After several years of record breaking ridership Amtrak has entered a new phase and I think it calls for a post to this topic.
1. Introduction
Today, in what seemed to be a surprise move, Thruway service to and from Wichita starting immediately was announced ending a 37 year service drought for Amtrak in this community. This comes on top of announced through car service to on the
Southwest Chief to Pueblo, Colorado and the potential resumption of service between New Orleans and Orlando as a state sponsored corridor. The
San Joaquin, one of Amtrak California's most successful services will soon be adding a seventh roundtrip (its first additional service since 2002) which will better enable passenger to connect with the
California Zephyr.
As mentioned in the long distance route restoration thread and the past Texas service thread Amtrak also had the following to say in the
FY '16 Budget, Business Plan, and FY '17 Budget Justification and Five Year Plan (See PDF Page 62 of 164)
In addition to driving savings through efficiencies, Long Distance is also exploring how to increase revenue, in ways that result in improved gross margin to the business line. One option under consideration is a reconfiguration of existing service to serve a wider area in Texas and across the southern states.
The reconfiguration of service appears to be underway now and the focus seems to be on trimming major inefficiencies and underserved populations in the Sun Belt. It is
very notable that several of these changes involve some of the first additions to the configuration of the Long Distance network since 1998. The through car to Pueblo is a watershed in that regard.
Also as discussed in the route restoration thread Amtrak received $20,000,000 as a result of the passage of the FAST Act in December 2015 to "restore and enhance passenger service". The reopening of service to and from Wichita may be one of the first outcomes of this program. Amtrak has also had major success in reducing their annual losses and requirements for appropriations. Some of these improvements, such as the change from a loss to a profit for the
Northeast Regional service are likely related to ongoing State of Good Repair work on the Northeast Corridor.
Others, such as the reduction in Food and Beverage service losses are the result of technology implementation, new rolling stock acquisition and service model changes. The elimination of the diner on the
Silver Star has been discussed extensively in this forum and also appears to be receiving a significant amount of attention from the highest levels of Amtrak. It was discussed at some length (comparative to other subjects) in the FY 2016 Business Plan.
2. Transition I: From Service & Amenties to Ridership and Growth
The transition that Amtrak appears to be continuing through is two fold. First is a transition in service models. Amtrak is focused on ridership now more than ever before. Previous administrations at Amtrak focused heavily on service levels and amenities.
Acela is without question the shining star of the leadership in this era. But the problem then was to translate
Acela's extraordinary success to improvements and growth elsewhere in Amtrak's conventional speed trains. One of the very early successes of this transition was the improvement of the
Northeast Regional trains to an operating profit. An extraordinary achievement for conventionally powered and operated service unheard of since the heyday of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Where these efforts failed, especially in the early 2000's was on much of the rest of Amtrak's system, in particular the Long Distance western transcontinentals, the Atlantic Coast Service and the Middle America trunk services (
City of New Orleans and the
Texas Eagle). Amtrak was not able to "plush" their way out of the problems, nor could they "ship" their way out of the problems by adopting Mail & Express service as part of their operating model. This conundrum yet again brought up the problems so carefully described by David Morgan in his seminal article, "Who Shot the Passenger Train?".
The answer as it turns out was corridor services. Amtrak's corridor services were growing and added on to in earnest over the course of the 2000s starting with the
Downeaster in 2001 and extending to other services throughout the next 15 years. States added on frequencies, route miles, stations and trains at a rate that was almost analogous to passenger train losses during the late 1950s and early 1960s when some of the smaller Class I railroads were beginning to exit the passenger train business entirely.
The growth during this period has been supported by extraordinary trends in American transportation unheard of in the lifetimes of almost every American alive today. Declines in miles driven by car, sustained high energy prices that make car travel exceptionally expensive, and a capacity crunch on airliners combined with continuing security challenges in the aviation industry that made train travel notable for its convenience, exceptional service levels and average total travel time.
Amtrak has responded to these challenges during the past 10 years by sustaining their Long Distance services at present levels, retrenching on some amenities, focusing on daytime service, especially corridors with large intermediate ridership populations, and perhaps most significantly putting a financial cornerstone in place through nearly flawless performance in their premium high speed service product in the Northeast.
