July 2019 Amtrak Financial Report

These are the items that I noticed in the report that were interesting to me:

• The report was dated August 30, 2019 and posted that day on their website.

• The NEC generated for the first ten months a cash operating surplus of $459.6 million (at least by their idea of a fully allocated accounting system) and the remainder of the system had a fully allocated cash loss of $494.6 million. Combined, the entire system has a cash operating loss of $34.966 million. That combined loss is $9.1 million less than that at the end of June, so it looks like July was profitable. For the fiscal year to date, the NEC made debt service payments of $170.2 million and capital expenditures of $638.2 million. Having received Federal Grants of $665.7 million it has a remaining carryover balance of $479 million (plus the money from FY2018). The National Network Account made debt service of $30.5 million and capital investments of $643.6 million and have received from the Federal Government $1,512.6 million and retains $456 million plus the carryover balance from FY2018. With only two more months left in FY2019, it is safe to say that there are sufficient funds to continue to run the system at its current burn rate through December 2019 and probably beyond.

• Capital Spending so far has been infrastructure $523.6 million, Stations & Real Estate $91.7 million, Fleet Maintenance $266.1 million, Fleet Acquisition $139.2 million, Information Technology $92.1 million, ADA $64.2 million (running $25.6 million ahead of last year’s record pace and for the first time actually meeting the Congressional Mandate of expending at least $50 million on ADA), Support $9.1 million, Gateway $35.1 million ($1.5 million in July alone), and Avila (Acela 21) $40.8 million ($4.2 million in July) for total capital expenditures of $1,281.7 million ($189.4 million more than the comparable period for FY2018). The Fleet Acquisition would include the down payments for the new locomotives plus the purchase of some more Viewliner Equipment from CAF.

• The GAAP loss for the first ten months appears to be $719.9 million. The adjusted operating earnings were $109.9 million better than the first ten months of FY2018 .

• The number of product lines showing a measurable operating surplus for the period is back to 10 with the gain of Chicago to St. Louis:

  • Acela $280.9 million

  • Northeast Regionals $196.9 million

  • Washington-Newport News $4.2 million

  • Washington-Lynchburg $3.5 million

  • Carolinian $2.8 million

  • Washington-Norfolk $1.4 million

  • Washington-Richmond $1.1 million

  • Vermonter $0.6 million

  • Illini $0.5 million

  • Chicago-St. Louis $0.3 million

  • The four Virginia product lines generated a total of $10.2 million in operating surpluses.

• Ridership for the first five months was more than 553,000 better than the comparable period in FY2018. So far for the year, Amtrak has carried 26,897,9XX (Amtrak rounds to the nearest hundred). On the long distance trains, the Palmetto is still the biggest loser with a drop-off of 11.6% followed by the Texas Eagle at -5.1% and Capitol Ltd with -4.7% (Nothing like late trains and lousy food to drive away customers). The biggest winner was (believe it or not) the Cardinal at 10.0%, followed by the Silver Star which is up 6.6%, and the Crescent at 5.7% .

• The Senate Appropriations Committee has forwarded to the full Senate a THUD Bill which increases the amount of money directly to Amtrak but reduces the total amount of the FAST Grants. The House has passed a short term CR through November 21, which the Senate is likely to take up and pass. Complicating matters, is potential impeachment action in the House which could cause the President to reject everything from Congress out of spite. Congress has scheduled another week off at the end of September (Jewish High Holidays start then).

• Amtrak is now using a brand new baggage car and Viewliner Diner on one of the San Joaquin train sets. These cars, however, are being used for axel counts and not for the use of passengers. Amtrak could have used the old baggage cars for the axel counts but decided to sell them off instead.

• Two more Baggage Dorms have arrived from CAV and are expected to join the weeds at Hialeah or be used for more axel counts (freeing up the more important Horizon Cars for the use of long distance passengers).

• RIDOT received a State of State of Good Repair Grant of $12.5 million (to be matched by the State and Amtrak ) to renovate the interior and roof of the Providence Station.

• Amtrak will eliminate as of October 1, 2019 dining car service on the Meteor, Cardinal and Crescent substituting its idea of hot TV Dinners. For the Capitol and Lake Shore this could be an upgrade from what they are inflicting on the 1st Class Passengers. Sometime in the near future, Amtrak will add this feature to the Silver Starvation which will cause it to revert back to its formal name of the Silver Star.

Steve Musen

Representative to NARP’s Council of Representatives from the state of Rhode Island