Posted on 06/08/2010 12:32:01 PM PDT by Willie Green
Amtrak, the U.S. long-distance passenger railroad, is on course to set a record for riders this year, Chief Executive Officer Joseph Boardman said.
The railroad may surpass the 28.7 million passengers carried in 2008, Boardman said, without predicting how many customers will use Amtrak this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.
“People are riding the railroad,” Boardman said in an interview.
Amtrak carried 13.6 million passengers from October through March, a 4.3 per cent gain from the same months in 2009, the railroad said. In May, boardings rose 10 per cent on Acela high- speed trains linking Boston and Washington, Boardman said. In April, ridership on all Amtrak trains climbed 7.9 per cent and revenue increased 13 per cent, Amtrak has said.
In the first quarter of its fiscal year, the railroad captured a record share of travel on rail or air between New York and Washington and New York and Boston, he said.
The railroad, which gets operating cash from taxpayers, carried 65 per cent of air or rail travelers from New York to Washington and 52 per cent from New York to Boston, Boardman said. The previous market-share record was 63 per cent to Washington and 50 per cent to Boston since Acela began service in 2001, according to Amtrak.
Boardman, 61, became Amtrak’s CEO in 2008 after serving as head of the Federal Railroad Administration under Republican President George W. Bush and as New York state’s transportation commissioner.
Amtrak has no plans to follow most U.S. airlines and charge passengers for baggage. Security screening in major rail stations will be handled without installing the types of screening machines used at airports, Boardman said. Amtrak is increasing the use of dogs trained to detect explosives and vapors, especially on Northeast Corridor trains, he said.
The railroad plans to trim the travel time on Washington- New York route to 2 hours, 15 minutes within two decades, cutting about 30 minutes from the trip by repairing bridges, tunnels and tracks along the route, he said.
Ridership is climbing as the economy recovers and Amtrak improves customer service, including refurbishing passenger car interiors, adding free wireless Internet connections for its Acela service and planning to offer the feature on other trains.
Customers in New York City, accustomed to being jostled when boarding trains at aging Penn Station, should have an easier time if the plan to convert the landmark Manhattan post office across the street into Moynihan Station comes to fruition, Boardman said.
“There’s a lot of support behind it now,” he said of the project named for the late U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who wanted to expand and redevelop Penn Station, North America’s busiest rail station.
But still will be billions in the red.
If I can’t carry concealed I won’t ride, nor my family.
How many people have access to Amtrak?
How many days are in the year?
How many actual rides were there?
How many unique riders were there?
Count me unimpressed.
I’ve ridden a train once in my 45 years. It was at least 35 years ago.
continue to make flying a more painful experience and there’s no limit to the number of passengers you could generate
And they still couldn’t turn a single penny of profit. Not one single penny.
I was looking at the site last night and some of the trips for this summer and fall are already booked solid. So, if you can go on one, take that opportunity. I promise you will never, ever regret it. You will see things by train that you will never see by car.
I still prefer to drive on my time. I can’t pull the train over for a picnic on the beach, or wander off into the woods to get a peek at a hidden waterfall the locals tell me about.
I have considered a great lakes tour as an interesting alternative vacation.
How many people have access to Amtrak?
Anybody who buys a ticket.
How many days are in the year?365 except for leap years, which have 366.
How many actual rides were there?
Same as the number of passengers, I suppose.
Amtrak doesn't carry undocumented riders like bums, hoboes and illegals.
All the riff-raff usually hop aboard the freight trains where there aren't any conductors to give them the boot.
How many unique riders were there?
Everybody is unique in their own way, except for maybe twins and triplets of course. But I don't think Amtrak keeps statistics about how many sets of twins they carry.
Count me unimpressed.
You need to relax and take a trip on one of the scenic routes.
You'll never want to climb into one of those flying sardine cans again!
(I talked Howlin into giving Amtrak a try several years ago. Just a very short trip of 40~50 miles or whatever it was to go visit her Mom. Anyway, if Howlin can do it, then so can you.)
Compliments of your tax money.....
We also went through one of the longest tunnels in the country and it was pitch black for about 7 miles. This trip did not go along the beach since the ones here in the SE are the best in the country or should I say, they were the best in the country. We see that a lot more often than we would the NW Nat’l Parks. I am thinking about having about 10 or so pictures enlarged and framed. The one of Mt. Rainer was terric and looked like I was standing right next to it. We also got some good ones of the animals in Yellowstone including a mama moose and her baby who were taking their time walking across the road.
The company sold the one we went on but the people who bought it are planning trips for next year. We can’t wait. We want to go on the one that goes to the Grand Canyon. We had been talking about flying out to see it but this is so much nicer. The food was out of this world.
I had torn my rotator cuff just before we left here and was going to have to have surgery when I got back but being waited on hand and feet for 2 weeks made it heal on its own. You will never know what you are missing until you take one of these trips. Let me tell you one thing though. It did take us a little while to learn to walk on a moving train.
The US Post Office is a similar case, rather effective, but taxpayer subsidized nonetheless. And importantly, it has explicit private competition in UPS and FedEx.
Having been in the transportation industry, the public/private split in the industry is complex. The RR in earlier America acquired their own rights-of-way (ROW), they bought and owned the land, and in some cases still do. They were a private enterprise in a much fuller sense of the concept than now.
On the other hand to consider the commercial airlines of today, or trucking companies, as independent private enterprises is absurd. They are taxpayer (me and thee) subsidized in the nature of FAA national airspace and operation, and in FHWA (federal and state highway) funding.
Having flown for many years in the National Airspace System (NAS) it is quite clear that it could be operated through private competitive contract every bit as effectively, or perhaps more so, than the current FAA situation. Safety, for instance, is an inherent goal.
Our point is here, confined for the moment to the transportation industry, is:
- despite the socialistic (government) encroachment over the decades, to engender private competition as much as possible, for it is that which incites imagination and efficiency;
and
- to hawk the egotists of government power mercilessly, to prevent their arrogance from negating the creative power of we, the more intelligent and gifted, citizens and taxpayers;
and
- to always, always keep in mind that we are paying two paths, through the enterprise itself, and through government, taking our money at gunpoint by a bunch of arrogant, corrupt, deceitful, phony politicians who couldn't themselves conceive the enterprise under the threat of death.
The latter kind of like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi.
Johnny Suntrade, the Suntrade Institute
Two decades to trim 30 minutes off the trip? That does not very efficient.
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