June 2015 Monthly Performance Report

The June 2015 Monthly Performance Report has been posted (64 page PDF). It is not a positive report. System wide, ridership and revenue was down from June 2014. Net operating loss for the month and Year To Date missed the budget targets. Ridership was up for the NE Regionals and Acelas, but down overall for the state supported corridor and LD trains.

The report blames “Low gasoline prices, trackwork projects, and weather-related cancelations adversely affected June's performance.” Low gasoline prices may be a part of the issue for the state corridor services, but I think the dropoff in ridership is due more to the corrosive effects of poor On-Time Performance. Which in turn is due to trackwork projects and weather related cancellations, but equipment problems & locomotive breakdowns, track & signal problems, slow orders, freight traffic congestion, grade crossing incidents, overly long station dwells are also contributing to the lousy OTP. Will help when real progress can be seen on some of the long running track upgrade projects especially the CHI-STL corridor, but the HSIPR funded projects work on many corridors just drags on for another construction season. At least, the Downeaster should begin to get back to normal in August.

System financial results: In June, the adjusted operating loss for the month was $16.6 million and for the Year-To-Date (YTD) was $228.0 million. The good news is Fuel, Power, & Utilities expense category is running well under budget thanks to the drop in oil prices ($63.3M under budget and $54.8M less than last year for YTD).

Ridership and Ticket Revenue
High level look at the ridership and revenue numbers. The NEC shows its resiliency by growing in ridership after the #188 derailment in May. The Downeaster ridership was down -53.3% in June because of the many cancellations and bustitutions during the Pan Am track work blitz. Having poor to bad months for ridership were the Illinois services with the Lincoln service off -13.1%, Wolverine (-7.0%), Hoosier State, Heartland Flyer (-22.8% due to floods), WAS-NPN, WAS-NFK, WAS-LYH, Carolinian (-15.0%), Piedmont (-16.3%). The good news for the state corridors were ridership increases for the Vermonter, NYP-ALB, Surfliner, Capitol Corridor.

For the LD trains, the AutoTrain had a -5.3% decline in June for ridership which I expect will be of interest. The EB June ridership was up +10.4%, but that is in comparison to June 2014. The Silver Star continues to struggle with a -10.9% June ridership decline. This, it should be noted, was before the experiment to drop the dining car which started at the beginning of July.

Ridership and Revenue summary for the month of June:

System: ridership -0.5%, revenue: -1.2%
Acela: ridership +2.7%, revenue: +2.9%
NE Regional: ridership +1.8%, revenue -0.2%
State supported corridors: ridership -2.2%, revenue -3.0%
LD trains: ridership -1.1%, revenue -5.2%

Ridership and Revenue summary for the YTD from October to June:
System: ridership +0.4%, revenue: +0.6%
Acela: ridership -1.8%, revenue: +0.7%
NE Regional: ridership +2.8%, revenue +1.7%
State supported corridors: ridership +0.5%, revenue +1.2%
LD trains: ridership -2.0%, revenue -1.5%

OK, quick look at ridership & revenue for June. All numbers are for June 15 vs. June 14.

I'm going to do a regional approach to the analysis again, because I think 'business line' subdivision obscures the regional trends. Texas Eagle is partly an extra frequency for St. Louis / Chicago; CONO is largely an extra frequency for Chicago-Carbondale; the LSL is partly an extra frequency for the Empire Service; Lynchburg Service and the Crescent work in tandem; etc.

I've included the Texas Eagle, Sunset Limited and Heartland Flyer in the Midwest because I have a hunch that their ridership is tied to the St. Louis / Chicago ridership.

First, Florida & Georgia:

-- The Silver Star is bleeding ridership and revenue, down 10.9% / 10.8% year-over-year for the month. Meanwhile, the Silver Meteor is actually up 3.7% ridership / down 1.1% revenue. Even though the dining car wasn't removed until July, I wouldn't be surprised if this had a significant effect -- there were warnings coming well in advance.

--- The Auto Train is down 5.3% / 6.2%. This could be reputational damage from the period with no sleeper lounge. Cutting amenities is a dangerous thing even if you bring them back.

--- The Palmetto is down 8.7% / 14.0%. Amtrak attributes this to trackwork, but...

