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> starved of cash by politicians who want to kill it I don’t think this is completely unreasonable. In FY20, Amtrak made $2.4B in revenue from riders and had $

> starved of cash by politicians who want to kill it I don’t think this is completely unreasonable. In FY20, Amtrak made $2.4B in revenue from riders and had $5B in costs. I like trains and this post made me want to take a long ride. But the California Zephyr only serves 250k riders a year. How much should politicians subsidize these trains? Is the money better spent subsidizing Disneyland? I’m not sure what the right amount is, but I don’t think it’s really possible to spend the money that is needed given the costs and the utility. The only real hope is that one day population density will increase between Chicago and California so it becomes less costly to operate. [0] page 4 https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/public/documents/corporate/nationalfactsheets/Amtrak-Company-Profile-FY2020-041921.pdf https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...

tptacek 4y ago
I don't think ridership on the Zephyr has much at all to do with population density --- it's hitting Reno, SLC, Denver, and Omaha on that route, too. The issue is that Amtrak is a terribly impractical way to get from Chicago to San Francisco; you're basically getting people to sign up for a vacation of spending an extended period of time on a train. I get why that appeals to some people, but it's obviously a pretty unappealing proposition for most people.
- prepend 4y ago
  What I meant is having 20 more cities of that size on the route. It’s like if the cruise ship industry was subsidized with a few billion in funding each year.
- fatnoah 4y ago
  > The issue is that Amtrak is a terribly impractical way to get from Chicago to San Francisco You are correct, and that's why most long distance routes don't have end-to-end riders as the main customers. In 2019, for example, Chicago to/from Emeryville (endpoints of the train) was the 4th most popular city pair. The station with the most people embarking/disembarking is Denver. I suspect end-to-end ridership isn't lower on the Zephyr because it's a big tourist draw for the portion through the Rockies. One of the most salient stats for me is that over half of trip (53%) are less than 500 miles. Trains excel in the too short to fly or too long to take the bus (for me, that's about 2 hours) segment.

tptacek 4y ago

I don't think ridership on the Zephyr has much at all to do with population density --- it's hitting Reno, SLC, Denver, and Omaha on that route, too. The issue is that Amtrak is a terribly impractical way to get from Chicago to San Francisco; you're basically getting people to sign up for a vacation of spending an extended period of time on a train. I get why that appeals to some people, but it's obviously a pretty unappealing proposition for most people.

prepend 4y ago
What I meant is having 20 more cities of that size on the route. It’s like if the cruise ship industry was subsidized with a few billion in funding each year.
fatnoah 4y ago
> The issue is that Amtrak is a terribly impractical way to get from Chicago to San Francisco You are correct, and that's why most long distance routes don't have end-to-end riders as the main customers. In 2019, for example, Chicago to/from Emeryville (endpoints of the train) was the 4th most popular city pair. The station with the most people embarking/disembarking is Denver. I suspect end-to-end ridership isn't lower on the Zephyr because it's a big tourist draw for the portion through the Rockies. One of the most salient stats for me is that over half of trip (53%) are less than 500 miles. Trains excel in the too short to fly or too long to take the bus (for me, that's about 2 hours) segment.