Be careful finding "profit" in Amtrak reports

An unfortunately misleading headline from the Business Journal (link)

Revenues happily exceeded expenses on Amtrak's new Borealis service during the first 11 days of operation in May, but it would be more appropriate to call that excess revenue a "surplus" rather than "profit," like the Business Journal did in the screenshotted headline above. Very few Amtrak routes have ticket revenues that exceed operating expenses, and the Borealis is not among those lucky(-ish) exceptions.

On average, Amtrak's state-supported "corridor" routes like the Borealis are currently covering about 43% of their expenses through ticket fares, while long-distance routes do slightly better at 46%. Amtrak's Monthly Performance Report for May has very limited precision, rounding ridership to the hundreds and other figures to the nearest 100,000, but it appears the new trains had ticket sales cover about 60% of that very early operating cost: Operating expenses were $500,000, while revenues were $600,000, including $300,000 in fares (the train is unceremoniously listed on the last page as "St. Paul - Chicago").

Another $300,000 above and beyond ticket income magically appears in the train's revenue column, but where did that come from? Some of it may be café car sales, but the bulk of that is the state-level funding from Minnesota and Wisconsin to operate the train (which, for the first few years of operation, is mostly pass-through federal funding).

Amtrak route performance for May 2024, with the Borealis (St. Paul - Chicago) highlighted (PDF)

Fares for the Borealis start out at 10¢ per mile, or $41 for the whole 410-mile distance from St. Paul to Chicago, but climb as more passengers buy tickets. There's also a small 30-seat business-class section in the café car that has much higher fares. On average over the first 11 days, passengers paid about 23¢ per mile for their tickets, so many people were paying a substantial premium over the base fare, although that's less than the 27¢-per-mile average fare across all state-supported Amtrak routes so far this fiscal year. The approximately 11¢-per-mile subsidy is well below the current IRS deduction rate of 67¢ per mile.

The Wisconsin Association of Railroad Passengers also recently obtained ridership figures more precise than what's in Amtrak's monthly report, showing an average of 329 daily westbound passengers and 275 eastbound, for 604 total riders per day. The total for May was 6,650 riders across 22 train trips on 11 days. 38.5% of the ridership was in the Chicago–Milwaukee part of the corridor.

Prior to the start of service, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation said the line was projected to have 231,900 riders in the first year, an average of 635 per day, so the train reached 95% of the projected figure right out of the gate. Hopefully the ridership will inch upward as more people become aware of it and figure out how to fit it into their travel plans.

It's really difficult to draw hard conclusions from such early snapshots and the small numbers contained within. Expenses are probably a bit in flux, and it's hard to say how much of the early ridership and revenue came from people excited to try the train but who may or may not come back. But the train is off to a good start, and has a bright future as long as it has sustained support.