Pacific Surfliner Costs

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chris319

Train Attendant
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Oct 21, 2014
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According to figures obtained here:

http://reasonrail.blogspot.com/2013/11/amtrak-routes-by-2013-cost-recovery.html

The Pacific Surfliner cost $113,800,000 to operate in FY 2013

The California Zephyr cost $129,900,000 to operate in FY 2013.

The Surfliner route is 347 miles long. The Zephyr route is 2,438 miles long.

According to these figures, the Zephyr cost $53,281 per mile. The Surfliner cost $327,954 per mile, about 6 times more per mile.

The Surfliner does not have any dining cars. The Zephyr has a staffed dining car.

How can this be? Can these figures be correct?
 
According to figures obtained here:

http://reasonrail.blogspot.com/2013/11/amtrak-routes-by-2013-cost-recovery.html

The Pacific Surfliner cost $113,800,000 to operate in FY 2013

The California Zephyr cost $129,900,000 to operate in FY 2013.

The Surfliner route is 347 miles long. The Zephyr route is 2,438 miles long.

According to these figures, the Zephyr cost $53,281 per mile. The Surfliner cost $327,954 per mile, about 6 times more per mile.

The Surfliner does not have any dining cars. The Zephyr has a staffed dining car.

How can this be? Can these figures be correct?
Surfliner has multiple frequency's a day. There are 11 trips each way from LAX to San Diego alone. Then there are also the north of LA route to Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo.
 
On the timetable I see six trips from L.A. to S.D. per day, and one trip from L.A. to Santa Ana.

Still, it lost $51 million in FY 2013, roughly a million per week.
 
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Let's say $30,000 per mile vs. Zephy'r's $53,000 per mile. The Zephyr costs 1.8x more per mile and has a full compliment of attendants, etc.

I assume there are two train sets on the L.A. to S.D. portion of the Surfliner? How many crews does it use? That cost just seems high.
 
The way I read the schedule, there are six daily roundtrips from San Diego to Los Angeles, three daily roundtrips, San Diego to Goleta and two daily roundtrips San Diego to San Luis Obispo. That's 11 roundtrips a day. It's pretty hard to compare a multi-trip corridor with a daily LD train. The Pacific Surfliners are funded by the state of California, while the Zephyr is Amtrak's sole responsibility, so it's comparing apples to oranges.
 
On the timetable I see six trips from L.A. to S.D. per day, and one trip from L.A. to Santa Ana.

Still, it lost $51 million in FY 2013, roughly a million per week.
What are you looking at? Santa Ana is a stop between LA and San Diego for one thing, all the Surfliners stop there. There are 11 trips a day between LA and San Diego (which all stop at Santa Ana). Just for illustration, the southbounds out of LA to San Diego are

562 6:15 am

564 7:25 am

566 8:30 am

768 9:50 am (Originates at Santa Barbara Goleta)

572 at 11:15 am

774 at 12:30 pm (originates at San Luis Obispo)

580 at 3:00 pm

582 at 4:10 pm

784 at 5:10 pm (originates at Santa Barbara Goleta)

790 at 7:30 pm M-F/1790 at 7:30 pm SS (originates at San Luis Obispo)

796 at 10:10 pm (Originates at Santa Barbara

What's your point? Multiple frequency corridor service is a different animal than LD service. And you should probably be measuring cost per seat/mile.

If you can't read a simple timetable, it makes it difficult to take your case very seriously.
 
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Let's say $30,000 per mile vs. Zephy'r's $53,000 per mile. The Zephyr costs 1.8x more per mile and has a full compliment of attendants, etc.

I assume there are two train sets on the L.A. to S.D. portion of the Surfliner? How many crews does it use? That cost just seems high.
You can't get train cost per mile without either the actual number or a good estimate of total train miles. You are comparing a once daily LD train that runs over a 2 night route versus the highest frequency intercity corridor service not connected to the NEC. You need more information than is provided on the reasonrail page if you really want to compare operating costs.

I don't have the total train miles or the passenger miles for either service on hand. From the Amtrak reports, we know that in FY2013:

The Pacific Surfliner carried 2,705,823 passengers and took in $62.58 million in ticket revenue plus an unstated amount in food & beverage (F&B) sales.

The CZ carried 376,932 passengers and took in a total revenue of $55.7 million ($49.96 million in ticket revenue + X$ in F&B sales + misc revenue).

The CZ requires 6 consists with 7 to 9 cars per train depending on the season and traffic load. I don't know how many consists are needed to support the the Surfliner service on weekdays and weekends.
 
Let's say $30,000 per mile vs. Zephy'r's $53,000 per mile. The Zephyr costs 1.8x more per mile and has a full compliment of attendants, etc.