Virginia and the Carolinas are doing terribly:

-- Newport News down 5.9% / 6.5%

-- Norfolk down 5.2% / 1.6%

-- Richmond down 16.3% / 21.3%

-- Carolinian down 15% / 16.4%

-- Piedmont down 16.3% / 14.9%

-- The Crescent is up 2.1% on ridership, down 5.1% on revenue -- fare cut?

-- Lynchburg down 3.1% on ridership, 2.5% on revenue -- fare increase?

Are these massive drops ridership aftereffects of the Philadelphia train crash? They'd all be in near-enough media markets. Or is it due to cheap gas particularly in this region? Or airline competition, or cheap buses? The regional trend is very noticeable. Trackwork was said to affect the Carolinian and the Palmetto, but how would this affect the Piedmont and Richmond services? I don't think it was just the trackwork.

Looking to the Northeast, from northeast to southwest:

-- The Downeaster is down 53.3% / 54.5%, which Amtrak attributes to trackwork. This line seems very disruption-sensitive, maybe because it's so short.

-- The Vermonter is booming, up 18.1% / 36.8%. The reroute was a Very Good Thing.

-- New Haven-Springfield is down 3.4%/6.9%, but this I have to attribute to trackwork & possibly traffic switching to the Vermonter.

-- Ethan Allen is up 1.8% ridership, down 1.2% revenue (insignificant changes)

-- Adirondack is down 3.4%/ 6.3% (could just be changes in border crossing delays)

-- The Lake Shore Limited continues to do well on ridership, up 3.8%, but apparently fares were cut or distances travelled are shorter, since revenue is down 12.1%.

-- Empire West is down 2.8% on ridership, 3.4% on revenue

-- Empire South is up 4.1% on ridership, flat on revenue

-- Keystone is actually up 1.0% ridership / down 3.8% revenue; Pennsylvanians weren't scared off by the train crash.

-- The Pennsylvanian is down 3.5%/4.7%, significant but not huge

-- Northeast Regional is up 1.8%, down 0.2% (insignificant)

-- Acela is up 2.7% / 2.9%. Again, people living on the NEC weren't scared off by the train crash.

Cheap gas doesn't seem to be affecting the Northeast! Even Empire West is holding up better than most of the South or Midwest.

And the Midwest (clockwise from Lake Michigan):

-- Pere Marquette down 12.1% / 12.5%

-- Wolverine down 7.0% / 4.9%

-- Blue Water is down 2.1% / 5.6%

-- The Cardinal is a relative bright spot -- it's down 1.8% on ridership, up 7.7% on revenue -- probably due to the increase in sleeper ridership of 65.6% (revenue up 61.6%). The second sleeper seems worthwhile to me. At $94K in added revenue per month, the $1.1 million in added revenue per year should easily cover the cost of running the extra sleeping car (which is somewhere in the range of 300-500K) and is clearly well worth it.

-- The Hoosier State is down 16.3% / 21.3%. And it wasn't popular to start with; it carries the fewest passengers of any Amtrak train.

-- The CONO is down 10.5% / 17.6%. Part of that is probably the decimation of the dining car service there, but it's part of a regional trend, because

-- Ilini/Saluki on the same route are down 9.2% / 10.1%

-- Texas Eagle is down 10.5% / 17.6%

---- The Sunset Limited is down 9.2% / 13.7%. I think this is tied to connecting traffic from the Texas Eagle.

---- The Heartland Flyer is down 22.8%/21.5%; apparently due to flooding. It's still doing better than the Hoosier State. :-(

-- Lincoln Service CHI-STL down 13.1% / 21.9%

-- Missouri River Runner is down 3.4% ridership / up 4.3% revenue -- fare increase?

-- Quincy is down 5.4% / 7.7%

-- Hiawatha is the other bright spot, up 0.6% / 1.3%

So that's a lot of large drops, though not as dreadful as the Virginia/Carolina numbers. Cheap gas perhaps? I suppose it doesn't affect the Hiawatha because road congestion is the main reason people don't drive that route.

The West Coast:

-- Cascades is up +0.6% ridership, +4.5% revenue -- fare increase?

-- Capitol Corridor is up at +6.7% ridership, +1.8% revenue -- fare cut?

-- San Joaquin is down 1.0% ridership, down 3.6% revenue

-- Surfliner is up 4.1% / 3.9%.

-- Coast Starlight is down 1.3% / 3.1%, within the range of normal fluctuation.

