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And yet the Pacific Surfliner loses as much money as the Texas Eagle. I suspect that's because of multiple trains per day on the Surfliner. I'm not sure, thoug

And yet the Pacific Surfliner loses as much money as the Texas Eagle. I suspect that's because of multiple trains per day on the Surfliner. I'm not sure, though, that the fact that a route loses money necessarily means that route is a pointless waste of money. Is it not possible that running a government funded service has value even if it does not produce a profit? What I'm getting at is that profit probably isn't the best way to measure the value of these routes. As far as the renaissance, ridership is up considerably on most routes. Even if they aren't profitable, they're certainly serving a lot more people than they were.

tptacek 12y ago
And, about that: why does Brookings list a 611MM deficit "on routes traveling over 400 miles"? That conveniently excludes a number of non-profitable routes, including the Surfliner.
- akamaka 12y ago
  I think that threshold was chosen because every route longer than 400 miles is losing money. The longest route with an operating profit is 381 miles.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
tormeh 12y ago
Great point. Does maintenance of roads have value if it does not produce a profit?
- tptacek 12y ago
  The roads serve vastly more people than Amtrak does.
  - twoodfin 12y ago
    They could also be completely user-funded, if politicians weren't so squeamish about the gas tax and other user fee-like schemes. (Albeit somewhat unfairly, because folks using "profitable" Massachusetts interstate highways would be subsidizing vastly less-traveled roads in Montana.) Amtrak, outside the NE corridor[1], could not possibly be purely user-funded. Increasing fares would decrease ridership significantly enough to offset any added revenue. Whatever fare rates would maximize revenue couldn't pay for the system. [1] And I'm skeptical about this, too: Gas taxes pay for the lion's share of capital expenditures to build and repair our interstate highways. Reports like this about Amtrak's "profitability" are limited to operating costs, which are all you need so long as your tracks and trains last forever.
  - melling 12y ago
    That's because relatively no one takes trains because they are too slow. There are clearly major population areas where fast trains would be quite popular.
    - tptacek 12y ago
      Sure. It's just that very few of them are between the 10 largest US cities: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8713324 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8713324
      - saosebastiao 12y ago
        Very few train riders are large-city-to-large-city passengers. The most successful train lines may terminate in a large city, but it is the density of the route that matters, not the termini. There are plenty of very successful routes in the world that are between two small cities, or only with 1 large terminus. The LGV Mediternnanee, from a demographic standpoint, isn't much different than a line from Indianapolis to Chicago line, and the Nagano Shinkansen line not much different from a Seattle to Portland line. And yet both of those lines are extremely profitable. This is mostly due to simple competition...the existence of passenger airliners, regardless of how competitive the train or airline offerings are, reduces market share. I guarantee you that the most profitable ticket sales on California's HSR fairy tale will be between (LA|SF) and (Fresno|Bakersfield|Modesto). Not between LA and SF.
jpatokal 12y ago
> I suspect that's because of multiple trains per day on the Surfliner. This is a surprisingly common misconception in the United States. For public transport, the top three determinants of ridership are, in order, frequency, frequency and frequency. As a simple example, here in the equally long-distance-transport benighted state of Australia, there's a shiny train line that goes from central Sydney to the nation's capital Canberra in a bit over 4 hours, which is quite competitive with driving (~3.5 hours pedal to the metal, realistically 5 with Sydney traffic and breaks etc) and flying (45 min in the air, but several hours of hassle to get to the airport, security, waiting around yadda yadda), and the cost of a return ticket is on the same order as the gas to drive back and forth, and around 3-4x cheaper than flying. Yet I almost never take the train, opting to drive or fly instead. Why? Because there are three (3) trains a day, leaving at 6 AM (nope), 12 noon (meaning you spend the whole workday on the train) and 6 PM (well, this one's semi-decent, although it's past 10 PM by the time it arrives). And should you miss your train for any reason, you're completely screwed. If, on the other hand, the trains ran hourly, none of this would be a problem: I could pick a time that suits me, instead of having to fit myself to the trains, and missing one would be an inconvenience, not a catastrophe.

tptacek 12y ago

And, about that: why does Brookings list a 611MM deficit "on routes traveling over 400 miles"? That conveniently excludes a number of non-profitable routes, including the Surfliner.

akamaka 12y ago
I think that threshold was chosen because every route longer than 400 miles is losing money. The longest route with an operating profit is 381 miles.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

tormeh 12y ago

Great point. Does maintenance of roads have value if it does not produce a profit?

tptacek 12y ago
The roads serve vastly more people than Amtrak does.
- twoodfin 12y ago
  They could also be completely user-funded, if politicians weren't so squeamish about the gas tax and other user fee-like schemes. (Albeit somewhat unfairly, because folks using "profitable" Massachusetts interstate highways would be subsidizing vastly less-traveled roads in Montana.) Amtrak, outside the NE corridor[1], could not possibly be purely user-funded. Increasing fares would decrease ridership significantly enough to offset any added revenue. Whatever fare rates would maximize revenue couldn't pay for the system. [1] And I'm skeptical about this, too: Gas taxes pay for the lion's share of capital expenditures to build and repair our interstate highways. Reports like this about Amtrak's "profitability" are limited to operating costs, which are all you need so long as your tracks and trains last forever.
- melling 12y ago
  That's because relatively no one takes trains because they are too slow. There are clearly major population areas where fast trains would be quite popular.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    Sure. It's just that very few of them are between the 10 largest US cities: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8713324 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8713324
    - saosebastiao 12y ago
      Very few train riders are large-city-to-large-city passengers. The most successful train lines may terminate in a large city, but it is the density of the route that matters, not the termini. There are plenty of very successful routes in the world that are between two small cities, or only with 1 large terminus. The LGV Mediternnanee, from a demographic standpoint, isn't much different than a line from Indianapolis to Chicago line, and the Nagano Shinkansen line not much different from a Seattle to Portland line. And yet both of those lines are extremely profitable. This is mostly due to simple competition...the existence of passenger airliners, regardless of how competitive the train or airline offerings are, reduces market share. I guarantee you that the most profitable ticket sales on California's HSR fairy tale will be between (LA|SF) and (Fresno|Bakersfield|Modesto). Not between LA and SF.

jpatokal 12y ago

> I suspect that's because of multiple trains per day on the Surfliner. This is a surprisingly common misconception in the United States. For public transport, the top three determinants of ridership are, in order, frequency, frequency and frequency. As a simple example, here in the equally long-distance-transport benighted state of Australia, there's a shiny train line that goes from central Sydney to the nation's capital Canberra in a bit over 4 hours, which is quite competitive with driving (~3.5 hours pedal to the metal, realistically 5 with Sydney traffic and breaks etc) and flying (45 min in the air, but several hours of hassle to get to the airport, security, waiting around yadda yadda), and the cost of a return ticket is on the same order as the gas to drive back and forth, and around 3-4x cheaper than flying. Yet I almost never take the train, opting to drive or fly instead. Why? Because there are three (3) trains a day, leaving at 6 AM (nope), 12 noon (meaning you spend the whole workday on the train) and 6 PM (well, this one's semi-decent, although it's past 10 PM by the time it arrives). And should you miss your train for any reason, you're completely screwed. If, on the other hand, the trains ran hourly, none of this would be a problem: I could pick a time that suits me, instead of having to fit myself to the trains, and missing one would be an inconvenience, not a catastrophe.