I assume there are two train sets on the L.A. to S.D. portion of the Surfliner? How many crews does it use? That cost just seems high.
You can't get train cost per mile without either the actual number or a good estimate of total train miles. You are comparing a once daily LD train that runs over a 2 night route versus the highest frequency intercity corridor service not connected to the NEC. You need more information than is provided on the reasonrail page if you really want to compare operating costs.

I don't have the total train miles or the passenger miles for either service on hand. From the Amtrak reports, we know that in FY2013:

The Pacific Surfliner carried 2,705,823 passengers and took in $62.58 million in ticket revenue plus an unstated amount in food & beverage (F&B) sales.

The CZ carried 376,932 passengers and took in a total revenue of $55.7 million ($49.96 million in ticket revenue + X$ in F&B sales + misc revenue).

The CZ requires 6 consists with 7 to 9 cars per train depending on the season and traffic load. I don't know how many consists are needed to support the the Surfliner service on weekdays and weekends.
There are 8 Surfliner sets and 1 amfleet set.
 
In my haste to get a rough and ready mileage estimate I didn't look at the rest of the timetable :( Now I see it: 11 trips per day.

#566 southbound arrives in SD at 11:22 am. #777 northbound departs SD at 12:00 noon. Same crew and consist after a 38-minute layover? They're push-pulls so it can just take off.

A total of 9 sets. Are all 9 of those sets in use every day? Nine sets to cover 11 trips?

Add personnel to cover weekends.
 
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23 daily trains, 10 of which go to Santa Barbara and 2 of which go to San Luis Obispo. Anyhow, I have the train miles in a more recent post.

1,590,000 train miles for the Surfliner, 1,780,000 for the Zephyr (based on quarterly figures rounded to nearest 10,000 train miles). That means fully allocated costs $71.57 per mile for the Surfliner and $72.98 for the California Zephyr. That being said, the Surfliner, San Joaquin, and Capitol Corridor all have higher than normal allocated costs because they also pay for substantial connecting Thruway bus service. In the Surfliner's case, it pays for two daily buses from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, eleven daily buses from Santa Barbara to San Luis Obispo to Oakland (connecting with the Capitol Corridor), and four daily buses from Fullerton to Coachella Valley/Indio. The Grapevine buses are paid for by the San Joaquins. Though running the numbers from a few years ago, that should only account for a few million dollars.
 
Also, there is one train a day I think that starts in LA and goes north to SLO. So not all trains go to San Diego. Train 777 goes from San Diego to SLO which is a 8.5 hour journey. So that probably explains the number of consists.
 
11 trains arriving in San Diego per day; 11 trains departing San Diego per day

7 trains between SD & LA

1 train between SD & SB

1 train between SD & SLO

2 trains between SD & Goleta

SB arr SD NB dep SD Dest
562 9:00 am 769 9:25 am Goleta
564 10:10 a 573 10:42 am LA
566 11:22 am 777 12:00 pm SLO
768 12:35 pm 579 1:40 pm LA
572 2:03 pm 583 2:40 pm LA
774 3:15 pm 785 4:00 pm SB
580 5:47 pm 591 6:45 pm LA
582 7:03 pm 595 9:00 pm LA
784 8:07 pm 763 6:05 am Goleta
790 10:25 pm 565 7:05 am LA
796 1:00 am 567 8:24 am LA


#761/1761 starts in LA and goes to SLO

I would think the 7 SD/LA trains could head right back to SD after a layover.
 
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1,590,000 train miles for the Surfliner, 1,780,000 for the Zephyr (based on quarterly figures rounded to nearest 10,000 train miles). That means fully allocated costs $71.57 per mile for the Surfliner and $72.98 for the California Zephyr.
So basically identical numbers.

It would be interesting to see which trains have "fully allocated costs" which are way off from these numbers. Why? Because those would, most likely, be signs of fishy cost allocation. (The Auto Train should actually cost more, of course.)

I appreciate your calculations for marginal cost of operation per train-mile, and for revenue per train-mile.

The thing which is most notable is, in fact, how *similar* the costs per train-mile are for different trains. This bolsters my claim about economies of scale from longer trains, etc.
 
Train Expenses per train mile
Acela $92.11

Keystone $34.45
Northeast Regional $80.71
—Richmond/Newport News $20.13
—Lynchburg $21.22

Hoosier State $111.25
Maple Leaf $97.06
Cascades $73.83
Pacific Surfliner $71.57
Wolverine $69.70
San Joaquins $66.30
Capitol Corridor $62.17
Blue Water $60.83
Hiawatha $59.07
Pere Marquette $57.50
New York-Albany $53.46
Heartland Flyer $53.13
Adirondack $51.48
Pennsylvanian $50.94
Illini/Saluki $50.91
Lincoln Service $49.01
Sandburg/Zephyr $47.84
Carolinian $44.04
Kansas City-St. Louis $38.75
Ethan Allen Express $38.24
Downeaster $34.78
Piedmont $34.58
Vermonter $26.36

Auto Train $162.58
Coast Starlight $107.45
Lake Shore Limited $86.63
Sunset Limited $85.47
Capitol Limited $85.26
Silver Meteor $83.14
Silver Star $82.50
Crescent $79.69
Cardinal $73.89
California Zephyr $72.98
Empire Builder $71.61
Southwest Chief $70.78
City of New Orleans $70.00
Texas Eagle $66.88
Palmetto $55.57
Honestly, no rhyme or reason I've ever been able to figure out with the state trains.
 
