November 2020 Amtrak Financial Report
The report was dated December 29, 2020 and posted on Amtrak’s web page on January 5, 2021. This was a rather lengthy time before posting.
The NEC generated for the first two months a cash operating loss of $83.4 million (as determined by their accounting system) and the remainder of the system had a fully allocated cash loss of $98.4 million. Combined the entire system had for the period a cash operating deficit of $181.8 million.
For the two months, the NEC made debt service payments totaling $29.0 million and capital expenditures of $152.9 million. Counting all capital sources, the NEC Account has a negative balance of $40.2 million plus the cash reserves from previous years.
For the rest of the National System, only $0.8 million was needed for Debt service and $90.5 million was spent on Capital Expenditures. The National Network Account Balance is now $120.2 million plus the accumulated surplus from previous years.
During the month most of the money appropriated in the first Continuous Resolution was paid to Amtrak so that the total amount of money for the combined NEC and National Network for the first two months was $430.7 million. Amtrak has also received from other capital sources $104.7 for the entire system.
The combined accumulated reserves at the beginning of the fiscal year totaled $409.1 million in cash and cash equivalents, $170.0 million in short term investments and $2.4 billion in available for sale securities. This brings total cash reserves as of October 1, 2020 to $2.9 billion. The current ratio (Current Assets divided by Current Liabilities) was 2.169 which would make Amtrak quite credit worthy for any fresh borrowings.
In October 2020 Amtrak's burn rate (Operating Revenues-Minus Operating Expense-Minus Debt Service-Capital Expenditures) was $216.4 million. In November the burn rate was $238.6 million. Keep in mind that October and November then to be rather good months so the burn rate will probably increase in the January to March period. After that period of time, revenues should start to improve as more people feel it is safe to travel after they have been vaccinated.
Capital Spending for the two months was: Infrastructure $123.9 million, Mechanical: $39.1 million, Operations $2.4 million, ADA & Stations $34.9 million, Information Technology $11.6 million, Safety $1.4 million, Procurement $0.4 million, Acela 21 $19.9 million (which was $11.8 million in November alone), Planning $9.3 million, and intercity Trainsets $0.2 million. Gateway is no longer listed separately.
The GAAP Loss for the fiscal year to date appears to be $339.8 million which is $263.8 million worse than the same period in FY2020. The cash operating earnings for the year was $215.4 million worse than FY2020.
Because of the expected losses due to the COVID Pandemic, Amtrak prepared a forecast zero budget. Comparing the two months results, the GAAP loss is $30.1 million better than forecast and the cash operating loss is $29.0 million better. Much of this comes from better than expected ridership on the longer distance trains and the remaining state supported trains. The Northeast Corridor is doing much worse.
The number of product lines showing a measurable operating surplus for the period is up to 11 with a twelfth breaking even. The three with a surplus over $1 million were:
Pennsylvanian $3.0 million
Washington-Richmond $1.5 million
Illini $1.1 million
The four Virginia product lines generated a total of $0.1 million. (the Washington-Richmond being cancelled out by the Washington-Newport News and the other two producing very small surpluses.
Ridership for the first two months fell more than 4,38,200 from the comparable period in FY2019. For the year to date, it stands at 1,273,1XX (Amtrak rounds to the nearest 100). In fact, the total number of riders in all of November was 587,71XX The situation with the long distance trains shows a loss of riders for all of the product lines. The City of New Orleans was able to eke out the title of the greatest loser at -73.9% for the fiscal year. Runner up was the Crescent at -73.5% The line with the least amount of loss in the Long Distance Category was the Auto Train at -30.6%.
President Biden has nominated Pete Buttigieg to be the next Secretary of Transportation. Mr. Buttigieg is quite familiar with long distance trains having used the Lake Shore when he was a college student at Harvard to get to South Bend, Indiana. He has already shown an interest in advancing several large infrastructure projects that were put on hold during the Trump administration.
In the Covid Relief Package approved by Congress, Amtrak received an additional $1 billion. Most of that money was to maintain the system through the end of March and to replace some of the money that States were billed for their state supported trains. In the same legislation, Amtrak received for its normal appropriation $700 million for the NEC and $1,300 million ($1.3 billion) for the remainder of the National System. However, Pennsylvania has recently reduced the number of Keystones starting in January, 2021. $14 billion was also set aside to cover operating losses for transit operators.
President Biden is putting together another infrastructure package in addition to another COVID Relief Package. NARP is hoping that the infrastructure package will contain the money needed to restore all of the daily long distance trains that had frequency cuts along with money for new equipment and needed infrastructure improvements. The recent win by two Democrats for Senate in Georgia gives them control of the Senate by virtue of Vice President Elect Harris, but the size of the proposed legislation (multiple trillions of dollars for the relief package alone) may cause this legislation to be delayed or reduced in size to get approval.
The COVID Relief Package did contain $20 billion additional aid for "hard hit" transit agencies. This appears to mean that the money would be applied selectively rather than apportion (on size alone) to all transit agencies. The Relief Package is meeting resistance primarily for two reasons: It comes so soon after Congress passing a previous bill and its size of $1.9 Trillion.
Steve Musen