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Amtrak Will Not Be Profitable by 2028

By | | Transportation
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“With steady, sustained support from Congress and the administration, Amtrak’s passenger train service will become operationally profitable by FY 28,” says Amtrak in its latest request for subsidies from U.S. taxpayers. This is, at best, deceptive and at worst an outright lie.

A northbound Amtrak train on the California coastline. Photo by Circe Denyer.

Even as Amtrak promises to be profitable in three years, it admits that it is losing more money now than in 2019 despite carrying record numbers of passengers. It blames this on costs rising faster than revenues, reductions in state support for many trains, and increased costs “treated as operating costs” even though they are supposedly really capital investments. Unless Congress dramatically cuts Amtrak’s capital funding, it isn’t clear how any of these trends will be reversed in the next three years. Continue reading →

Texas Cancels Amtrak Funding

By | | Transportation
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The Texas legislature has declined to continue funding a train between Fort Worth and Oklahoma City. Amtrak calls the train a “vital transportation option,” but in fact few people ride it and it is a costly burden to Oklahoma and Texas taxpayers.

The Heartland Flyer stops in Norman, Oklahoma.

The train, Amtrak says, served “over 80,000 customers in FY24 and reach[ed] $2.2 million in ticket revenue,” which is supposed to somehow sound impressive. Amtrak’s press release fails to mention that the train cost $9.6 million to operate, not counting depreciation, which means it cost taxpayers at least $92 per rider, and probably much more. In short, taxpayers have to pay more than three quarters of the cost, much more than the average Amtrak train, for which taxpayers cover “only” about 59 percent of the cost (which is still too much). Continue reading →

Amtrak & Flying Up, Driving Down in April

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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Amtrak carried 9.0 percent more passenger-miles in April 2025 than in the same month before the pandemic, according to the state-owned company’s monthly performance report. The airlines did almost as well, carrying 5.8 percent more riders in April than in 2019. However, Americans drove only 98.5 percent as many vehicle miles in April as in 2019.

April transit data are not yet available and will be posted here as soon as possible after the FTA releases them.

It’s hard to guess why driving dropped, at least as a percentage of 2019. The economy was slowing, rail freight was declining (though still more than 2019), but perhaps truck freight had fallen. Continue reading →

March 2025 Transport Results

By | | Transportation
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Amtrak boomed, carrying 21 percent more passenger-miles in March 2025 than the same month before the pandemic. The airlines carried 5.5 percent more passengers and highways carried 2.2 percent more vehicle-miles. As expected, transit continues to lag behind, carrying only 80.9 percent as many passengers as in March of 2019. That’s still the most since the beginning of the pandemic, but it is only 0.73 percent more (relative to 2019) than in February.

Amtrak data are from March monthly performance report; airline riders from Transportation Security Administration; highway vehicle-miles from the Federal Highway Administration, and transit data are from the Federal Transit Administration.

The transit industry is increasingly desperate to get more subsidies to offset the decline in ridership and the increase in operating expenses since 2019. Flush with Congressional COVID-relief funds, agencies increased salaries and wages and continued to operate nearly as many vehicle-miles of service despite the declines in ridership. Now the relief funds are running out and agencies that previously relied heavily on fares to fund their operations are getting panicky. Continue reading →

Slightly Higher Speed Rail

By | | Transportation
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New York University’s Marron Institute just released a report saying that Amtrak and commuter-rail lines could improve their service by making what the institute believes are low-cost changes to their operations. Specifically, the report suggests that railroads replace Diesel locomotives with electric, place platforms at all stops so passengers don’t have to go up and down stairs, and widen the doors on their cars so multiple passengers can board at one time. Based on this report, Bloomberg concludes that “America’s railroads are losing ground when it comes to infrastructural innovation, especially compared to other countries.”

Click image to download a 32.4-MB PDF of this 146-page report.

