April, 2016 Monthly Performance Report

[Carolina Special]

Companies prepare non-GAAP measures as supplemental information to sell themselves all the time. You just have to have some fancy footnotes explaining what these are and that these are not in accordance with GAAP. I've prepared some of these measures myself in another industry.

No reason why Amtrak can't do something similar with allocations.

To be fair, allocations can really be complicated with multiple variables involved in allocating out the dollars properly. But Amtrak has, or should have, considerably more resources (people, time) than was available where I've worked.

 

[Thirdrail7]

Realistically I think that intra-NEC riders for non-Regional trains (e.g Palmetto, Carolinian, Star/Meteor/Crescent during the experiment a few years ago) which are credited to the NEC should go in the NEC category akin to "Special Trains": Either as "Other NEC" or broken out by train (with revenue credited to the train actually carrying the pax in other areas, even if an asterisk goes in saying "of $12m in revenue $2.5m was on the NEC").

They actually do, Anderson. The only train that doesn't is the Palmetto since up until recently, it was a pure LD train. The rest of them account for their intra-NEC ridership under NEC-spine. Other NEC is for specials, charters, etc.

Believe, the NEC group is fighting to get this changed.

 

[Thirdrail7]

Something worth noting: The Palmetto's gains are basically sandbagging the NEC. YTD the Regionals are off 48k vs last year and 123k vs budget while the Palmetto is up about 90k over both...so at least on the Regionals, a lot of the "problem" with the budget is that nobody told the budget folks to account for the schedule switch (which, arguably, isn't in their bailiwick).

I've thought the same thing - I think they really need to treat the Palmetto more like a Regional train for the purposes of ridership and revenue, since I think it's easy to see that it has taken a good chunk of NER ridership.

It's also the only LD train that doesn't have overnight service.

This is only true to a certain extent. From a route classification perspective, they may be state supported trains, but operationally (and from a federal stand point), both the Vermonter and Pennsylvanian are considered long distance trains (fitting the established criteria for long distance intercity train) and neither operate overnight.

 

[lo2e]

I've finally gotten a chance to crunch the numbers on Long Distance Coach/Business ridership for April, and while we know that April in general was a pretty ugly month system-wide, there are a few bright spots... and the somewhat-usual dark ones:

• The Star, Builder, Capitol Ltd, SWC, and Crescent all lost over 1,800 coach/business passengers year-over-year, which results in an average loss of 60+ passengers per day compared to March April 2015 (the Crescent was the biggest loser in this category - 3,006 total coach passengers lost in the month, about 100 per day).
  
• The big winners for the month in long distance coach ridership: Zephyr, LSL, and CS, with honorable mention to the Texas Eagle, which actually gained coach ridership year-over-year for the first time in several months, albeit only an average of about 2 passengers per day. Baby steps...
  
• The CZ has been gaining all the headlines for its huge boost in ridership the last few months. Somewhat flying under the radar so far this fiscal year is how amazing the LSL is doing. Sleeper ridership for the fiscal year to date is nearly flat (-0.6%), but somehow the LSL has picked up 16,563 more coach passengers YTD, an increase of 10+% over last year at this time. I'd be curious to see what cities these coach passengers are using, as I doubt they are going endpoint to endpoint, but I just don't know.

Edit: Typo fixed in the first bullet paragraph.

 

[jis]

Does this LSL phenomenon have anything to do with the whole train running to New York?

 

[lo2e]

Does this LSL phenomenon have anything to do with the whole train running to New York?

Possibly, but please help me out as I'm not very familiar with the logistics... Would running the whole train to New York make much of a difference in terms of rider experience, cost, OTP, etc.? I guess I'm looking to find out how to connect the dots between running the whole train to New York and ridership increase.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Taking a wild guess, I'd say that more people want to go to New York than to Boston, and running the whole train to/from NYP increases the amount of seats (and Rooms) available between NYP and CHI on this Very Popular Route!

 

[Train2104]

Taking a wild guess, I'd say that more people want to go to New York than to Boston, and running the whole train to/from NYP increases the amount of seats (and Rooms) available between NYP and CHI on this Very Popular Route!

Probably an increase in NYS passengers. When I rode 49 last week, there was almost an entire carful of NYP-BUF passengers.

Also local travel NYP-ALB is now allowed westbound. Not sure when this started

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Hopefully this news doesn't cause Amtrak to permanently eliminate the Boston leg or require transfers for them to the LSL at Albany.

 

[jis]

Specially as far as the ALB - NYP passengers are concerned, they can always add a drop car at Albany, like they do to the Adirondack.

NYP - BUF is a different matter. LSL is a very convenient "last train of the day" on that route westbound, and similarly eastbound a good second train of the day, if it is running on time.

