Long distance trains and direct costs

In CEO Boardman's recent testimony to Congress, there is a rather interesting graph showing the contribution or loss from the long distance trains. According to this, prior to the allocation of overhead, the Palmetto and Silver Meteor both return a small surplus and the Auto Train breaks even.

Backtracking from revenues and expenses via eyeballing the graph and adjusting from 2012 revenues, rounding to the nearest dollar:
Palmetto is implied at a direct cost of ~$23 per train mile.
Silver Meteor is implied $41
Auto Train at $112
Lake Shore Limited is $51
City of New Orleans $40
Capitol Limited $48
Silver Star $43
Cardinal $40
Crescent $42
Empire Builder $44
Texas Eagle $30
Coast Starlight $62
Sunset Limited $57
Southwest Chief $45
California Zephyr $47

At first glance, there appears to be a simple explanation for the various costs. The Palmetto is the only long distance service without sleeper cars or diner service and costs are appropriately lower with significantly fewer crew, cars, or related expenses; the Auto Train carries a significant number of freight cars; the Texas Eagle sends through cars on the Sunset Limited and may simply be miscalculated as a result; and the Coast Starlight carries the unique, and maintenance intensive, Pacific Parlour Car.

However, I do not entirely trust these numbers. The Capitol Corridor reports a FY2012-2013 standard of $45.59 in train expenses per train mile (Appendix C) and the Pacific Surfliner had a 2007-2008 standard of $47.74 per train mile (page 21). The San Joaquin was somewhat lower with a 2008-2009 standard of $34.82 (page 32), but still higher than the Palmetto or Texas Eagle. Out east, the Keystone Corridor reported 2007-2008 expenses of $34.59 per train mile, rising to $37.01 in 2008-2009 (page 127). The Keystone report does an additional service in showing the number of car miles (as does an older report, which also shows the state subsidy per car mile, on page 54); with an expense of $7.40 per car mile in 2008-2009.

One possible explanation is that the state supported corridors, unlike the long distance trains, are burdened by the costs of track access fees while the long distance trains pay merely an incidental expense per train-mile. However, the Keystone Corridor is not subjected to such costs and of the three California trains, the Surfliner is the one that I would expect to have the lowest costs as a result of such a discrepancy, rather than the highest, since three of its frequencies were considered part of the national train system and thus potentially liable to the same incidental rates.

The information does provide for a bit of analysis on the ability of sleepers to pay for themselves however. If the numbers do hold true, and a train with six coaches and a baggage car is approximately $20 per train-mile cheaper to run than a typical overnight long distance train with three coaches, three sleepers, and a diner, the imputed cost of running long distance sleeper services is about $10.50 per car mile. With 45 "seats" in a Superliner II sleeper car, this comes out to $0.233 per seat-mile; since one of the roomettes is taken up by the train attendant, this actually rises to $0.244 per seat-mile. For a Viewliner, which can only accommodate 30 passengers (28 if a roomette is taken up by an attendant, but I do not know if this is the practice on single level trains), this rises to $0.35/0.375 per seat mile.

Unfortunately, Amtrak does not seem to be pricing their sleepers in such a fashion as to recoup the costs of operating them. Using information from the Performance Improvement Plan for the top five performing long distance trains, as well as the September 2011 monthly performance report, I put together this brief spreadsheet.

	# of Sleeper Passengers	Average sleeper trip length	Sleeper Revenue	Revenue per sleeper passenger	Revenue per sleeper passenger-mile
City of New Orleans	31,945	661	$4,732,147	$148.13	$0.22
Southwest Chief	61,937	1,433	$19,420,741	$313.56	$0.22
Auto Train	110,142	860	$27,489,717	$249.58	$0.29
Coast Starlight	74,797	836	$17,431,562	$233.05	$0.28
Empire Builder	73,182	1,321	$22,383,367	$305.86	$0.23

The City of New Orleans (the sole single level train), Southwest Chief, and Empire Builder do not even attempt to sell sleeper service at a price which could recoup the cost of providing it and while the Starlight and Auto Train are above the putative costs per seat-mile, it is doubtful that they match expenses after occupancy factors are accounted for. Additionally, these two trains have costs significantly in excess of the others. It is one thing to simply fail to attract sufficient patronage as to recoup your costs; it is quite another to deliberately price your trips in such a fashion that it is impossible to recoup costs.

I am aware that the National Association of Railroad Passengers has previously claimed that sleepers provide an incremental profit. Unfortunately, I do not possess the in depth access to Amtrak financials which NARP appears to be blessed with. However, with sleeper tickets priced at only a 1.6 multiple of coach tickets, per passenger mile, yet with the unique exception of the Auto Train, coach providing 2.4-4.1 times the number of passenger miles, I am strongly doubtful of the validity of NARP's analysis. Now, at this point, a caveat may be made. Because the cost of a sleeper is charged in addition to a base rail fare (the lowest bucket coach fare), it is possible that Amtrak, for reasons beyond the ken of mortal man, does not include the cost of that base rail fare in the sleeper revenue, which would make the current sleeper performance look better. Some quick trip pricing on Amtrak's website indicates that this is not the case however. The Auto Train, it must be noted, runs an abnormally high cost per passenger mile due to the necessity of paying for hauling a vehicle; it appears that coach passengers may be disproportionately likely to be traveling alone.

	# of Coach Passengers	Average coach passenger trip length	Coach Revenue	Revenue per coach passenger	Revenue per coach passenger-mile
City of New Orleans	203,373	425	$13,011,296	$63.98	$0.15
Southwest Chief	292,975	798	$24,763,319	$84.52	$0.11
Auto Train	149,802	860	$41,129,051	$274.56	$0.32
Coast Starlight	351,787	445	$22,566,390	$64.15	$0.14
Empire Builder	395,985	574	$31,390,344	$79.27	$0.14

Interestingly, assuming that the direct costs are indeed accurate, sleeper cars are, in a very real sense, the bane of long distance train travel. For the cost and equipment involved in running a single average long distance train, two Palmetto-style all coach trains could be run. I think it doubtful that any losses in revenue and passengers would not be made up, and indeed quite exceeded, by a second, opposed frequency, with the result of reducing much of the burden which the overhead imposes on the current long distance trains. Of course, this would likely run into issues with the Class Is demanding track access fees, however, Amtrak may be able to negotiate with the various states for them to pick up such extra costs in order to run the trains.

With advocacy organizations such as RailPAC continually calling for lengthening long distance trains and pointing to sold out sleepers as evidence in their favor, they would do well to also call on Amtrak to price sleepers appropriately. Sufficient demand for an additional car is also sufficient demand for a higher priced ticket and, as the long distance trains are insanely capital intensive, a luxury service such as sleeper cars ought not to be expanded, nor called for expansion, until it shows that it pays for itself at least on the margins.