Because wider doors and level platforms would allow people to board more quickly and electric locomotives accelerate faster than Diesels, the report estimates that making these changes would save an average of 2 minutes per commuter stop and 4 minutes per intercity rail stop. This means that Amtrak’s trains between, for example, Seattle and Portland, which have six intermediate stops, could go the distance in 24 fewer minutes. Continue reading →

Amtrak, Air Travel Each Grow 8 Percent

By | | Transportation
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Amtrak and the airlines each carried about 8 percent more passengers in February 2025 as the same month in 2019. According to Amtrak’s monthly performance report, the state-owned railroad carried 8.2 percent more passenger-miles, while Transportation Security Administration boarding data indicate that airlines carried 8.1 percent more passengers.

Transit and highway data are not yet available but will be reported here soon.

Airline passenger-mile data for February won’t be available for several more weeks. However, as of December, the latest month for which data are available, domestic air passenger-miles were 5.1 percent greater than in December 2019. Domestic airlines carried Americans 108 times as many passenger-miles as Amtrak in December 2024. Continue reading →

Privatizing Amtrak and Cutting Transit

By | | Transportation
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Every line item in the federal budget has at least one special interest group advocating for its growth and ready to cry bloody murder if anyone proposes to reduce it. So it is no surprise that Trains magazine is shocked that Elon Musk would propose to privatize Amtrak.

Amtrak received a $7.3 billion federal grant to buy 83 new trains from Siemens that will be used in the Northeast Corridor and on state-subsidized day trains.

“Amtrak’s business performance is strong,” Trains quotes an Amtrak spokesperson. “Ridership and revenue are at all-time highs.” But a “strong” performance didn’t prevent Amtrak from losing well over $2 billion on operating costs alone in 2024, and Amtrak’s all-time highs are still pretty low: in 2024, Amtrak carried the average American just 19.6 miles. Americans ride bicycles far more than they ride Amtrak, they fly more than 100 times as many miles, and they travel more than 700 times as many miles by car as they ride Amtrak. Continue reading →

January Air Travel 11.7%, Amtrak 7.8% Above 2019

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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The airlines carried 11.7 percent more passengers in January 2025, while Amtrak carried 7.8 percent more passenger-miles, than in the same month in 2019. The air travel data are based on passenger counts from the Transportation Security Administration, while the Amtrak data are based on its monthly performance report.

The big question is where are the highway data? The Federal Highway Administration usually releases traffic volume trends about 45 days after the end of any given month. In other words, December data should have been out in the middle of February, but here we are in March and it hasn’t yet been posted. Did Elon Musk fire the people in the Federal Highway Administration who keep track of this data? If so, it would be hypocritical for me to complain as I believe the federal government is too big, but I still hope the data appear soon. Continue reading →

Amtrak Does Well in December; Airlines Do Better

By | | Transportation
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Amtrak carried 7 percent more passenger-miles in December of 2024 than in the same month of 2019, according to its monthly performance report issued earlier this week. The airlines, meanwhile, carried 10 percent more passengers in December of 2024 than 2019, according to TSA passenger counts.

Transit and highway data will be added as soon as it is available.

The airlines, of course, carried a lot more passengers than Amtrak. Amtrak carried about 3.0 million passengers in December while the airlines carried 66 million. The difference in passenger-miles is even greater. While airline passenger-mile data is not yet available for December, the average Amtrak trip is about 200 miles long while the average domestic airline trip is 950 miles, which means domestic airlines carry about 100 times as many passenger-miles as Amtrak. When international airline trips are included, the difference is even greater. Continue reading →

November 2024 Transportation Recovery

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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Americans drove 2.2 percent more miles, flew 4.7 percent more trips, and took Amtrak 6.2 percent more passenger-miles in November 2024 than the same month before the pandemic, according to data recently released by federal agencies. Transit ridership, however, still lagged almost 22 percent behind pre-pandemic numbers.

For once, the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Transit Administration, and Amtrak all released their monthly data reports at about the same time, late last week. TSA passenger counts are available only a day or two after each day, but I generally wait for data from other agencies before posting the airline data. Continue reading →