Eastbound train No. 162, left, meets Acela Express No. 2253 at Rocky Neck State Park in East Lyme, Conn., in March 2015. Amtrak hopes to add a fourth service level in 2021 when additional Acela equipment is available.
Robert A. LaMay
WASHINGTON – Amtrak announced another ridership record in Fiscal Year 2019, providing 32.5 million customer trips, a year-over-year increase of 800,000 passengers.
“We are growing and modernizing Amtrak. We have an industry-leading safety program and have invested billions in improving the customer experience, resulting in more people choosing Amtrak as their preferred mode of transportation,” says Amtrak Board Chair Tony Coscia. “These changes have put us on track to breakeven in 2020, which would be a first in Amtrak’s history.”
Amtrak recorded an operating loss of $29.8 million, an improvement of $140.9 million or 82.6% compared with the previous year. However, it does not break out revenue by route as it has does in the past.
“I would characterize 2019 as a solid year for Amtrak, marked by steady improvement, steady and consistent improvement on all measures and activities across the railroad,” says President and CEO Richard Anderson.
There had been a $1.6 billion investment on capital assets, including interior renovations for the Acela Express and Amfleet II coach fleets, technology upgrades in the mobile app, and the introduction of assigned seating for Acela and Business Class passengers. Additional work on the Northeast Corridor improved overall reliability and performance, and customer benefits overall including station upgrades and enhanced lounges increased revenue and ridership. Capital spending in FY2019 was 9.4% higher than the previous year.
One change on the horizon is additional service on the Northeast Corridor when the new Acela Express equipment enters service in 2021. This would provide four service tiers on the Corridor, mirroring passenger offerings in Europe. That includes more non-stop Acela trains; traditional limited-stop Acela trains; Northeast Regional service; and a low-cost, all-stops local service with new multiple unit equipment. Anderson says such a change will enable the carrier to serve as many people as possible and would not compete with existing commuter rail operations.
Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Operating and Commercial Officer Stephen Gardner spoke about expanding service in under-served intercity markets elsewhere in the country. Amtrak has identified markets where customer-driven demand could increase train service without citing specific examples.
Anderson noted full PTC compliance on Amtrak-owned track, with 91% installed on the rest — more than 17,000 route miles. By year-end, Amtrak will be operating at full PTC compliance or an equivalent level of safety through other technology and operating capabilities. ADA compliance was also mentioned with Amtrak having spent $78 million and completed ADA-focused construction improvements at 40 of its stations during the year.
In FY2019, Amtrak was the first major U.S.-based railroad to implement a Safety Management System, a proactive approach to managing safety, resulting in significant improvements.
Thank you for thinking my travels are not important and taking away my train. I live in Wisconsin You must live on the NEC!
What really is needed to expand rail passenger services is broader public demand. If the public makes passenger rail a priority the politics will develop to make it happen. Rail supporters need to create the broad public voice demanding the investment required to make it happen. That voice is currently coming from a minority of the public. It must be bigger and louder.
I have learned from experience that 75% load is FULL! Those who talk of sold out or overloaded will not allow expansion. When rail cars are generally at 75% it is time to add another car to the train I recall Santa Fe having 22 cars on one train with another section following. This won’t happen with a six-car train and enough riders for more cars.
I’ve experienced the above with church auditoriums, buses and in other places.
I’m interested to see what happens next year when the word of mouth gets around about the dining car menus on the long distance trains in the east coast. People who travel in coach on the Auto Train may have to go to what are known as “Roach Coaches” Also known as food trucks. I’m also wondering if this will spread to the other long distance trains that operate West of Chicago and New Orleans. Do you think that tourists from Europe and Asia will tolerate this? I doubt it.
Mr. Robinson, there is little demand for rail service from the general public. If there was that demand we would have the passenger trains you desire. Best to get rid of the money losing LD trains and concentrate on the few areas where there is some demand, the NEC and other corridors are Amtrak’s future..
To Alex Christmas–Yes, all that new investment–much of it coming at the behest not of Amtrak but of State governments–is devoted to Amtrak’s smallest and commercially weakest segments, trains with 30 to 50% load factors and trivial ma rket shares, leaving its largest and commercially most successful segment gasping for capacity and new investment.
Robert Ash got it exactly right.
ANNA – You post that the airlines want the Amtrak competition to go away.
Seriously? Do the airlines even know that Amtrak exists?
Notes from my travel – by air – to my two home states, Michigan and Massachusetts:
(1) One of the two concourses of one of the terminals at DTW Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport has 78 gates. Detroit Amtrak New Center has one platform serving one track.
(2) The baggage claim area of one of the terminals at DTW looks like a Euro big city train station.
(3) The rental car facility at BOS Boston Logan Airport is busier than any American train station I can think of outside of New York City.. This at an airport served by two MBTA lines and any number of coach lines or limousine services, leaving rental cars for masochists like me (the first and I hope the last time I’ve ever driven a car at Logan).
(4) Detroit has six Amtrak trains (all of them on the Chicago – Pontiac line). In twilight at Ecorse Road, Romulus, Michigan, one can see eight or even ten planes at one glance landing at DTW.
PNT-DET should have 10-12 trains to CHI, but the rub is NS and their congested former LS&MS-PRR Chicago Line from Porter, IN to CUS. The South of the Lake plan needs to be implemented to have dedicated passenger capacity between these two points to allow increased frequency. This – and available equipment – is the issue, not the lack of demand (every Wolverine/Blue Water I’ve been on this year has been full and some even ‘Sold Out.’ I don’t just say this as a ‘fan – I’ve made elite status on all three legacy majors flying domestic this year, plus Select on Amtrak – mostly on business. There is a lot of traffic to be captured from SE Michigan to Chicago, whether by air or road (I-94).
