January MPR Analysis
This is somewhat belated, and in some regards less detailed than some of my other analyses.
NEC
-The Acela continues to be down and the NER continues to be up. I'm open to the argument that this is mostly due to cannibalization, though I thinK Amtrak is chalking too much up to Wi-Fi and too little up to sheer price differences.
-Probably the most interesting bit is the double-digit spike in NER Coach ridership. My guess is that Amtrak is pulling folks off of intercity bus lines, not the Acela.
-On the NER, PPR was $62.47 for January (vs. $64.11 last year) and $66.44 YTD (vs. $67.28 last year). I am inclined to blame at least part of this on the substantial rise in coach traffic vs. BC. Additionally, Amtrak may be "buying" more traffic with slower price increases (probably necessary at this point).
-On the Acela, PPR was $142.88 for January (vs. $141.29 last year) and $149.29 YTD (vs. $142.40 last year).
-In general, it's looking like Amtrak's best hope here is going to be that Acela ridership stabilizes for the year (not unrealistic), pending capacity crunches on the Regionals.
Short Distance Corridors
-In general, the news here is much better than it was in December. Considering the differences between January vs. November and December, I'm going to hold off on making a call here.
-In particular, the Pacific Surfliner is a BIG hole to fill; the net loss of 20,000 riders/month is very hard to make up.
-Other than the Surfliner, though, there aren't any really bad spots. The Vermonter is in bad shape, yes, but that's down to track work problems. The Cascades had a bad month, yes, but that's because it happens to be mudslide season. The Wolverine is still struggling as well. In general, ridership looks good for the month.
-Also, PPR looks solid overall: $28.88 for Jan. (vs. $27.85 last year) and $30.75 YTD (vs. $29.04 last year). The Surfliner is driving a fair portion of this, though (Jan: $20.82 vs. $18.25; YTD: $22.09 vs. $19.20), which is a possible trouble sign.
-As usual, the Virginia routes are providing a lot of the push that is keeping things intact. For the month, the two routes offered an increase of about 7500 riders and over $400,000 in added revenue. PPR continues to look good as well, being stable for the month for the Lynchburger and slightly off for the WAS-NPN segment (potentially because of an increasing share of traffic running RVR-WAS instead of NPN-WAS).
--Of interest on the Lynchburger, per-train ridership was up by about 40 riders, to 194.7. Although this was the smallest increase of the year yet, January posted the smallest increase last year. Three of the four months have posted larger increases for FY12 than FY11, and this was coming with gas prices still being low. One wonders what will show up towards summer...the months from April-August seem like they could mostly (if not entirely) hit 300 riders/train.
--This also brings to mind a question that came up elsewhere: If this trend continues, is it possible that even with the reworked calculations that the Lynchburger will still be in the black for Virginia? Could I solicit some estimates so I could start running the math here?
-The thing that I'm watching most: Ridership to date is below the budget target but is still safely positive for the year. Revenue is substantially positive both over last year and over the budget. Does this dynamic remain in place (implying that Amtrak is extracting a bit more per passenger than expected), or do things wind up going upside down here at some point?
Long Distance Trains
-We'll start with the enigma: The Texas Eagle. It looks like January was just a bad month there because of the bus bridge situation. This is in sharp juxtaposition with the Eagle's performance through December, where ridership was just tearing up the budgeted estimates. I'm thinking that the bus bridge time is going to be something that we generally ignore unless it has longer-term implications, but it's going to blemish an otherwise impressive run for the Eagle.
-Other than that, these LD results stink for January, but they're decent YTD. Considering that, Eagle aside, the Zephyr seems to be the most problem-ridden of the trains in January, how bad were service disruptions due to snow this year? I seem to recall the winter not being so bad.
-Can anybody tell me what went wrong with the Auto Train? January was just hell on that route; while the AT had a good year through December (ridership up slightly, revenue up substantially), January saw everything crater.
-YTD, the LD trains in general are holding together...barely. I'm going to wonder what's in store for spring here, though...winter has not been kind here at all.