
And extensive list of bases and schools - Hood, A&M, UT, Rice, etc...

This train serves a list of premier cities in a very poor way and needs reconfiguration into corridors/day trains.

Contrast this to the NEC and you'll see the city pairings are actually better in terms of size.
NYC- 1
Philly - 6
Washington - 22
Baltimore - 30
Boston - 25
Newark - 68
Side note, I think these numbers are stricly city proper and not metro area so there may be some distortion, but there is no ignoring the fact that the Sunset services as many big cities with 3x/week versus 20x/day.

Tadman wrote: ↑Thu Dec 05, 2024 8:56 am This train serves a list of premier cities in a very poor way and needs reconfiguration into corridors/day trains.

Richard Anderson and others in Amtrak management wanted to do this kind of thing in 2019. Basically move most of the long distance routes to connecting day trains and keep a handful of the more popular routes like the Zephyr as through routes and focus the sleeper and diner product on those remaining routes to provide a fancier experience sort of like what VIA has done with the Canadian. Congress said no (which was the correct decision in my opinion - but of course people can disagree) - Amtrak's current expansion focus is largely based on Congressional direction - to maintain the current network and build on top of it. If you don't like that then write your Congressperson - it was their call. In addition to the daily Sunset (and rerouting it to Phoenix) there are efforts to introduce state supported service between Tucson and Phoenix as well as efforts in Texas.

Continuing the Sunset or making it daily is not an impediment to those corridor efforts - it maintains access to the infrastructure and can serve as a base for a future corridor. If you kill the Sunset it makes those efforts more difficult - not less. As for all these operational constraints regarding the daily Sunset or Cardinal I think even Amtrak would agree that it's not likely feasible until more equipment starts showing up. The idea is that if Congress decides to move forward on making those trains daily and funding it then options can be exercised with whatever vendor they select to include the necessary fleet for service expansion. I think most people are cognizant of the fact that some of the new equipment would have to start showing up before Amtrak would be able to do this or other expansions.

Exactly,the "huge" losses are in maintaining a large network for a daily or less than daily train.
The Borealis reduces the Empire Builders portion of costs MSP, and if the builder wasn't already running the Borealis startup costs would have been higher.

I don’t disagree with Tad that daytime corridors on parts of this route might be a more productive service. But the comparison to the NEC is silly. The NEC hits that kind of population in 450 miles Boston-DC. The Sunset needs 1,900. There’s no 450-mule corridor in the SW that would offer NEC style density.

I don’t think those of us that disagree with his overall point disagree with the idea that having daytime service in these busier corridors would provide more utility between the major cities along this route than just having a thrice weekly route that hits some of the places at crappy times. What i think some of us disagree with is the notion that the existing service (or the efforts to make it daily) somehow takes away from efforts to setup a potential day running service and that getting rid of the train somehow provides more of an opportunity to get this going. Rather the opposite is true.

If the Sunset goes as part of some Amtrak funding cut it’s most likely just going to be cut - and there goes all your stations as well as infrastructure access. All of that makes state efforts in Arizona and Texas more difficult - not less. There isn’t anyone that disagrees that some of these corridors between metropolitan areas deserve better and more service at better times. Amtrak themselves do more than anyone else. But the best way to expand the network is by building on it - not gutting it as part of some austerity driven spending cut and then just hoping the states pick up some of the pieces.

The Carolinian and Piedmont services would not have started if they couldn't have used existing routes and stations (with the exception of the Cary-Greensboro segment that NC has owned continuously since 1849), which made them relatively inexpensive to start up and prove. The services to Roanoke started as services to Lynchburg entirely following the route of the Crescent, and only after that proved itself did VDOT pay for the extension to Roanoke. The Capitol Corridor services were built on the route of the once daily Coast Starlight (with some overlap with the California Zephyr).