amtrak surging ahead

[Deltic]

Amtrak ridership increased in 2005 to 25,374,998, marking the third straight year of passenger gains for the national intercity passenger railroad, despite service disruptions that included major hurricanes in the south and five months without full Acela Express service in the northeast.

This total, for the period Oct. 2004-Sept. 2005, topped the 25,053,564 for
the previous 12 months.
"This is a respectable achievement given the suspension of Acela Express
in April and through most of the summer," said David L. Gunn, Amtrak President & CEO. "Hurricanes Katrina and Rita also meant a loss of ridership for us, We have recovered well from the Acela troubles (its on-time performance
for September was 89 percent), the hurricanes that suspended our service to
the Gulf Coast and many other challenges," Gunn wrote in a letter to Amtrak
co-workers.

Long-Distance highlights:
Following the August re-launch of new, enhanced service aboard the
Chicago-Seattle/Portland Empire Builder to improve the train's financial
performance, ridership jumped 14 percent in September against September a year ago (40,269 v. 35,391). The Empire Builder upgrades -- including refurbished rail equipment and a higher level of customer service -- will serve as a model for improving the financial performance of other trains in the national network. For the year, the Empire Builder carried 476,531 passengers, the most of any of Amtrak's 15 long-distance trains.

The daily Auto Train, which operates between the Washington, D.C. and
Orlando areas, posted a 3.7 percent increase in ridership and received new
auto carriers during the fiscal year, boosting the train's capacity to carry
passengers and their personal vehicles.

Other long-distance trains with notable hikes in ridership include the New
York-Chicago Lake Shore Limited (up 11.8 percent), the Washington-Chicago
Capitol Limited (up 7.9 percent) and the Chicago-Oakland California Zephyr (up 3.6 percent).

East highlights:
Ridership on all trains in the Northeast Corridor was 8 percent higher in
September 2005 than it was in September 2004, excluding Clocker service, which is reverting to operation by New Jersey Transit this month. While Acela
Express service began to return in the last few months of the fiscal year,
Regional ridership continued to rise, with double-digit increases in the last
three months of the fiscal year. More than 7 million passengers rode Regional
trains in 2005, an increase of 9.7 percent.
For 2005, the combination of the major Northeast Corridor services --
Acela Express, Metroliner and Regional -- serving Boston, New York, Washington and other destinations carried 9,476,923 passengers, showing an increase of one percent over the 9,371,630 passengers in 2004.

Among state-supported services in the Northeast, the New York-Harrisburg,
Penn., Keystone Service topped one million passengers (up 18.6 percent) and
the Boston-Portland, Maine, Downeaster Service was up 10 percent.

Midwest highlights:
The Chicago-Milwaukee Hiawatha Service trains topped the half-million mark
by carrying 525,239, an increase of 14.1 percent in ridership on the trains
supported by the states of Wisconsin and Illinois.
Elsewhere in the Midwest, all three routes in Michigan showed strong
increases, including the Chicago-Detroit/Pontiac Wolverines (up 11 percent)
and the state-supported Chicago-East Lansing/Port Huron Blue Water (up 18.3 percent) in its first full year of service and the Chicago-Grand Rapids Pere Marquette (up 9.9 percent) in its 21st year of service.

Other state-supported trains in the Midwest showing double-digit increases
are the Oklahoma City-Fort Worth Heartland Flyer (up 23.1 percent) and the
Chicago-Carbondale Illini in Illinois (up 10.3 percent).

West highlights:
In the California Corridors, the San Diego-Santa Barbara Pacific Surfliner
service carried more than 2.5 million passengers, an increase of 7.5 percent.
The Oakland/San Jose Capitol Corridor service had more than 1.2 million
passengers, a gain of 8.1 percent, while the San Joaquins service had more
than three-quarter-million passengers, a 2.3 percent increase.
The states of Washington and Oregon support the Cascades service, which was up 4.4 percent.

[fred henderson]

What happened to the Acela Express service?

Fred

[rcharlton]

In April they discovered cracks in some brake discs. After further inspection it was determined that about 300 of 1440 discs were affected and all Acela train service was immediately suspended. They are now running again after repairs but are still trying to determine the cause of the cracks. Needless to say there is a lot of finger pointing going on between Amtrak and Bombardier as to who is to blame for the problem.

Ray