Amtrak Success Stories

There are a couple of bright spots that I can see right now.

First and foremost is the continued improvement in revenues despite the drop in passenger loads. Amtrak is clearly positioning themselves well for the future there when ridership inevitably picks back up again. This improvement in total revenues is also very significant because it enables continued capital spending, which yet again, supports future revenues.

Second, Auto Train continues to do very well. That's another good sign for the future. I feel that passenger load is partly indicative of the Florida base load for travel and that as Amtrak continues to improve the Atlantic Coast Service that they will see good growth in that market. Auto Train is also one of the largest, by revenue, long distance services. Any decline (or improvment) in performance on that service would have a disproportionate impact on Amtrak's budget.

The Downeaster appears to be in full recovery from recent operational difficulties and I expect that performance will continue to recover throughout calendar year 2016.

In general given the challenges of cheap gas I think we could have reasonably expected far worse. Amtrak is retaining almost all of the ridership gains made when gas was $3/gallon or more and that is perhaps the biggest success of all.

Agree that drop off of freight may be reason for better system on time. But the NEC is usually not subject to freight delays. 7 % increase is good but how ?
Better maintenance rolling stock ? Track structure upgrades ? Fewer CAT failures ? ACS-64s better reliability ? Faster station stops ? Better weather ? Fewer trespasser incidents all agencies ?

What share of NEC delays are spiralling off of South-of-Washington disruptions?

west point wrote:Agree that drop off of freight may be reason for better system on time. But the NEC is usually not subject to freight delays. 7 % increase is good but how ?
Better maintenance rolling stock ? Track structure upgrades ? Fewer CAT failures ? ACS-64s better reliability ? Faster station stops ? Better weather ? Fewer trespasser incidents all agencies ?

Nice weather is probably part of it. That contributes to a lot of other things running better as well. I wonder if the HHP-8 retirement is also a significant part of this.

Hate to be a wet blanket but 72.4 % ontime doesnt seem that great for a dedicated corridor. Considering "ontime" is trains within 15 minutes of actual arrival time.

bdawe wrote:What share of NEC delays are spiralling off of South-of-Washington disruptions?

That's my guess as to the source of delays. Some mix of the big LD disruption & Amtrak Virginia echos of it then propagating north-of-WAS.

[Edit: I wonder where Acela's hit came from, which seems the bigger source of the problem. Was it Acela itself, or just a mess at WAS? Here is some data to back it up that south-of-WAS was bad, but it was Acela that pulled down the average from Table E of the November MPR: with %On-Time by route:
72.4% Northeast Corridor
71.0% Acela
78.3% Northeast Regional, of which:
-------- 62.3% Richmond / NPN / NFK
-------- 86.7% Lynchburg
-------- 75.9% All Other Northeast Regional

So, the CSX routes, at 62.3% were dragging down the overall average directly, and probably also screwed up WAS-originating services (but not Lynchburg, with its NER at 86.7% and the Crescent sucking at 50% OTP, which is no worse than normal).

Meanwhile, all the LDs on CSX (Silvers, Palmetto, Autotrain) were down in OTP in the -13% to -17% range

Is it possible that Acelas were affected worse from the CSX NERs and LDs?
So, yea, given how awful anything coming into WAS from CSX/Richmond, both NER and LDs was, it seems the leading suspect for how the NEC trains themselves suffered.

Only one clear "success" in December based on this overview:

year to date results are slightly unfavorable due to lower passenger related revenue and
ancillary revenue. This is partially offset by lower benefits, train fuel, ancillary MoW and materials.
The change in Operating Ratio (Strategy Management Objective F1) reflects the unfavorable
passenger related revenue and ancillary revenue. Capital spending is under budget due to the
timing of Engineering and Mechanical projects

And that success is the Palmetto, which took the place of an NEC train and has recaptured the revenue from it (It is impossible as an outsider to know exactly how much was recaptured, but my guess is it's enough, and a nice boost)
[Cross-posted to/from the LD-intra-NEC thread]The December MPR is happy with how the Palmetto has operated on the NEC:

Performance for Long Distance is being positively impacted by the Palmetto, which started to accept local
Northeast Corridor trips in October. Palmetto ridership was 67% above last year, and ticket revenues
were 40% above last year

There was not much other good news, with

Arlington wrote:Only one clear "success" in December
…
... the Palmetto, which took the place of an NEC train and has recaptured the revenue from it. (It is impossible as an outsider to know exactly how much was recaptured, but my guess is it's enough, and a nice boost)

The December MPR is happy with how the Palmetto has operated on the NEC:

Performance for Long Distance is being positively impacted by the Palmetto, which started to accept local Northeast Corridor trips in October. Palmetto ridership was 67% above last year, and ticket revenues were 40% above last year

I had no idea this change would have such an impact.

What a sweet piece of managing! Eliminate a Regional to save the costs of operating a round trip train NYC-D.C., and presumably free up some equipment that can be in tight supply. The riders from the Regional move over into the Palmetto, which obviously had plenty of empty seats at this end of its run.

Then posting the results: The Regionals save the cost of a train and gain a few cars, but give up some revenue and riders (which they have to spare). The Palmetto gets nice revenue, and the LD sector get shored up by almost 200,000 more riders a year.

I'm sure Amtrak is looking to find another "success" like this one. One or two more of these tweaks could make a nice difference.

There was another source of success in December, and that was in on-time performance. Here's how end-point on-time performance compared with December 2014.

Amtrak systemwide 83.2%, up from 76.3%

Acela Express 88.2%, up from 79.5%
Lynchburg trains 90.3%, up from 82.3%
Keystone 91.6%, up from 91.0%
Pennsylvanian 95.2%, up from 90.3%
Vermonter 95.2%, up from 83.9%. Is it time to shave a few more minutes off the schedule?
California Capitols (always the leader) 95.9%, up from 89.9%
Hiawatha 95.8%, up from 87.1%. Look out California, the midwest is coming up fast.
Hoosier State 91.4%, up from 63.9%. Yeah!
Carl Sandburg/Illinois Zephyr 96%, up from 91.1%. Just topped California on the BN line!
Blue Water 82.3%, up from 63.3%
Wolverine 81.2%, up from 37.9%. Those Michigan improvements are starting to pay off.
Pere Marquette 85.5%, up from 32.3%. Go NS Chicago line through the Englewood Flyover!
Maple Leaf 87.1%, up from 66.1%
Capitol Limited 90.3%, up from 61.3%
City of New Orleans 90.3%, up from 85.5%
Empire Builder 80.6%, up from 50.8%
Southwest Chief 80.6%, up from 51.6%
Sunset Limited 80.8%, up from 69.2%

When do these reports tend to be released?

When they feel like it. Srsly, there's no official release date afaik.

But usually a month or 5 weeks after the previous release. It's usually on a Friday, but they can sneak up on you. So maybe at the end of this week. More likely it's gonna be late next week, Friday, May 6.

Don't worry, when released, there will be a flurry excitement here and at the sister blog. It should be hard to miss it. LOL.

Thanks, I was just writing something up for myself and didnt want to waste time looking at older data if the new stuff was coming in the next day or two.

Released today, if you need fresher numbers.

Thanks

The bright spots in anotherwise grim March 2016 report (where most routes and underperforming budget and have weak ridership and are squeezing out gains via decent fares)

• Keystone ridership, up 10% versus last year, is benefitting from the increase in weekday frequencies
• Demand on the Pacific Surfliner and Capitol Corridor continues to be positive
• Capitols ridership increased 11% versus last year

• March Long Distance coach/business ridership was 9% above last year, and ticket revenues were 4%
above last year
• California Zephyr has shown strong performance in ridership, up 28% versus last year, and has continued
to do well between Reno and Sacramento. Ticket revenues were up 23% compared to the prior year
• Although track work impacted the Lake Shore Limited, ridership was up 14% versus last yea