This transition from a service and amenity focus to a ridership and transportation focus has richly rewarded the company with its highest ridership of all time, vastly increased revenues and finally, perhaps for the first time in company history, some breathing room to refocus their national network services,
especially those in Texas and the South on better serving the communities they run through. Getting to this position has taken a tremendous amount of hard work both for Amtrak and its political supporters. The second transition they appear to be working on now may be significantly more difficult and take longer but in the end it will be well worth it.
3. Transition II: Balanced National Growth & The Sun Belt
The second transition for Amtrak involves their geographic focus. I believe that the changes now underway, especially those discussed at the beginning of this post are an indication that Amtrak wants to vastly improve their service provision to Middle America. During much of its 40+ year history to this point Amtrak has best served the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts. Clearly these areas have the population centers to merit the levels of service now present. This also was part of Amtrak's continuing efforts to stabilize rail passenger service in accordance with their charter mandate from Congress to takeover national rail passenger service and to run it in an efficient manner that preserved service in as many communities as possible. We can say now
conclusively that
Amtrak has in fact finally achieved the mandate they were given in 1971 and they have undeniably proven that the passenger train has a place in the American transportation system that will endure for the indefinite future.
The change that Amtrak has been unable to keep up with has been the explosive population growth in the Sun Belt. In 1971 when Amtrak began service Atlanta had approximately 1.7 million people living in the metro area. In 2010 Atlanta had 5.2 million people living in the metro area a three fold increase in population over 40 years. In this time Amtrak has continued to serve Atlanta with a minimal number of trains and consequently has a paltry 85,252 annual riders 37% less than Portland, Maine with a combined metro population of 519 thousand people in 2010, less than one tenth the size of Atlanta and not even large enough to be considered one of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the country.
This transition in focus, to a balanced service growth throughout the country especially in the South, started with the extension of
Northeast Regional service to Lynchburg, Virginia. A surprise success this train disproved a maxim about train travel in the South that had long been held to be true. Specifically that people in the South would not be willing to get out of their cars and ride trains. As with people everywhere once congestion on highways got bad enough and air service either disappeared or became prohibitively expensive train travel was an especially attractive option. The late 2000s context of high energy prices, sold out airplanes, long airport security lines was the boon that Amtrak needed to start making inroads into Virginia and begin to build the supporting conventional service matrix that ultimately will become the backbone of the Southeast High Speed Rail (SEHSR) Corridor.
Amtrak's transition to a broader focus on growth in the South will be difficult. Many of the communities that should see greater service levels are in areas that, like Wichita, have seen little if any service in the past 40+ years since the inception of Amtrak. Passenger facilities have in many cases been demolished and the merger and consolidation process among the Class I railroads has left many cities without railroad tracks near population centers and natural passenger transportation intersections. Additionally the Sun Belt has lower population densities and lower state support both politically and fiscally for service growth. The need however is very great. Southern cities have very large populations with extensive needs for ground transportation options. Many areas, especially Florida have very high concentrations of senior citizens on fixed income and with limited mobility options.
Amtrak will be starting almost quite literally from the rails up in some of these communities with no existing local base of travelers, outdated or nonexistent passenger facilities and minimal political support at the state level. Even worse they will not have their traditional advantage of existing Long Distance service on which to overlay corridor service. There are some significant implications to these challenges but one of them appears to be the importance of using existing transcontinental services to build new corridors.
Two examples of this have recently been seen with the
Southwest Chief. The proposed through car extension to Pueblo, which would parallel or replace existing Thruway service, and the more immediate implementation of Thruway service to and from Wichita today, which regardless of its eminent wisdom, has been so fast and so unexpected that one can almost imagine the decision being made over supper last night. Both cities are areas that have been discussed locally for service by Amtrak with the
Southwest Chief itself potentially being a target in the event that the train was rerouted over the BNSF Transcon route. This change having been staved off by other communities that stood to lose service and the Boy Scouts of America who needed ready access to their campgrounds in the Southwest proved to give Amtrak the clarity it needed about what to do in order to better serve Wichita.
