This came out a few days ago. First, the link:
https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/...g/Amtrak-Service-Asset-Line-Plans-FY24-29.pdf
Second, there are some issues I see:
(1) Amtrak is logging 15 of 50 Viewliner Is and 22 of 130 Viewliner IIs as out-of-service. I know that one of the V-Is was written off after a derailment, but this ratio is a doozy. So it stands out in a bad way.
(2) Ridership and revenue projections just don't make sense, and while no one issue is fatal, the combination of them doesn't look great. A list of quibbles:
-Acela ridership is expected to surge, but per-passenger revenue never takes a hit. I've been saying this for a
long time on here, but I fully expect that when the Acela IIs enter service you'll see about a 10-15% hit to this. Now, you'll still see a non-trivial bump in revenue since ridership will slide up to make up for it, but it is hard to see adding 50%+ seats north of NYP and
far above that south of NYP (it would've been around/a bit over doubling pre-pandemic [doubling frequencies would have implied tripling capacity, but IIRC the plan was always to only go to twice-hourly around travel peaks], but with about four frequencies/25% of capacity struck off the timecard due to equipment availability issues, the surge will be even more substantial -
possibly tripling current capacity). Notably, Amtrak's projections also imply somewhat lower load factors...so maybe they're just planning to run a number of trains mostly empty to defend fares, but their behavior over the last few months doesn't imply that.
--There's some clumsy phrasing, but the report mentions hourly service to Boston. Either Amtrak is planning to pull Regional frequencies north of NHV or...is there a plan to bump the number of slots Amtrak has along there?
-Virginia Regional ridership shows
no increase for FY24, and the extra train going into NPN in 2026 or thereabouts is not accounted for (I'd expect a bump for FY26 or FY27). This is particularly glaring since an additional Piedmont and an additional Pennsylvanian pop up around that time.
-There seems to be no indication of the Airo trainsets entering service in terms of any impact on capacity, etc.; however, I find this kind of hard to believe as a zero-impact event on the NEC (especially since the dual-power configuration will save time at Washington, DC). Note that in the document, Amtrak indicates that they expect to have the NEC mostly transitioned to Airos by FY29, so this feels a bit glaring.
(3) Between pages 10 and 15, Amtrak can't make up its mind whether the system will be revenue-neutral or still posting a non-trivial loss.
Anyhow, I'm open to hearing other thoughts on this.