Yeah, the numbers are really fishy and all over the place. I guess a lot of the costs are per-HOUR rather than per-MILE, which explains why the sluggish Hoosier State is so expensive and the unusually fast Palmetto is so cheap...

But the Virginia train numbers are extreme outliers, and those trains are not particularly fast. I think these are artifacts of screwy allocation between the NEC and the NEC extensions.

I don't think allocation of costs works, and it's certainly penalizing the Empire Corridor West (coded as "Maple Leaf", though it doesn't include VIA's costs west of Niagara Falls). I'd love to see a pure marginal-cost accounting.
 
Palmetto is pretty much middle of the line for a corridor train actually, so I don't think that's it really. Hoosier State got really screwed in FY13's cost allocations, they nearly doubled over FY12 and then mostly dropped back again it looks like for this year (still higher, August YTD $5.4M vs FY12 $4.9M but well below FY13's $8.8M). Estimating it would be in the $70 range for this year I suspect which would be a combination of low miles and getting tagged with stuff from being a hospital train.

Starlight ding is probably the PPC.
 
The fact that "costs" can vary wildly from year to year without any obvious changes in, um, costs, indicates how uselessly screwy the cost allocations are. I'd really like to see the accounting without any allocations.

Y'know, list "station operations" by station, list the reservations & ticketing as its own line item, etc. That might actually make it clear whether there was anything out of line.

For instance, suppose there's a station with wildly out-of-line costs, grossly disproportionate to its ridership and importance. With this accounting, you'd *never know*, because it would get "allocated" to various trains, making the situation completely obscure and concealed.

Good accounting is supposed to make things clear, not make things more confusing.
 
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On the Pacific Surfliner, one also has to take into consideration that it is the State's tool to get cars off of the freeway. I personally take one round trip a week to go see clients down in San Diego. The ticket cost structure is way different than say the regular system. Weather I buy my ticket today or tomorrow, it will cost be the same. The only way the cost matters is if you buy three days in advance for a AAA discount.

So I guess there are economic benefits that just can't be quantified.

- Cars removed from the freeway.

- Increased productivity from working on the train instead of driving.

- etc. etc.

I don't think the State runs it as a positive revenue system, but more like a tax subsidized mass transit. So when you consider all the "non profit" agenda's, the Surfliner is doing exactly what it is supposed to do.
 
One-way coach between L.A. & S.D. is $37.

Round-trip coach between L.A. & S.D. is $37.
 
One-way coach between L.A. & S.D is $37

Round-trip coach between L.A. & S.D. is $74

Round-trip is twice the one-way fare. The only time this might vary on the Pacific Surfliner is during the holiday (Thanksgiving) season and during the Del Mar racing season where fares can be slightly higher due to heavily increased ridership and demand.

Is there a particular question you are looking to the answer to?
 
Go to the Amtrak web site. Enter LAX in "From" and SAN in "To". Tick "One-Way" and click "Find trains". The value fare is given as $37.

Now click "Round-Trip" and "Find trains". The value fare is again given as $37.

Must be an error on their web site.
 
Go to the Amtrak web site. Enter LAX in "From" and SAN in "To". Tick "One-Way" and click "Find trains". The value fare is given as $37.

Now click "Round-Trip" and "Find trains". The value fare is again given as $37.

Must be an error on their web site.
You are looking at the price for a single segment. You need to select the return trip as well.
 
Go to the Amtrak web site. Enter LAX in "From" and SAN in "To". Tick "One-Way" and click "Find trains". The value fare is given as $37.

Now click "Round-Trip" and "Find trains". The value fare is again given as $37.

Must be an error on their web site.
You are looking at the price for a single segment. You need to select the return trip as well.
Did you click the return trip? You have to select EACH way portion for the full price.
 
Go to the Amtrak web site. Enter LAX in "From" and SAN in "To". Tick "One-Way" and click "Find trains". The value fare is given as $37.

Now click "Round-Trip" and "Find trains". The value fare is again given as $37.

Must be an error on their web site.
You are looking at the price for a single segment. You need to select the return trip as well.
Did you click the return trip? You have to select EACH way portion for the full price.
Really knows his way around the Amtrak website as well as the timetable, don't he?
 
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