March Performance Reports

[henryj]

They are out. Where is Anderson and his detailed reports? Anyway, I posted the numbers to my spreadsheet. So here at the half way point, with the summer crunch yet to come, I get an operating loss for all LD trains(the only ones I care about) of about 66 million. Auto train is the big winner with operating profits of about 11 mil and the Palmetto and CONO at the break even point. Biggest losers are the CZ at 17mil, SWC at 12mil and LSL at 11mil. Will be interesting to see how the summer crunch effects performance.

 

[Nathanael]

I don't believe your LSL numbers. Everything we've seen says that the LSL has one of the smallest direct losses (after the Auto Train, Palmetto, Silver Service).

 

[Ryan]

GIGO

 

[henryj]

Well Nathanael and Ryan, lets see your numbers. Absent that.....I stick by mine. Meteor loses 1.2 mil and the Star 3.7 mil. LSL is an expensive train to run with the split in Albany. Amtrak probably gives it a free ride into NY to make it look good.

 

[Paulus]

Well Nathanael and Ryan, lets see your numbers. Absent that.....I stick by mine. Meteor loses 1.2 mil and the Star 3.7 mil. LSL is an expensive train to run with the split in Albany. Amtrak probably gives it a free ride into NY to make it look good.

I've pointed you to the actual numbers in the past.

 

[henryj]

Ok Paulus, Amtrak's PRIIA shows revenue of 29 mil for the LSL, for six months it's 15.7. They show total allocated costs of 64.4 mil, for six months it 35.4 mil. They show operating cost recovery of 75.1%, but they don't identify direct costs. I get more like 60%. This train is a loser big time. There is just no way around it. I am sure there are things that could be done to improve it's performance, but right now it's a poor performer. speeding up the schedule would save a lot of labor costs.

There is more. Greyhound standard fare is $119 one way and in as little as 17 1/2 hours thru routed or as much as 22+ hours with one or two transfers. Amtrak's fare for Tuesday, May 14th is $99 one way. Amtrak seems to be running a Greyhound on rails here. According to the Amtrak PRIIA report only something like 15% of coach passengers go the full distance. So most are intermediate travelers. Greyhound does not offer on board dining nor lounge car facilities, so why does Amtrak charge less than the bus? Are they trying to boost their ridership to make themselves look good? Train travel, even in coach, is a premium over the bus. Why isn't it priced that way. Wouldn't this improve the trains cost recovery? Amtrak takes 20 hours to make the trip. (Chicago to NYP)

 

[Anderson]

Well, I had a detailed draft the other day...and then my computer decided it wanted to carry out an unannounced, involuntary shutdown. So I'm having to redraft my report from scratch...which also means it will take a little time. I'm sorry for this...it's regrettable, but I also don't want to exclude the analysis I was doing on the NEC.

Edit: To explain, my reports take about 3-6 hours of work to prepare, depending on how detailed I'm being. Usually on the lower end, and maybe a little less if I'm eyeballing numbers and leaving it at that, but if I spend two minutes on each line that's 90 minutes right there. You can see how this adds up.

What this means is that, since I'm often bouncing between reports and other stuff, it's an evening or two of work for me...and losing that much work is a pain in the rear.

 

[Nathanael]

Based on what we know about direct costs (revealed in Boardman's presentation), by which measure the LSL does very well, the LSL's "poor performance" is due *entirely* to getting an unusually high allocation of "allocated costs" compared to most long-distance trains. I see no easy way of determining where the allocated costs are coming from, since Amtrak cost allocation is a black art.

I would honestly like to see an "avoidable-costs only" report, but Amtrak publishes those extremely rarely.

Analyzing these trains is tricky because no two are alike.

It's worth noting that the LSL is a train where over half the dining car patronage comes from coach passengers, which is apparently unusual for long-distance trains. (Information from the PIP.)

Regarding fares: It's also a train whose main market is upstate NY to Chicago. (Also from the PIP.) I don't know if you've ever tried to get a Greyhound from upstate NY to Chicago -- you literally can't; you're put on connecting buses from other companies (various "Trailways" affiliates), with even worse service than Greyhound. The direct buses from NYC to Chicago, of course, do not go via upstate NY. It makes for a funny situation when you're trying to compare fares. I would expect Amtrak to be offering prices which track the bus prices pretty closely in the core upstate NY - Chicago market (which they are, although the bus prices keep going up faster than the Amtrak prices), while selling the NY-Albany leg fairly cheaply to fill up any unused capacity.