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

The report was dated March 25, 2020 and posted March 28, 2020. This is slightly early.
The NEC generated for the first five months a cash operating surplus of $245.3 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 $249.5 million. Combined, the entire system had for the first five months, a cash operating deficit of $4.2 million. It is safe to say that Amtrak will not be posting any improvements in this category for most of the remaining year. Amtrak did receive the bulk of its FY2020 federal appropriations and the remainder is expect soon. In addition Amtrak was appropriated $1.0 billion in the Coronavirus Package # 3 to cover expenses of the disease and to replace lost income (including state support money). It also have considerable cash reserves built up over the last few years.
For the fiscal year to date, the NEC made debt service payments totaling $104.7 million and capital expenditures of $422.0 million. Counting all capital sources, the NEC Account has a balance of $468.9 million plus the cash reserves from FY2018 and FY2019. They will need it as all Acela trains have been suspended along with the bulk of the Northeast Regionals.
For the rest of the National System, only $11.4 million was needed for Debt service and $264.0 million was spent on Capital Expenditures. The National Network Account Balance is now $518.4 million. Keep in mind that large surplus were built up in FY2018 and FY2019. Again with most state supported trains suspended for the near term, and only the long distance trains running, we can expect rather large deficits to occur in what remains of the National Network.
Capital Spending so far has been Infrastructure: $231.7 million, Stations & Real Estate: $33.5 million, Fleet Maintenance $118.3 million, Technology $46.3 million, ADA $34.6 million, System Support $5.8 million, Acela 21 (including Milestone Payments) $164.3 million, Fleet Acquisition $30.1 million, and Gateway $10.1 million ($1.9 million being spent in December). There was a significant jump in the milestone payments as the first of the Acela 21 trainsets left the factory headed for Pueblo, CO for testing. However, the planned Milestone payments for this period in time is still $102.9 less than the planned amount. Since a second trainset left the factory in March, we may expect more of the milestone payments to be paid.
The GAAP Loss for the first five months appears to be $333.3 million which is $51.9 million better than the previous period for FY2019. The operating earnings for the first five months were $42.6 million better than October 2018-February 2019.
The number of product lines showing a measurable operating surplus for the period shrunk to 8. The five with surplus over $1 million were:
- Acela $141.0 million
- Northeast Regionals $105.5 million
- Washington-Lynchburg $1.7 million
- Washington-Newport News $1.0 million
- Carolinian $1.0 million
- The four Virginia product lines generated a total of $2.0 million (down considerably from the amount shown in January).
Ridership for the first three months was more than 366,200 over the comparable period in FY2019. For the year to date, it stands at 13,172,3XX (Amtrak rounds to the nearest 100). However, much of the increased ridership has been the result of active promotion of cheaper fares. The situation with the long distance trains still show loss of riders for all but three of the product lines: Cardinal +4.6%, the Lake Shore +4.9%, and the Capital at a barely positive figure of +0.1%. The City of New Orleans is now the biggest loser at -7.7% barely beating out the Silver Star followed by the Texas Eagle at -6.5%.
Amtrak has still not posted any individual station ridership statistics. However, Great American Stations has posted them. Amtrak has published some of its annual report, principally the financial figures.
The Trump administration did sign off on a considerable relief package for Amtrak in the Coronavirus Package referred to above. It is now talking about a $2 trillion infrastructure bill to revive the economy. Details not revealed yet.
No word from Congress about the 2021 THUD Package. Because of the threat of Covid-19 infection, Congress has set a date of April 20 before it expects to return to Washington. Work is being done behind the scenes, but not yet revealed. Indications are that Amtrak will get its proposed appropriation requests, but the legislative changes may have to wait for a surface transportation re-authorization bill. If Congress needs to pass either a Coronavirus Package # 4 or even a short term extension of the Fast Act, there may not be sufficient time for the surface transportation reauthorization to surface.
As noted before, Amtrak has made a huge number of service suspension. There has even been one of the long distance trains (The California Zephyr) which has had a portion of its route suspended (Reno-Denver, that cut has since been restored). Right now there are only four round trips a day east of New Haven to Boston. The Vermonter north of New Haven is suspended, along with some of the New Haven Springfield service, and all of the Downeasters. South of New York the long distance trains are now carrying local passengers between New York and Washington. Further cuts would not be a surprise.
With two of the Acela 21 sets now being tested, (with a lot less traffic to interfere with the one being tested on Northeast Corridor) Amtrak is progressing towards getting its Acela Fleet fully replaced by 2024. Aside from the few cars being released by CAF, they stand to be the only new equipment to be added to the system.
William Flynn is the new President of Amtrak effective, April 15, 2020. He had huge problems to fix before the Coronavirus struck and the situation has not gotten better since.

Steve Musen

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

RI Association of Railroad Passengers