Amtrak recently posted its September 2017 Monthly Performance Report, which includes cumulative data for F.Y. 2017 as a whole. Unfortunately, with the September report, Amtrak changed the format of its monthly reports, reducing the size from 90-some pages (such as this one for 2016) to five. What is Amtrak trying to hide?
Unlike an annual report (which Amtrak hasn’t yet published for 2016), the monthly performance reports have data for each of 46 Amtrak routes. This includes the Northeast Corridor (broken down into Acela and “regional” trains), 29 state-supported day trains, and fifteen overnight or long-distance trains. The abbreviated train-by-train data in the new-format reports includes gross revenues, operating expenses, fare revenues, seat miles, and passenger miles. Continue reading
