Amtrak: Operating Deficit, Government Operation, etc.

[electricron]

Are there really 500 Amfleet coaches? Seems like way too many. The new Hudson River tunnel is the top rail infrastructure priority for Amtrak and all other capital purchases such as new rail cars must be deferred. I think Anderson sees this as well.

Here' are the total number of Amfleet I, Amfleet II, and Horizon cars Amtrak had:
492 Amfleet I + 150 Amfleet II + 104 Horizon = 746.
Per Wiki, Amtrak has 461 Amfleet I + 139 Amfleet II + 92 Horizon cars still in service = 692
To date, the States have ordered 137 coaches from Siemens for Amfleet I and Horizon replacements.
Therefore, Amtrak needs to replace the remaining 555 cars in service today soon.
Math = 692 - 137 = 555.
Additionally, maybe another 54 cars as spares to account for future losses.
Math = 746 - 692 = 54

And that's not accounting for Superliner variants and Talgo train sets that may also need to be replaced soon.

[BandA]

What load factor would Amtrak need to break even at the "farebox"?

Do Thruway buses operate at a profit or a loss? How does Amtrak decide where to run a Thruway Bus?

[gokeefe]

The number of coaches needs to take into account seating configurations. For example when the California/IDOT order with Nippon Sharyo was cancelled Sumitomo made sure that the number of cars ordered from Siemens represented the same seating capacity.

Siemens coaches may have slightly fewer seats than Amfleet Is because of ADA compliance or differences in length.

[Suburban Station]

What load factor would Amtrak need to break even at the "farebox"?

Do Thruway buses operate at a profit or a loss? How does Amtrak decide where to run a Thruway Bus?

it's not just about load factor. slow, unreliable trains require more equipment to satisfy demand. the equipment is not captured in load factor reports but in equipment utilization but it still needs to be maintained (expense) but produces less revenue, this is captured in an asset turnover ratio. the long distance trains desperately need capital investment to improve trips times and reliability which itself would increase the asset turnover ratio and thereby producing more seats available for revenue.

[gokeefe]

Very much agreed especially with regards to utilization rates on East Coast single level long distance service.

[west point]

Actually the AM=2s average mileage by age already exceeds any other equipment.

[Jeff Smith]

Speaking of Cato: https://www.cato.org/blog/reforming-passenger-rail

...
The federal government took over passenger rail after it helped ruin private passenger rail with taxes, regulations, and unions in the post-WWII years. Remaining passenger rail routes were assembled into Amtrak in the 1970s, which was supposed to become self-supporting but has consumed billions of dollars in subsidies.

Today, Amtrak operates 44 routes on 21,000 miles of track in 46 states. The few routes that earn returns are in the Northeast and the biggest money losers are the long-distance routes.
...

[Jeff Smith]

Wall St. Journal article on Anderson "Flight Plan": http://railroad.net/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=169918

[gokeefe]

While I strongly agree with Cato's base causes for the decline of passenger rail they completely omit the creation of the toll free interstate highway system as significant to the decline of passenger rail. Pointing that factor out may not be politically expedient for them but it's certainly significant. This is particularly true to Amtrak's early history during which congestion was at a minimum and road conditions were generally very good.

[Jeff Smith]

A little more to chew on: https://dopemagazine.com/the-great-amer ... in-debate/

...
According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, 87 percent of daily commuters in America use private vehicles, and traffic jams are worse than they’ve ever been. A report from the Texas Transportation Institute found that congestion in 85 of the largest metropolitan areas went up almost every single year between 1982 and 2003, despite large investments in highways. In 2014, the federal government spent $165 billion on highways alone – more than we spend on housing and urban development, aviation, mass transit and railroads combined.
...

[west point]

While I strongly agree with Cato's base causes for the decline of passenger rail they completely omit the creation of the toll free interstate highway system as significant to the decline of passenger rail. Pointing that factor out may not be politically expedient for them but it's certainly significant. This is particularly true to Amtrak's early history during which congestion was at a minimum and road conditions were generally very good.

Just to add to that decline if no interstates the US mail would certainly have had to use RRs ( passenger ) to deliver the mails to outlying cities and towns.

[John_Perkowski]

Do Thruway buses operate at a profit or a loss? How does Amtrak decide where to run a Thruway Bus?

I don’t know about at Amtrak HQ, but for the companies that run busses and vans, you can bet your paycheck they are profitable ... otherwise they’d not be bidding the runs.

[SouthernRailway]

While I strongly agree with Cato's base causes for the decline of passenger rail they completely omit the creation of the toll free interstate highway system as significant to the decline of passenger rail. Pointing that factor out may not be politically expedient for them but it's certainly significant. This is particularly true to Amtrak's early history during which congestion was at a minimum and road conditions were generally very good.

Agreed. I also note in the Cato article:

The Amtrak routes with the biggest losses are the longest ones. Go figure. So it costs more to run a train 1,000 miles than it does 100 miles. Really. Loss per train-mile or loss per passenger-mile would show a very different result and would be much more useful to show "waste".

The author calls on Amtrak to be privatized, but the author doesn't say where Amtrak would get enough money then. (Hint: in countries that have "privatized" passenger rail, government still supports it with tax dollars, often more than in the US.)

[Tadman]

The author calls on Amtrak to be privatized, but the author doesn't say where Amtrak would get enough money then. (Hint: in countries that have "privatized" passenger rail, government still supports it with tax dollars, often more than in the US.)

That's a more complex issue. In the UK, the biggest champion of "privatised" passenger rail, you have a number of different dynamics to look at:

1. The private carriers themselves do make money
2. Said private carriers also carry 2.5x the passengers of the last year of public operation
3. The gov't still controls and funds the trackage and stations after a failed quasi-private effort
4. Some routes are still not profitable and require subsidy. Overall the subsidy is up significantly, but I don't know if it's more per passenger mile (after accounting for inflation) or not.

The fact that ridership more than doubled after privatisation is a big deal, though. If you told me we could double Amtrak ridership without doubling the subsidy, that would be a big deal. That's why I'm so focused on day trains and corridors in my posts - it's a big deal!

[Suburban Station]

The fact that ridership more than doubled after privatisation is a big deal, though. If you told me we could double Amtrak ridership without doubling the subsidy, that would be a big deal. That's why I'm so focused on day trains and corridors in my posts - it's a big deal!

For the time being it would seem prudent to allow some of the previous reform efforts to work their way through. PRIIA required states and commuter railroads to pay for service and infrastructure...while the law may be a decade old, it is still being phased in and it's repercussions really have not been seen yet except in a big order for more MoW equipment and the fact that Amtrak is close to ending operating deficits (which is possible only with increased commuter and state contributions). Perhaps restoring the matching capital fund for state services that was originally part of PRIIA would help get new services off the ground. second, the fast ACT is also relatively new and it's repercussions are not yet visible. putting money into track improvements to fix service issues or lauch new services are not amtrak specific and the benefits would accrue to private operators if we went that route but they would begin to increase ridership.