April Performance Reports

[henryj]

Where is Anderson when we need him. Anyway here are my numbers. I just look at the LD trains. Amtrak reports they lost 380 million for the six months ended April 30th. I calculate my own cost numbers since I don't believe a company that allocates 80% of it's costs. I get operating loses of 81.3 million...far less than Amtrak reports. Biggest operating costs losers are CZ 20.4, SWC 14.1, LSL 12.9, Capitol 7.6, Crescent 7.5 and EB 7.3. Silver service looks good with Meteor only losing 1.5 and Palmetto breaking even CONO showing a modest gain of .4 and of course Auto Train with an operating gain of 12.9. All others are somewhere in between. Unfortunately people like rep Denham and Shuster will only see the horrific Amtrak numbers and not the true avoidable costs for these trains. If they decide to trash a specific train it will have little effect on Amtrak's total overhead with most of the costs just shifted to the remaining trains. All together the LD trains generated 296.4 million in revenue with sleeper revenue at 95.2. Operating costs were 377.7 million. Ridership for the six months was 2.6 million.

 

[Ryan]

He's in Florida, last I saw.

Thanks for your "excellent" "analysis".

 

[afigg]

Where is Anderson when we need him. Anyway here are my numbers. I just look at the LD trains.

Probably busy. Or the April report was too depressing. I know you have your own estimated overhead numbers for the LD trains, but there is not much I can say about that because the numbers that matter are the ones in the Amtrak reports. Which are generated by the accountants who have a lot more detailed data than we do and have agreed to rules to follow.

I've thought about posting my own summary on the April 2013 Monthly report, but I would focus on ridership, revenue, trends in costs, OTP changes, and the route performance reports using Amtrak's number. The good news is according to a post at trainorders, the May 2013 overall ridership and revenue was up.

 

[Anderson]

Honestly, it's both. That report is so damn depressing...I know some of it was down to Easter and whatnot, but that was the ugliest report I think I've seen since the reports began. That plus business matters have kept me otherwise occupied.

 

[Paulus]

Preview for May:

Surfliner ridership up 1.9%, revenue up 3.3%

Coast Starlight ridership up 8.6%, revenue down 2.4%

San Joaquin ridership up 8.3%, revenue down 0.4%

Capitol Corridor ridership down 1.5%, revenue down 2.4%

Amtrak ridership up 2.5%, revenue up 1.5%

Honestly, the continual high ridership growth on the Starlight is kinda freaky.

 

[TVRM610]

Coast Starlight ridership up 8.6%, revenue down 2.4%

Honestly, the continual high ridership growth on the Starlight is kinda freaky.

The Coast Starlight is the best train in North America in my opinion. Anyone who has ever ridden it must have great things to say about it. Should do good for repeat business and good word of mouth.

 

[Nathanael]

Honestly, the continual high ridership growth on the Starlight is kinda freaky.

Good market, psychologically speaking. California, Washington, Oregon, all "pro-train" states at the moment. Every other long distance train goes through some "train hater" zones.

 

[VentureForth]

How can ridership be up and revenue be down? Sounds like too much discounting going on. And this after the revenue was increasing at a higher rate across the system than ridership.

Crazy.

 

[Train Rider]

Honestly, the continual high ridership growth on the Starlight is kinda freaky.

Good market, psychologically speaking. California, Washington, Oregon, all "pro-train" states at the moment. Every other long distance train goes through some "train hater" zones.

It's a train that travels through more major metropolitan areas than your typical LD train and has some natural geographical advantages with regard to how those metro areas are interconnected -- better combinations of metro area to metro area ridership than the EB, CZ, SL, TE, CONO. It's also a relatively short, compact route when compared to many of the east-west LDs. It's not about "train haters" or "train lovers".

 

[Train Rider]

How can ridership be up and revenue be down? Sounds like too much discounting going on. And this after the revenue was increasing at a higher rate across the system than ridership.
Crazy.

Everyone is riding on AGR points!

 

[henryj]

Honestly, the continual high ridership growth on the Starlight is kinda freaky.

Good market, psychologically speaking. California, Washington, Oregon, all "pro-train" states at the moment. Every other long distance train goes through some "train hater" zones.

It's a train that travels through more major metropolitan areas than your typical LD train and has some natural geographical advantages with regard to how those metro areas are interconnected -- better combinations of metro area to metro area ridership than the EB, CZ, SL, TE, CONO. It's also a relatively short, compact route when compared to many of the east-west LDs. It's not about "train haters" or "train lovers".

It's all about distance and time. CS is a 1377 mile route and takes 35 hours. That translates into lower labor costs, rent, maintenance and fuel. The train has a higher capacity as it carries three sleepers, a dorm sleeper and four coaches(seasonal). It still has operating loses of 7-8 million for the seven months ended April 30th. Interesting, however, with all that capacity it generated less revenue than the SWC for sleepers and overall, 23.9 vs 24.8 but had lower operating costs by over 6m.

 

[Anderson]

The Starlight seems to be stacking up short-haul business. Remember, PPR can change several ways, but the most obvious are changes in prices and changes in the mix of riders. A distinct possibility is that the CS has picked up ridership on the southern end (SBA-LAX comes to mind as a plausible city pair), where it is often cheaper than the Surfliners. These short-distance passengers would dilute the revenue picture versus even an EMY-LAX passenger.

 

[roadman3313]

Even EMY-LAX can have high ridership, but lower revenue riders as many sleepers can be unoccupied on this segment depending on the time of year and day of the week. Coach fares start just below $60 so it still is pretty decent, however there are many other travel alternatives in this market for the same price via Bakersfield or the PS to the Coastal Bus to the CC.

I agree that SBA-LAX is often less costly on the CS than the PS. I myself have used the CS before between OXN and SBA to save a few dollars on the fare. I noticed many passengers did the same and there was a decent turnover rate in SBA. Unfortunately this only works northbound as south of SBA on the southbound is discharge only.

I did the same thing between EMY and SAC when I was communting home sometimes instead of taking the CC once my 10-ride was used up... a few $$ here and there adds up!

 

[Nathanael]

Honestly, the continual high ridership growth on the Starlight is kinda freaky.

Good market, psychologically speaking. California, Washington, Oregon, all "pro-train" states at the moment. Every other long distance train goes through some "train hater" zones.

It's a train that travels through more major metropolitan areas than your typical LD train and has some natural geographical advantages with regard to how those metro areas are interconnected -- better combinations of metro area to metro area ridership than the EB, CZ, SL, TE, CONO. It's also a relatively short, compact route when compared to many of the east-west LDs. It's not about "train haters" or "train lovers".

No, it really is. The Lake Shore Limited and Capitol Limited -- and, heck, the Cardinal -- have better profiles than the Coast Starlight according to "major metropolitan areas", "natural geographical advantages", etc. But the Coast Starlight is doing better.

Why? Because the LSL and Capitol Limited and Cardinal run through Ohio and Indiana, which, right now, couldn't care less about improving passenger rail.