Amtrak’s impact on passenger traffic is squat. How can Amtrak expand to increase ridership outside of its vaunted NEC when no new equipment is on the horizon for it Midwest and western trains? Amtrak makes incremental steps, but nothing bold for service outside of the NEC.
Sounds like Amtrak will continue to operate the existing Acela equipment once the new NEC equipment arrives in 2021, is this correct?
Gentlemen, gentlemen …
As the adage goes, “figures don’t lie, but liars figure.”. We all think that Amtrak loses money, but they won’t let anyone have a look at the books so there is no real way to know.
In the Bad Old Days a railroad could tell you how much each stretch of track cost to build, to maintain, to upgrade, and how much revenue it generated. It could tell you the relative costs and benefits of the various designs of locomotives, and could cite you figures on car usages and returns. This is absolutely necessary for a private company in order to survive, so they do it, and then management (if honest, there have been many exceptions) uses this information in a very Darwinian way to operate the railroad.
There is no reason to not think that internally Amtrak generates the same figures. What use they make of them, and why they won’t allow them to be released are questions to be asked. But since they are being propped up with public funds, which is to say our funds, they are questions which must be asked.
There is a history here (like the history of weapons legislation) which is patchwork and convoluted, and which goes back over one hundred years, to the charters of all the various railroads (and their predecessors) which make up the national system. It involves common carrier rights and obligations, including but not limited to obligations to provide passenger service.
What we really need is a national conversation concerning the operation of a national passenger rail system. The Europeans do it, many Asian countries do it, and they view their systems as a public good. We should ask ourselves how badly we want such a system.
But in this, beware the special interests. The airlines would like to eliminate the competition. The railroads would like Amtrak to just go away.
Our politicians are seen as responsive to the special interests and not necessarily to the will of the people. Whether this is actual fact or merely perception is something I leave for the reader to decide. However, it colours the issue, in that it raises the question as to whether or not we can have an honest conversation concerning what if anything, we want out of Amtrak.
We who frequent this forum constitute a special interest. If you are reading these lines it is probable you support the concept of a national passenger rail system.
There are many other special interests, too numerous to mention, who would like to tilt any decision in their favour. In order to have an honest conversation we must prevent them from prevailing.
If we want a comprehensive national passenger rail system we must be willing to fund it. There is, after all, no such thing as a free lunch. If it cannot be funded by the farebox, the difference will have to be made up from government funds, which is to say our funds. And the national conversation should be honest about this.
One thing many states have which we do not have on the national level is the referendum. Issues such as this can be brought directly before the people to decide. Since the people would be asked to fund this system, the people should have a say in what they want to do. But that (and you can read this in any number of ways) is not the American Way.
The above comments are genetic in nature and do not form the basis for an attorney/client relationship. They do not constitute legal advice. I am not your attorney. I didn’t do it, I wasn’t there, I don’t know anything about it, and besides I was just following orders.
@Robert Ash:
Amtrak has more new equipment coming right now than since that 1970s. Dozens of new locomotives acquired by the states for state supported services, and over a hundred railcars to match. Meanwhile Amtrak just updated its non-high-speed NEC power with the Sprinters, and has new trainsets for Acela on order which will improve service to meet today’s customer amenity expectations as well as increase passenger capacity.
Add to that the ongoing refurbishment of the single-level Amfleets and Horizons, and you find that literally the only thing Amtrak isn’t updating right now are the P42s and Superliners. But, they have a request out for companies to pitch new diesel intercity power to supplant and/or fully replace the P42s. Plus, all the Superliners probably need is an Amfleet/Horizon style refit, since those cars are tanks mechanically.
So the idea that there is nothing new under the sun when it comes to Amtrak equipment is simply false!
This latest financial “spin” ,takes me back to my first basic college statistics course. “You can make the same numbers come to several different conclusions”. Amtrak accounting (if you can really call it that) is masterful at making that statement valid !
Amtrak’s open fraud continues. Anything can be made “profitable” if you hide enough costs. This is another example of Amtrak burying a billion dollars in NEC upkeep costs (calling them “capital” items), and deferring another $400-500 million in budgeted and necessary NEC costs because the sum of revenues plus subsidy still wasn’t enough to cover all the costs. If a publicly traded company (like Delta Airlines) tried a stunt like this, they would be indicted.
And the Big Lie about the long distance trains is especially ripe. Wick Moorman told Congress in writing that these trains had a POSITIVE free cash flow of $423 million in FY’18, which REDUCED the corporate loss and subsidy need by that amount. These trains don’t “lose” anything, and Richard Anderson is a liar when he says otherwise.
Big deal! Always the NEC while the rest of the “National Network” continues to be a joke
Alex, as long as your name is Christmas, I will believe anything you say, even sign up for your accounting course.
A loss of $29 million. That’s practically nothing! I am looking forward to 2020.
I believe long distance trains are performing far far away from their potential and have potential for much more ridership and much better financial results. But my goodness, wow. Alex is right . . . this will make it easier to justify expansion and improvement. It is really an achievement.
What? An Amtrak article out for over an hour and no Richard Anderson haters? I thought he was the passenger rail devil incarnate!
Maybe some of the changes could be classified as good or bad, but he’s set to make this thing profitable on an operating basis. How many times has it been said in this news service and forums that Amtrak will never be profitable, even in the operations space?
Even if you don’t like Anderson, he at least deserves credit for this. Eliminating the loss should make it much easier to convince the powers that be to fund capital expenditures at the very least.
Amtrak “break even” – – wonder what was in the punch. They will never break even – it would be a miracle, as no passenger railroad had made money for probably over 75 years. This is just a spin for the public’s benefit, and the Amtrak brass.
Positive news for Amtrak!