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

The report was dated December 31, 2019 and posted that evening.
The NEC generated for the first two months a cash operating surplus of $127.2 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 $93.5 million. Combined the entire system has a cash operating surplus of $33.6 million. For the fiscal year to date, the NEC made debt service payments of $74.6 million and capital expenditures of $110.9 million. Having received Federal Grants of $9.2 million it has a remaining negative balance of $15.7 million (plus the money from FY2018 and FY2019). The National Network Account made debt service of $1.0 million and capital investments of $100.4 million and have received from the Federal Government $9.6 million and for the current year has a deficit of $166.2 million) However, there is offsetting this the carryover balances from FY2018 and FY2019.
Capital Spending so far has been: infrastructure $89.3 million, Stations & Real Estate $5.9 million, Fleet Maintenance $51.3 million, $9.8 million used for Fleet Acquisition, Information Technology $17.1 million, ADA $13.6 million, Support of $2.8 million, Gateway $2.0 million, and Acela 21 $12.5 million for total capital expenditures of $211.3 million ($3.7 million more than the comparable period for FY2019). The Fleet Acquisition would include the down payments for the new locomotives plus the purchase of some more Viewliner Equipment from CAF. However, the FY2020 plan (written last spring) was for an additional payment of $100.9 million toward Acela 21 Milestone Payments which indicates that this program is now falling behind schedule. If these milestones are reached in December, it would be that the payments is conditioned on a single event. {See Paragraph 11}
The GAAP loss for the first two months appears to be $76.0 million which is $29.9 million better than a year ago. However, the difference on a year to year basis was significantly better in the previous report. The adjusted operating earnings were $15.5 million better than the first month of FY2019 . (For only the month of November 2019, Amtrak did worse by $7.3 million in adjusted operating earnings). Considering that November contains the Thanksgiving travel period, this is not a good sign for profitability of the entire fiscal year. {See the paragraph below on ridership)
The number of product lines showing a measurable operating surplus for the period zoom shrunk to 12 (from 16) with 3 others breaking even. The two with surpluses over $1 million were:
- Acela $72.4 million
- Northeast Regionals $56.6 million
- The four Virginia product lines generated a total of $2.6 million in operating surpluses.
Ridership for the first two months was more than 45,00 less than the comparable period in FY2019. Considering that in October 2019 it was 45,200 more than October 2018, November 2019 was a total of 90,200 WORSE than November 2018. Again this month contained the Thanksgiving travel period which is an ominous sign. So far for the year, Amtrak has carried 5,641,3XX (Amtrak rounds to the nearest hundred). While total ridership on the combined long distance trains was down considerably. Only two long distance trains show any gains; the Cardinal at +10.7% and the Lake Shore at a nominal +0.5%. The others all were off for the combined Oct-Nov. Period. They ranged from -2.1% for the Crescent to -12.8% for the Palmetto and -13.4% for the Sunset with most of the rest hovering around -5%.
However, Page 7 of the November report shows the totals for the NEC was $2.3 million, State Supported was $2.7 million, and Long Distance was $698.4 thousand which should total $5.9 million but is listed as a total of $5.6 million . The figures that were listed in the November 2018 (FY2019) report are different from those used to compare year to date to year to date on Page 3 of this latest report. If the November YTD for this fiscal year is $5.9 million then Amtrak is running ahead by about $164.9 thousand, which means that the gain for November alone was $119.5 thousand (if the October report was accurate.
Congress passed the Omnibus Appropriations Bill. Amtrak received about $50 million more (all in the NEC Account), however, the FRA Grant programs were significantly cut back.
Amtrak has committed to spend $944 million in matching funds on Virginia supported corridor trains for infrastructure. (No equipment involved!!). This would be over a ten year period of time but with much of it spent towards the beginning of the time period.
Just before Christmas, Amtrak decided to play the Grinch by announcing the elimination of station agents at Kalamazoo which had only a mere 122,000 passengers in FY2018.
True to its model version of transparency, Amtrak has not posted any individual station ridership figures for FY2019. Nor three months after the close of its fiscal year has it published its annual report. A private business such as Delta would fire its top management if it delayed that long in releasing its figures and the SEC would be suspending trading in that company’s stock as well. . As it is, they have eliminated most of the information that they use to report monthly, including balance sheets.
The delay in paying the Acela 21 Milestones may relate to the first complete set not making it to Pueblo for crash-worthiness. A special permit was needed from the FRA to move the Acela from Hormel to Pueblo. That permit was issued in January, but the move will not take place until February. (Probably due to the winter weather). If this is the case, I would not be surprised to find the Milestone Payments lagging until we get the February Report at the beginning of April, 2020.

Steve Musen

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

RI Association of Railroad Passengers