The final group is the trains which primarily serve to interconnect the regions, which have the characteristic of being heavy on connecting/transferring traffic at both ends (rather than merely one end). Here I include the three daily Transcons, and the Capitol Limited:

-- The California Zephyr is down 6.9% / 8.6%, probably due to the bad delays this year.

-- The Empire Builder is up 10.4% / 4.8%, probably due to *less* delays this year than last.

-- And the Southwest Chief is up 11.2% / 1.9%, probably because nothing has gone wrong with it and it's mostly arriving on time.

-- The Capitol Limited is down 4.6% / 8.5%. Connecting traffic from the south is probably way down, and the Midwest connecting traffic may be down too.

Summary:

-- The West Coast is stable

-- The Northeast is stable, although the Downeaster was specifically hit pretty hard by the trackwork, and the Vermonter is showing the benefits of the reroute

-- The Midwest seems to be suffering an overall ridership loss (cheap gas?)

-- Virginia / Carolinas seem to be suffering a worse overall ridership loss (cheap gas? reputational effects of the Philadelphia crash?)

-- Florida might be suffering a general ridership loss, but this is overwhelmed by local effects on the Silver Star, and perhaps by changes to the Auto Train.

-- The Transcon ridership is mostly responding to how delayed they are, with whichever trains have been more on-time lately getting more business.

-----

Worth noting: the "fully allocated" numbers remain meaningless gibberish. On a fully allocated basis, Amtrak loses $38.5 million/month from "ancillary customers" and loses $101.1 million /month from "freight and other customers". I think the correct response to these numbers is "yeah, right". Because Amtrak wouldn't be entering into those contracts if they weren't profitable.

My latest attempt to back-compute real avoidable profits/losses, based on the last genuine numbers Amtrak released for overhead, make the Auto Train (36.8 million), Silver Meteor (5.4 million), and Palmetto (3.7 million) profitable, while the Silver Star has slipped back into subsidy territory (3.8) along with the Cardinal (4.3), LSL (5.5); the others cost a lot more, and he most expensive is still the Zephyr (22.6). But be aware that these are very rough numbers and don't account even for predictable seasonal fluctuations.

Neroden: One item that is hard to quantify. June 2014 had a 5th Sunday and one less weekday. We do not know what rider ship is for each day of the week. That may account for some fluctuation. As well the Sunset had a Su LAX departure in 2014 but not 2015. Cardinal had a NYP Sunday 2014 but not 2015. One less departure for a month would mean approximately 4 % decline in riders ?

Amtrak is also guilty for not indicating how trains that span 2 months count passengers. Could either be by scheduled boarding day or Originating station day. Any one know ? As well the step child Hoosier had 2014 Sunday departures both ways but not 2015.

On the NEC the no Sunday 2014 has reduced trains that translate into one more business day ( Tuesday ) more trips., + Empire California,MKE, ETC.

neroden said:

Virginia and the Carolinas are doing terribly:

-- Carolinian down 15% / 16.4%

-- Piedmont down 16.3% / 14.9%

....

Are these massive drops ridership aftereffects of the Philadelphia train crash? They'd all be in near-enough media markets. Or is it due to cheap gas particularly in this region? Or airline competition, or cheap buses? The regional trend is very noticeable. Trackwork was said to affect the Carolinian and the Palmetto, but how would this affect the Piedmont and Richmond services? I don't think it was just the trackwork.

Looking to the Northeast, from northeast to southwest:

-- The Downeaster is down 53.3% / 54.5%, which Amtrak attributes to trackwork. This line seems very disruption-sensitive, maybe because it's so short.

Click to expand...

The trackwork that disrupted the Downeaster was not typical maintenance track work. Pan Am Railways had allowed sections of their tracks and trackbed to get in poor condition and according to comments I saw on rr.net, the past severe winter weather made things worse. So the route got hit with a major daytime track blitz work to replace over 22,00 ties and regrade the trackbed from NH to Portland that took a month longer than originally projected. Checking Status Maps Archives for June, most days no more than 2 of the 5 Downeasters made it to Portland, with 2 of the 5 Downeasters cancelled outright and bustitutions for parts of the route. Much of the route is single track, so there is no getting around the track work.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the Downeaster ridership to recover. If the MBTA ever completes the two HSIPR funded track projects in MA, the Downeaster should jump from the terrible OTP of the past months to fairly reliable with reduced POR-BON trip times.

