[This blog article is posted on behalf of NTU Foundation's Research Analyst, Eric Sundheim]


Amtrak received $2.37 billion in 2009, yet only $1.6 billion of that revenue came from ticket sales: the remainder came courtesy of the American taxpayer. This deficit was conveniently ignored in Amtrak's recent press release in which the government-owned corporation celebrated its second-highest record ridership (the all-time record was set the previous year). While Amtrak's writers do their best to make the enterprise sound like a private company achieving real milestones, they cannot deny the fact that the government-run corporation cannot cover its costs.

Amtrak will never become financially viable because most of its lines are simply unable to compete with today's airlines and interstate highways. This writer once thought it would be fun to take a train from Salem, Oregon to San Francisco for "the experience of it." Experience is said to make us wiser, and this one certainly did- for I will never ride Amtrak again. While I could have taken a two hour plane ride from Portland, I instead found myself trapped on a 21-hour trip of terror fraught with delays, expensive food, and sleep deprivation. You would have to pay me to ride Amtrak, and unfortunately you do - exactly $1.5 billion in government subsidies for Fiscal Year 2009, plus an additional $270 million for FY 2009 and $780 million in FY 2010 from the so-called stimulus bill.

In its press release Amtrak blames its loss in ridership on the recession, yet Greyhound, a private inter-city bus line, actually saw an increase in ridership during this same period. The real reason riders are leaving Amtrak is that more Americans are realizing that even $1.77 billion (or $2.55 billion adding in the 2010 "stimulus" funding) is not enough to sweeten the bitter taste of the government experience. Taxpayers cannot afford the whimsical luxury of subsidizing Amtrak and should demand the government return their hard-earned money.