 

[neroden]

Somewhat flying under the radar so far this fiscal year is how amazing the LSL is doing. Sleeper ridership for the fiscal year to date is nearly flat (-0.6%), but somehow the LSL has picked up 16,563 more coach passengers YTD, an increase of 10+% over last year at this time. I'd be curious to see what cities these coach passengers are using, as I doubt they are going endpoint to endpoint, but I just don't know.

Based on the trends in recent years, I would guess the heavy coach ridership is Chicago - (Toledo, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Schenectady, Albany).

Unfortunately quite a lot of this is "recovering" ridership which was scared off by the Norfolk Southern Autorouter disaster last year, so it's just getting us back to FY2014 levels.

 

[ainamkartma]

Has the timeliness of the LSL improved due to the completed double tracking between Schenectady and Albany? Last time I rode the LSL eastbound, several years ago, we were on time until Utica, then dropped something like three hours due to freight interference before Albany. One time deal, of course, but my understanding was that this was a common problem because of the single track section. One could imagine improved on-time performance would result in a delayed increase in coach ridership... of course, there is no way to significantly increase the LSL sleeper ridership, since it is already more or less maxed out.

Ainamkartma

 

[afigg]

Somewhat flying under the radar so far this fiscal year is how amazing the LSL is doing. Sleeper ridership for the fiscal year to date is nearly flat (-0.6%), but somehow the LSL has picked up 16,563 more coach passengers YTD, an increase of 10+% over last year at this time. I'd be curious to see what cities these coach passengers are using, as I doubt they are going endpoint to endpoint, but I just don't know.

Based on the trends in recent years, I would guess the heavy coach ridership is Chicago - (Toledo, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Schenectady, Albany).

Unfortunately quite a lot of this is "recovering" ridership which was scared off by the Norfolk Southern Autorouter disaster last year, so it's just getting us back to FY2014 levels.

yes, the LSL ridership is simply rebounding to FY2014 levels and is actually a bit less than in 2014. Total ridership (coach + sleepers) for the LSL for the firsy 7 months of the FY for the past 3 years:

October to April 2014: 200,424

October to April 2015: 180,706

October to April 2016: 197,150.

The severe delays and the terrible OTP in the summer and fall of 2014 on the NS segment, with CSX not helping either resulted in a dropoff in ridership that the LSL is only now recovering from. The western Empire corridor ridership numbers for ALB-NFL-TWO are down in FY16 to date over FY15 which was a drop from FY14. So the LSL might be poaching some of those passengers, but it is likely not having a major effect. If all the Poughkeepsie to SDYSCH track and signal upgrades are done by early to mid FY2017, that should help to restore western Empire corridor ridership, but it won't happen quickly.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

Has the timeliness of the LSL improved due to the completed double tracking between Schenectady and Albany? ...

One could imagine improved on-time performance would result in a delayed increase in coach ridership... of course, there is no way to significantly increase the LSL sleeper ridership, since it is already more or less maxed out.

You're right to expect that greatly improved OTP will induce more riders. But I believe you're at least one year too soon to see that. Unless I missed it during a diabetic coma or something, the double-tracking has not yet been completed. The Albany Station work hasn't been completed either. I ain't mad at them: They've been working on the railroad. But they still need a year to 15 months to complete it all.

 

[afigg]

Has the timeliness of the LSL improved due to the completed double tracking between Schenectady and Albany? Last time I rode the LSL eastbound, several years ago, we were on time until Utica, then dropped something like three hours due to freight interference before Albany. One time deal, of course, but my understanding was that this was a common problem because of the single track section. One could imagine improved on-time performance would result in a delayed increase in coach ridership... of course, there is no way to significantly increase the LSL sleeper ridership, since it is already more or less maxed out.

Ainamkartma

The double tracking between SDYSCH and ALB has not been completed. Don't know if it is supposed to be fully completed or at least operational by the end of 2016 or not. The 4 tracks, new switches, and station platform extension at ALB appears to be slated to be done by later this year. There is a $18.5 million HSIPR project to improve the switch and signal configuration at Syracuse, but have not seen a recent stated date on when that project is to be completed. Further west, the Indiana Gateway project to add a series of 3rd track segments and switches is supposed to be completed in 2016. So there are multiple projects that are still underway that will help the OTP and trip times of the LSL, western Empire corridor trains, Ethan Allen and Adirondack (on the applicable parts of their routes).

As for sleeper ridership, the LSL will get a significant capacity boost when the Viewliner II baggage-dorm and additional sleeper car are added. But it has been a long wait for the CAF cars and everyone is still waiting.

 

[jis]

By the way Schenectady is SDY not SCH.

 

[afigg]

By the way Schenectady is SDY not SCH.

Oops. And I know the code for Schenectady. Post-Memorial day brain freeze, I guess...