As for the ridership hits on the Carolinian and Piedmonts in June, there were some service cancellations. The Carolinian did not run north of Raleigh for 2 days out of 30 in June, so that could account for 5 to 7% of the June dropoff in ridership. There were at least 2 cancellations of the Piedmonts, so losing 2 out of 60 trains and several cut short by service disruptions would account for a portion of the June ridership decline. The OTP of the Piedmonts in June was not very good, but it was not terrible, from scanning the endpoint arrivals times in June for both CLT and RGH. So there is more than just service interruptions in those big declines in June (and in May). Competition from a low cost bus service?

For the once a day, twice a day or the two 3 day a week trains, even a service interruption or cancellation for 1 or 2 days will cause a noticeable dropoff in ridership in a month. thanks to Status Maps archive database, we can go back and check to see how many cancellations there were during the month.

Low gas prices (Now $2.20/gallon in Ohio), too many delays and "service disruptions", and cuts in amenities = "I'd rather drive than ride a train" for many non diehard train riders. Most of my friends who have considered riding Amtrak look at the late trains and say "why do I want to do that"

Bustitutions are a big negative to those travelers who want to ride trains..

If Amtrak continues to cut quality of food (yes it is the same menu on every train) and not improve OTP, then those who do not live on the East Coast or Chicago metro will find another way to get to a destination..

From what I can tell, OTP issues (including some which were announced and hit with a warning on Amtrak.com) did a number on the VA trains (which have, otherwise, been having a good year). The VA trains are rather OTP-sensitive (much of their traffic is, after all, business traffic) and trouble with CSX trackwork hit them.

Edit: In general, OTP has been in the toilet on various routes for the last year or two. Possibly the most frustrating thing is that it isn't one route that's been hit, but rather virtually every route has had its "turn in the doghouse"...and it can take a long time for ridership to recover from a lengthy OTP FUBAR.

it may be that OTP will stay low until the court case is resolved and / or traffic increases take a pause.

Arguably, the OTP issues in Virginia may very well be due to under-compensation in schedules for the several planned track works and construction projects that are going on.

As for the Florida trains, until the Rocky mount gauntlet is fixed, they will continue to have OTP issues.

Apparently, the other factor that is affecting OTP of the LD network is the unreliability of the locomotive fleet. Somehow this problem never seems to go away. This is probably a problem caused by too sparse a network with too few protect units available. In countries that run huge LD networks, more often than not each train gets a single engine which runs its journey and they seem to do that day in and day out for months without any significant failures. Specially for the typical lengths of journey for eastern LD trains are handled regualy by single very powerful engines, and their failure rates seem to be distinctly lower than that on Amtrak.

So yeah, the court case my help a bit, and even a lot when faced with egregious cases, but I bet nothing will really get fixed until the state of good repair of equipment and infrastructure (which requires cooperation of the host railroads) is addressed adequately.

I don't think I've heard of a single case of locomotive failure delaying the LSL -- not in a very long time if ever.

There seems to be trackwork *everywhere* on the Water Level Route right now, on top of the usual CSX and NS congestion.

jis said:

Arguably, the OTP issues in Virginia may very well be due to under-compensation in schedules for the several planned track works and construction projects that are going on.

As for the Florida trains, until the Rocky mount gauntlet is fixed, they will continue to have OTP issues.

Apparently, the other factor that is affecting OTP of the LD network is the unreliability of the locomotive fleet. Somehow this problem never seems to go away. This is probably a problem caused by too sparse a network with too few protect units available. In countries that run huge LD networks, more often than not each train gets a single engine which runs its journey and they seem to do that day in and day out for months without any significant failures. Specially for the typical lengths of journey for eastern LD trains are handled regualy by single very powerful engines, and their failure rates seem to be distinctly lower than that on Amtrak.

So yeah, the court case my help a bit, and even a lot when faced with egregious cases, but I bet nothing will really get fixed until the state of good repair of equipment is addressed adequately.

Click to expand...

It isn't just under-planning in VA...the issue there, I think, is that nobody wants to get into a change-the-schedule fight with CSX, even on a temporary basis, if it can be helped.

Anderson said:

It isn't just under-planning in VA...the issue there, I think, is that nobody wants to get into a change-the-schedule fight with CSX, even on a temporary basis, if it can be helped.

Click to expand...

