April 2020 Amtrak Financial Report

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

• If you thought that March was a bad month, April was a lot worse. The report was dated May 28, 2020, and posted that day. At least Amtrak did not delay in getting the bad news out.

• 3.The NEC generated for the first seven months a cash operating surplus of 184.640 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 $371.473 million. Combined the entire system had for the first six months a cash operating deficit of $186.833 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 CARES Act money along with almost all of its FY2020 federal appropriations. It also has considerable cash reserves built up over the last few years.

• For the fiscal year to date, the NEC made debt service payments totaling $116.536 million and capital expenditures of $694.326 million.  Counting all capital sources, the NEC Account has a balance of $985.470 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 through the end of May 2020. Even afterward, ridership on the few Acelas running is not likely to be robust.

• For the rest of the National System, only $18.8 million was needed for Debt service and $415.630 million was spent on Capital Expenditures. The National Network Account Balance is now $1,135.9 million. Keep in mind that a large surplus was 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:  $345.4 million, Stations & Real Estate $58.6 million, Fleet Maintenance $175.0 million, Technology $64.6 million, ADA $50.6 million (for the second year in a row meeting a congressional requirement, System Support $6.5 million, Acela 21 (including Milestone Payments) $289.3 million, Fleet Acquisition $31.3 million, and Gateway $15.2 million ($1.3 million being spent in April). 

• The GAAP Loss for the first seven months appears to be $677.3 million which is $163.5 million worse than the previous period for FY2019.  The operating earnings for the first six months were $147.3 million worse than October 2018-April 2019.

• The number of product lines showing a measurable operating surplus for the period increased to 12. The six with surplus over $1 million were:

  • Acela $118.4 million

  • Northeast Regionals $65.9 million

  • Washington-Lynchburg $2.0 million

  • Washington-Richmond $2.0 million

  • Carolinian $1.9 million

  • Washington-Norfolk $1.5 million

  • Pennsylvanian $1.1 million

  • Note many of the state-supported product lines showed operational improvements and even had surpluses despite being entirely shut down for the month of April or reduced in the number of trains running. A fitting commentary on Amtrak's accounting system.

  •  The four Virginia product lines generated a total of $5.6 million. (The Virginia services being beneficiaries of the accounting system. 

• Ridership for the first seven months fell more than 3,798,000 from the comparable period in FY2019. For the year to date, it stands at 14,423,7XX (Amtrak rounds to the nearest 100). In fact, the total number of riders in all of April was 121,1XX  The situation with the long-distance trains shows a loss of riders for all  of the product lines. The Silver Star was able to eke out the title of the greatest loser at -25.8% for the first seven months. Runner up was the Crescent at -25.0% The line with the least amount of loss in the Long Distance Category was the Lake Shore Ltd, at -17.3%. 

• Amtrak has still not posted any individual station ridership statistics. 

• Amtrak is asking for over $1.5 billion in additional cash for FY2021 from its legislative request. Supposedly to show it is deserving of this money, Amtrak's management has decided to eliminate up to 20% of its employees. Voluntary separations are being pursued over the next month and a half. No idea by them of how they plan to run a fully restored system after the crisis is over.

• No word from Congress about the 2021 THUD Package. It was expected that Amtrak would receive close to its FY2020 appropriation.

• Amtrak did benefit from a round of State of Good Repair Grants. The North Portal Bridge received a grant of $55,1 million, and North Carolina will be able to purchase 6 locomotives and some 13 coaches with their $80 million grant. All of the grants which totaled $302 million benefited Amtrak to some degree.

• The Downeaster resumes with a single round trip on June 15, 2020.

  Steve Musen, The representative from the State of Rhode Island to NARP's Council of Representatives.