Tracking FY 2024 Ridership and Finances

[Just-Thinking-51]

Maybe it's just me and the particular bubble that I live in, but from my perspective any Covid restrictions or fears are by now ancient history and people's behaviors and risk perceptions have largely bounced back to normal. If there is an ongoing upturn in demand for bedrooms and roomettes, it may have to do with people splurging money after having been prevented or discouraged from doing leisure travel for several years. I think you will find that casinos and other tourist destinations are experiencing a similar upturn.

People splurging money on leisure travel is dropping off after the post-Covid spike. With prices going much higher, the demand is softening. We’re back to the new normal of travels and work. Work from home is still with us, going on nice vacation are too. But no the spike is over.

 

[MARC Rider]

I think that commuting is recovering. Unfortunately, a lot more of it is being done by car, as I discovered this morning, driving around Suburban Washington.

The train to Washington was not empty, but not jam packed, either. The MARC crowd at Baltimore Penn was bigger than 2 years ago, but still less than in 2019. An Acela was boarding in Washington with a cattle line at the gate looking like the day's of yore. The Red Line Metro was reasonably well patronized up until Dupont Circle, but the train emptied out after that. This was about 8 AM, which should be the top of rush our. hour. On the other hand, the auto traffic in Montgomery County was very heavy. I suspect that there's still lingering reluctance to commute by transit because of Covid fears.

 

[Eric in East County]

Maybe it's just me and the particular bubble that I live in, but from my perspective any Covid restrictions or fears are by now ancient history and people's behaviors and risk perceptions have largely bounced back to normal.

Again, my belief that the high demand for bedrooms and roomettes is partially due to lingering concerns over “social distancing” stems from the fact that both my wife and I are seniors in their late 70s who don’t want to risk having our trips ruined as a result of being exposed to someone who is sick but who still chooses to travel. (If you refer back to the posts that appeared on AU during the height of the COVID crisis, you will see even healthy people who chose to ride Amtrak without first having received their COVID shots or who objected to having to wear masks being referred to as the worst kind of reprobates.)

 

[Septa9739]

Maybe it's just me and the particular bubble that I live in, but from my perspective any Covid restrictions or fears are by now ancient history and people's behaviors and risk perceptions have largely bounced back to normal. If there is an ongoing upturn in demand for bedrooms and roomettes, it may have to do with people splurging money after having been prevented or discouraged from doing leisure travel for several years. I think you will find that casinos and other tourist destinations are experiencing a similar upturn.

Again, my belief that the high demand for bedrooms and roomettes is partial due to lingering concerns over “social distancing” stems from the fact that both my wife and I are seniors in their late 70s who don’t want to risk having our trips ruined as a result of being exposed to someone who is sick but who still chooses to travel. (If you refer back to the posts that appeared on AU during the height of the COVID crisis, you will see even healthy people who chose to ride Amtrak without first having received their COVID shots or who objected to having to wear masks being referred to as the worst kind of reprobates.)

I think both of these premises re COVID may be true. Amtrak’s inventories are so small, only a small handful of people, who would likely be “more established” would need to remain concerned to keep demand tight and prices high. On the other hand, there are more reports of people picking up great last minute sleeper fares, suggesting the Amtrak may need to start “normalizing” rates.

 

[JP1822]

Revenues only grow with good ridership and increased capacity - Graham Claytor's motto. Amtrak continues with a constrained capacity with its LD trains - coach and sleeper class. The trains that haven't recovered as much (e.g. Capitol Limited, Cardinal, etc.) are at the bottom of the barrel with their consist size. To compensate for a largely 3 to 4 total passenger car Capitol Limited in summer of 2023, the Lake Shore Limited carried FOUR Viewliner Sleepers - something that it hasn't seen in years! Hence the numbers were up!

The Lake Shore Limited had a third New York Sleeper in the summer of 2023 and its head-end Boston Viewliner sleeper - that's four sleepers altogether. Auto Train has up to 9 Superliner Sleepers alone, plus its coaches. Both trains had a descent amount of coaches.

The Empire Builder always seems to do "well" but if it had its second Seattle coach, second Seattle sleeper, and even second Portland sleeper restored most of the year, it would have edged up further in ridership - by a lot. The Coast Starlight is even anemic due to its reduction outside of summer season to just two sleepers. Compare to when it had three to four Superliner sleepers, plus the Superliner trans-dorm Sleeper.

There are so many relationships and contexts for the presentation of the raw numbers Amtrak puts forward. But the context is typically lacking, and that could be dangerous to some stakeholders and readers.

Moreover, I am sure that the Auto Train receives more favorable cost accounting treatment for essentially being an "express" train between Lorton and Sanford, with no intermediate stops. It's rear-end auto cargo also helps. If Amtrak added a prestige class of service (e.g. extra Superliner Sleepers with increased price for a higher level of service) it too would have a different ridership and financial outcome.

Amtrak needs recovery to its fleet capacity (e.g. more cars in service and operating in overnight LD consists) as well as some creative thinking to how it operates long distance trains - both in potential service offerings to customers (e.g. a prestige class - even European trains are adopting this model), its cost accounting methodology, and its train ops staffing. Amtrak should also do an analysis that looks at consists of trains before the pandemic and FY2023, alongside ridership and financial numbers. Shrinking consists, yet Amtrak jacked up the prices. That story got lost in the shuffle for sure!

 

[Eric in East County]

Revenues only grow with good ridership and increased capacity - Graham Claytor's motto. Amtrak continues with a constrained capacity with its LD trains - coach and sleeper class.

Amtrak needs recovery to its fleet capacity (e.g. more cars in service and operating in overnight LD consists) as well as some creative thinking to how it operates long distance trains -

I agree with this totally. A best effort should be made to increase the number of roadworthy coaches and sleepers so that there will be enough on hand to accommodate the demand on any given day by adjusting the number of coaches and sleepers in the consist. This will also entail increasing the number of qualified personnel to staff the extra coaches and sleepers on heavy travel days.

 

[Eric in East County]

Two questions:

How far in advance should the average person call Amtrak to be sure of obtaining the long-distance train accommodations they want on the date(s) they want to travel?

How far in advance does the average person usually make and pay for their travel arrangements once they’ve decided when they want to travel?

Last July, we called Amtrak to book east and west bound bedrooms on the Southwest Chief for September, and nothing was available for the dates we wanted. Nor was anything available for the fallback dates we’d considered in October. Ordinarily we make our reservations 11 months in advance, but the September trip was sort of a last-minute “why don’t we take a second trip this year” sort of thing that we came up while returning from our first trip. (We chose September on the assumption that fewer people would be traveling and that our chances of obtaining bedrooms would be better than average.)

Apparently 2-3 months is too short a time to be sure of obtaining sleeping car accommodations for the dates you want. If this could be shortened, it would certainly have a positive impact on ridership.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

Apparently 2-3 months is too short a time to be sure of obtaining sleeping car accommodations for the dates you want. If this could be shortened, it would certainly have a positive impact on ridership.

Agree, but it’s highly dependent on the train, time of year, and the actual date of travel.

While I just came back from lunch in Chicago, the tickets were booked a day early and was midweek on the LSL. So capacity might be there, helps to have “two sections” and getting on a station that not a major west bound generator.