This probably accounts for why the PIP for the LSL & CL hasn't been implemented, too. With construction at Niagara Falls, Rochester, east of Syracuse, at Schenectady, between Schenectady and Albany, at Albany, at Springfield MA, between Framingham and Boston, and between Poughkeepsie and Albany, *in addition to* whatever work CSX is doing on its own account, it would (given a sane railroad) be advisable to change the LSL and Empire Service schedules repeatedly to adjust for different trackwork issues.

However, the process of trying to convince CSX to change a schedule seems to be so long, drawn-out, protracted, and obnoxious that Amtrak has probably decided to wait until the whole shebang is done and change everything all at once.

neroden said:

I don't think I've heard of a single case of locomotive failure delaying the LSL -- not in a very long time if ever.

There seems to be trackwork *everywhere* on the Water Level Route right now, on top of the usual CSX and NS congestion.

Click to expand...

I am sure it has had its small share, though admittedly a bigger problem has been Sunnyside's and 14th Street's inability to provide a consist on time because of last minute bad ordering of cars requiring substitution. And then there is the odd behavior of Amtrak staff in handling the stops causing excessive dwell times too, over and above the CSX shenanigans.

Loco failures have become somewhat chronic on the western LDs of late.

Yeah, the delays incurred on the Empire Corridor by contrary-to-the-rulebook ticket-checking practices are definitely a significant factor. And there seem to be serious problems with Chicago's ability to deliver a working consist. (Sunnyside has had its problems, but it seems anecdotally like problems at Chicago are far more common.)

neroden said:

-- Keystone is actually up 1.0% ridership / down 3.8% revenue; Pennsylvanians weren't scared off by the train crash.

-- The Pennsylvanian is down 3.5%/4.7%, significant but not huge

Click to expand...

Let's just say I expect the best FY for the keystones, ever. (the saturday ones keep flickering between a few seats left and sold out)

Sunday, September 27 is the Papal Mass. That's not a good indicator of anything- everything into Philadelphia that day will be sold out.

neroden said:

Yeah, the delays incurred on the Empire Corridor by contrary-to-the-rulebook ticket-checking practices are definitely a significant factor. And there seem to be serious problems with Chicago's ability to deliver a working consist. (Sunnyside has had its problems, but it seems anecdotally like problems at Chicago are far more common.)

Click to expand...

I guess this is a question I have to ask, but...why hasn't Amtrak cracked down on this? Heck, why haven't NYS or CSX (both of whom have reasons to want Amtrak to be on time...if, in CSX's case, only to have them out of the way) pushed a bit?

wolfspirit said:

Let's just say I expect the best FY for the keystones, ever. (the saturday ones keep flickering between a few seats left and sold out)

Click to expand...

The sold out trains for the weekend of the Papal visit to Philly will be a bump in ridership number. But 2 sold-out days our of a 365 day year, even if Amtrak add extra cars to the keystone, will only provide a modest net bump.
Hopefully, the weather will be nice for the big weekend in Philly with no storms taking down catenary or blocking tracks nor a heat wave stressing the catenary and power system. Or locomotives, new or old breaking down.

Anderson said:

I guess this is a question I have to ask, but...why hasn't Amtrak cracked down on this? Heck, why haven't NYS or CSX (both of whom have reasons to want Amtrak to be on time...if, in CSX's case, only to have them out of the way) pushed a bit?

Click to expand...

It is one of those enduring mysteries of life associated with Amtrak. We have even asked this question of Amtrak Empire Service management. They say it is not their bailiwick, it is an Amtrak LD issue. They have no control over the LSL. Go figure. But it is not clear that the Empire Service staff behave any different either.

neroden said:

OK, quick look at ridership & revenue for June. All numbers are for June 15 vs. June 14.

First, Florida & Georgia:

-- The Silver Star is bleeding ridership and revenue, down 10.9% / 10.8% year-over-year for the month. Meanwhile, the Silver Meteor is actually up 3.7% ridership / down 1.1% revenue. Even though the dining car wasn't removed until July, I wouldn't be surprised if this had a significant effect -- there were warnings coming well in advance.

.

Click to expand...

In regards to the Silver Star: Wasn't there a significant period of time where you couldn't make reservations on it while they decided which way to go? I would think that may have impacted some of the numbers.

There was, quite significant. At least a month, IIRC.

Thirdrail7 said:

neroden said:

OK, quick look at ridership & revenue for June. All numbers are for June 15 vs. June 14.

