I wouldn’t call them niche, but no, the long distance routes are not profitable and never will be. They were introduce by the Rail Passenger Service act of 1970, and probably were initially requested, for better or worse, to serve as political pork for Amtrak funding as they serve rural communities as well as tourists. One could also argue that Amtrak is kept hostage, and can never offer high quality service (prior to the infrastructure bill) as it needs to bleed money into these routes.
However I think it is a mistake to focus on profitability here. These trains are a public utility, and should be treated as such. We are spending way more money into maintaining the super inefficient transportation system of private automobiles, and you are paying for it even if you don’t own a car your self, that is both thorough direct taxes, but also in increased property/rent prices to accommodate parking, or with the climate disaster.
Ideally I wouldn’t mind Amtrak canceling most of these routes if they were replaced by something better.
I think many shorter but well connected routes throughout these corridors would be better (I mean, one train a day between Seattle and Spokane is not enough). For example, if the Coast Starlight had it’s infrastructure upgraded, tracks straightened with overhead electrical wires, would interline with future Cascadia High Speed Rail to Eugene, run through Medford (as opposed to Klamath Falls) and finally stop in Sacramento where you could transfer to the future California High Speed Rail if you wanted to continue to LA or the Capitol Corridor to San Francisco. This would be way better then a single Coast Starlight train a day between Seattle and LA in 36 hours.
You're right in that the long distance routes don't really make sense on their own, but if you view them as a bunch of shorter commuter routes which happen to be there anyway, then connecting them up tip to tip with a daily "long distance" route makes a lot of sense. To the commuters, it doesn't matter that one of the trains they might board on a given day will continue going long after they get off. But the benefit (aside from connectivity) is that the long distance sleeper car passengers are the most profitable customers the railroad has. Those people in the front of the train with their private rooms and chef made meals effectively subsidize the daily coach class commuters in the back of the train. The trick to it is getting the long distance route time table lined up so that it is coincident with its second purpose as a commuter service when it gets to whatever metro area.
I think there are some routes where a sleeper makes sense, the Empire Builder is one of them (and the Coast Starlight only sorta; like I said, with good connections Seattle-Sacramento should be enough), but ideally they should interline with a bunch of normal interurban. For example along the Empire Builder, there should be more frequent service between Chicago and Minneapolis there should be plenty of interurbans (and a couple that goes to Fargo), but beyond that a single daily sleeper to Seattle is probably enough (and nice for tourists and locals alike). On the other end we really need more frequent service between Seattle and Spokane as well.
> Those people in the front of the train with their private rooms and chef made meals effectively subsidize the daily coach class commuters in the back of the train.
This may have been the case in the past, but with the Dining Cars not allowing coach customers, and their high labor costs for on-board staff, they are losing money badly right now. It might get better if they can get Coach passengers back in, but for the time being, it's still a money pit.
I made the case a tiny bit further down thread. Yea its recreation, but its recreation at marginal cost to an existing system which helps to subsidize the non-recreational users. Like having a cruise ship appended to a container ship. Amtrak doesn't only exist for / cater to the land version of a cruise ship.
I do. The federal government should be break even on roads through fuel taxes. Break even on airline ticket fees. At various times both have been true. Rail is horrendously subsidized to the tune of 20 cents per passenger mile. That is an insane subsidy.
From 1990-2005 fuel taxes generated a surplus in the US. In virtually every other developed country, vehicle and fuel taxes are vastly higher than spending on roads.
Where is this bad news? I think fuel taxes should be higher in the US for many reasons. I think Europe should convert much of their passenger rail to freight for environmental reasons.
They are not profitable. Like the US Postal Service, Amtrak has a mandate to serve smaller towns. Which means they have to maintain a station and local staff in each to service the typical 2-4 trains a day. Also, since Amtrak doesn't own the tracks outside the Northeast, they have to pay railroads like Union Pacific & BNSF for the privilege.
The Northeastern Corridor is their most profitable section, as the ridership is much higher and they own their own tracks.
What could they do to become profitable? Not sure. Assuming they magically got their own set of tracks for free, they then wouldn't have to pay the railroads for using theirs. But they'd have to pay to maintain all that right-of-way (tracks, bridges, tunnels, signals, etc.) At least they'd be on time though (not blocked by massively long freight trains like they are today).
One interesting thing to note is that because of the way they were built, the rural communities on these routes are not near major roads, so cutting the railroads would cut some of them off significantly.
Greyhound as a de facto everywhere to everywhere bus service has declined as well.
