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To bring an outsider's perspective to this discussion, I'm kind of shocked by how low all those numbers are, even with 200% growth and whatnot. Amtrak is offer
by jpatokal 12y ago
To bring an outsider's perspective to this discussion, I'm kind of shocked by how low all those numbers are, even with 200% growth and whatnot. Amtrak is offering service on lines that get under 40k passengers a year. By comparison, the Tokaido Shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka has 391k passengers a day, meaning it also racks up the entire Acela corridor's yearly numbers in a week.
- waterlesscloud 12y agoI just looked at one of those routes under 40k passengers, the Hoosier State. Wikipedia has an interesting fact, that there's a 2008 law that requires intercity routes under 750 miles to have their costs covered by the affected states by 2013. 1. That changes almost every discussion in this thread, and really the economics of Amtrak as a whole. 2. The route brings in about $850k a year but costs $3M. Obviously at this point I need to read up on this law that changed the short route train funding. (Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act) Edit - It looks like it's more about "cost-sharing" of various types. Still, that does change things. Amtrak's budget justification for 2014 is interesting. Particularly the graph showing the decrease in operational defecits. http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/851/32/AmtrakFY14-Budget-Request-Justification,0.pdf http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/851/32/AmtrakFY14-Budget-Request...