First, Florida & Georgia:

-- The Silver Star is bleeding ridership and revenue, down 10.9% / 10.8% year-over-year for the month. Meanwhile, the Silver Meteor is actually up 3.7% ridership / down 1.1% revenue. Even though the dining car wasn't removed until July, I wouldn't be surprised if this had a significant effect -- there were warnings coming well in advance.

.

Click to expand...

In regards to the Silver Star: Wasn't there a significant period of time where you couldn't make reservations on it while they decided which way to go? I would think that may have impacted some of the numbers.

Click to expand...

I think it was just the sleepers that were so hit (you could book coach but no sleepers)...and that may have only been for post-June 30 reservations (or was it post-May 31?). Still, the Star's going to be a right mess, and there may be knock-on damage to the Cap via the Meteor (displaced pax driving prices up/selling out trains).

Interesting that the passenger count increased on the Meteor but revenue was down.

Anderson said:

neroden said:

Yeah, the delays incurred on the Empire Corridor by contrary-to-the-rulebook ticket-checking practices are definitely a significant factor. And there seem to be serious problems with Chicago's ability to deliver a working consist. (Sunnyside has had its problems, but it seems anecdotally like problems at Chicago are far more common.)

Click to expand...

I guess this is a question I have to ask, but...why hasn't Amtrak cracked down on this? Heck, why haven't NYS or CSX (both of whom have reasons to want Amtrak to be on time...if, in CSX's case, only to have them out of the way) pushed a bit?

Click to expand...

I have no idea. I don't even know who to contact. The habit of opening only one car, which is spotted in a random location on the platform, is also customer-unfriendly.

jis said:

Anderson said:

I guess this is a question I have to ask, but...why hasn't Amtrak cracked down on this? Heck, why haven't NYS or CSX (both of whom have reasons to want Amtrak to be on time...if, in CSX's case, only to have them out of the way) pushed a bit?

Click to expand...

It is one of those enduring mysteries of life associated with Amtrak. We have even asked this question of Amtrak Empire Service management. They say it is not their bailiwick, it is an Amtrak LD issue. They have no control over the LSL. Go figure. But it is not clear that the Empire Service staff behave any different either.

Click to expand...

Amtrak Empire Service management is lying or confused. Here's why:

(1) Yes, the Empire Service has the exact same problem -- actually, it's worse. At least the LSL opens all doors at Syracuse; one-door train-delaying is standard on the Empire Service even at Syracuse.

(2) The control over door opening policies and "ticket pre-checking" on the platform is controlled by the CONDUCTOR. In the worst cases of ticket checking on the platform, it's actually *done* by the conductor. I've listened to the radio chatter and it is explicitly the conductor who orders how many doors are to be opened, and it is the conductor who tells the Asst. Conductors or the coach attendants to look at people's tickets before boarding. The conductor is their boss while they are on board -- if the conductor was issuing different instructions they would behave differently.

(4) The conductors on this segment seem to be from the same pool of conductors as the Empire Service. I'm not sure where the conductor change points are.

VP of Operations (still DJ Stadtler?), is the ultimate boss of these "rogue conductors". But I think they're under the direct supervision of the Deputy General Manager for the region.

It's hard to figure out which region the Empire Service is part of. It actually looks like they might be allocated to the Central Region (?!?!?!), which would make it DGM-Central Moe Savoy's responsibility. Although you'd think it would be the New York Region, I think it isn't.

Anyway, the VP of Operations and all the DGMs are supposed to report to (among other people) the Empire Service management at the state. So this is absolutely the Empire Service management's bailiwick. It would be also be appropriate to go directly to the VP-Operations.

Or, given the utter mess which is the Amtrak organizational structure, it would be appropriate to go directly to Boardman. Boardman needs to figure out who's responsible for the 'rogue conductors' -- they're all at a specific list of reporting points, and so *someone* is responsible for them -- and he needs to get control over them.

If we want to do some of Boardman's work for him, the first step is to figure out the conductor reporting points on the Empire Service and LSL, and specifically who is responsible for the Buffalo-Schenectady segments where the routine delays occur. (The south of Albany conductors usually don't seem to cause major delays, though I'm not sure why.) The second step is to figure out which Deputy General Manager is responsible for those particular crewbases. That's the target who needs to be pressured by the state government.

Edit on later research: I see that all the conductors in New York as far as Buffalo and Niagara Falls report to the Albany crewbase. The question is strictly the question of which DGM oversees the Albany conductors, then.