This "vine and branch" model, where Thruway vines and through car branches are extended off of mainline Long Distance trunks has potential to allow Amtrak to break the logjam of service growth in the South through tried and true rail passenger service models based on convenient, dedicated bus service and where justified through car service that transitions certain corridors from buses to trains and builds potential future service corridors for states to consider funding as the fiscal and political environment allows. This is not the first time Amtrak has attempted to build their services one station, one stop, one bus and one train car at a time. Other notable efforts of this kind failed for a variety of different reasons the connecting service of the
North Coast Hiawatha to the
Empire Builder.
There are several differences this time but chief among these are Amtrak's vastly improved operations and information management systems, substantially better physical plant conditions on U.S. Class I host railroads and connecting lines, superior mechanical support and shop forces using advanced maintenance management modeling and perhaps most importantly
a fleet of proven reliable, uniform equipment that can be counted on in virtually any operating conditions. Amtrak has spent almost 40 years forging their shop forces, operations procedures, customer service department, marketing forces and information technology into the trim and sleek strategically minded operation that it is today.
On A-Day in 1971 Amtrak inherited the contents of the passenger departments of multiple railroads with different operating procedures, craft agreements, equipment, reservations systems and marketing. Although interline ticketing had been standardized by the railroads for decades prior to Amtrak's creation there was little about running a national passenger railroad that Amtrak did not create almost from scratch. In the meantime their services and markets in the Sun Belt withered while the population boomed. Amtrak was hamstrung politically from serving these areas (which did not receive the consequent political benefits of their growth until each decennial census) and also was desperately trying to revive service in the Northeast, hang on to as many trains coming out of Chicago as possible and to keep a sufficient presence on the Pacific coast to support future service beyond basic transcontinental trains coming from the Midwest.
As noted in another thread the cuts made by the U.S. Secretary of Transportation during the Carter administration were especially painful to many trains running to and from the Sun Belt, in particular those serving Texas. After the retreat from the South in 1979 Amtrak would be unable to meaningfully grow the route structure in the South again until the late 2000s when the Lynchburg
Northeast Regional and other extended trains in Virginia along with the success of the
Piedmont service in North Carolina opened up the future to possibilities that were previously unimaginable and in some cases believed by many to be permanently foreclosed upon.
Even the
Auto Train long one of Amtrak's most consistently successful services and one of the few trains in the system which is operated entirely in the South has recently has had additional enhancements focused on ridership, and revenue which have almost single handedly brought the train to break even status despite its generally more lavish amenities and service levels compared to other Long Distance trains.
4. Expectations & Conclusion
Given these long term shifts in focus by Amtrak which almost certainly appear likely to result in new service it seems appropriate to set out some expectations from my own analytical perspective about potential service changes that could be coming in the near future.
Perhaps the biggest of these will be changes to Amtrak's services in Texas. The current Long Distance service which uses the
Sunset Limited and
Texas Eagle is among the most problematic examples of service in the entire Amtrak system. I expect that Amtrak will make major changes to the
Sunset Limited in the near future that will realign the train to better serve Texas in particular. One of the changes that I think would be logical is the initiation of Long Distance service between Atlanta and Dallas using the Union Pacific and Kansas City Southern lines which current form the natural east-west route through Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. The other will be Long Distance service between Atlanta and San Antonio through New Orleans using current track routes of the Union Pacific, CSX and/or Norfolk Southern. Either of these changes could be supported in some shape or form by major changes to the
Sunset Limited as currently operated.
Obtaining these agreements will be difficult for Amtrak but when completed as part of a multi-year planning process with good political support from each state's representatives I expect that Amtrak will be successful in building these trains and providing much needed passenger rail service to one of the fastest growing areas of the country. Atlanta will see major station and yard investments along with the construction of necessary maintenance facilities to support a major expansion of passenger rail service in the area. These two parallel trunks will allow Amtrak to build support in online communities for greater investments and improvements that will allow the development of high frequency passenger rail corridors especially in the large metropolitan areas of eastern Texas.
This
Southern Regional service could become the backbone of Amtrak's Sun Belt Service and would greatly enhance Amtrak's ability to serve major American population centers that are greatly in need of improved transportation options to support their continued population growth and to reduce the effects of pollution due to highway congestion and suburban sprawl.
It will be very interesting to watch this continued transformation as it happens (to say the least).
