Northeast Corridor State of good repair
Far too much discussion of Amtrak focuses on the factors it does not control. The press coverage of Amtrak tends to focus heavily on the funding it receives, often comparing its paltry funding to the outlays for highways and air infrastructure. As one example, take this piece just published in the Seattle Times. I am not attacking any one author; most Amtrak coverage does this: the right-wing press assails the relatively little funding that it receives, and the left-wing press generally advocates for more. The heavy focus on funding, which depends on Congress, leads the average reader to conclude that more money will solve most of the company’s problems. On the contrary, closer inspection of the recent history of American passenger rail, such as the Northeast Corridor state-of-good-repair backlog, shows that the sector suffers from more ills than just a shortage of input.
Unlike the rest of the country, Amtrak owns most of the Boston-Washington rail spine known as the Northeast Corridor (NEC). In 2009, the Amtrak Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a report comparing Amtrak’s Northeastern infrastructure upkeep program with those of European rail operators and offering numerous strategies for improvement. Traffic density on the NEC, which is some of the highest in the US, matches that seen on average Western European rail lines—just under 40 train-miles per main-track mile per day. At the time of the report, the Amtrak Engineering Department estimated the steady-state maintenance cost of the NEC plus several Amtrak-owned branch lines, whose length totals 1,558 track miles, at $330 million—$365 million/year in 2015 US dollars.
Amtrak’s monthly reports and other documents show that it has spent well over that figure in recent years. The following table compiles yearly Amtrak Engineering expenditures on infrastructure since 2002.
| Year | Expenses (Millions of Constant 2015 USD) | |
| 2002 | 211.2 | link |
| 2003 | 378.1 | link |
| 2004 | 496.9 | link |
| 2005 | 505.8 | link |
| 2006 | 389.0 | See above |
| 2007 | 540.6 | link |
| 2008 | 482.3 | link |
| 2009 | 491.9 | link |
| 2010 | 631.4 | link |
| 2011 | 507.6 | link |
| 2012 | 429.4 | link |
| 2013 | 491.3 | link |
| 2014 | 650.5 | link |
| 2015 | 637.8 | link |
| 2016 | 590.0 | link |
| 2017 | 660.5 | link |
| 2018 | 692.6 | link |
Moreover, the Union Internationale des Chemins de Fer (UIC) recently released a report about state-of-good-repair expenditures in eight European countries. On average, in 2015, the analysis found the rail networks in the report spent $185,000 (2015 USD) per main-track mile; traffic levels were comparable to those of the NEC. That works to $230 million/year for the 1,243 main-track miles of the entire Northeast Corridor, or $288 million/year for the 1,558 Amtrak-maintained main-track miles considered in the OIG report or master plan.
As shown on the graph in this post, in every year since 2003, Amtrak Engineering has gotten well over its own steady-state estimate. That means that it should have knocked a large chunk off its 2009 backlog.
Annual Amtrak Engineering State-of-Good-Repair Expenditures (2015 USD)
In 2010, the NEC Infrastructure Master Plan estimated the state of good repair backlog at $8.7 billion—including $3 billion on severely outdated New Haven Line infrastructure owned by the state of Connecticut—not Amtrak. So what happened since then? Today, per various reports, it stands at…$33 billion. Amtrak itself estimates its NEC infrastructure is worth some $25 billion. The increase can’t all be coming from the Connecticut-owned portion of the line; it has had its catenary and track renewed, and estimated replacement costs for its movable bridges total around $5 billion. This figure is obscene by the standards of the rest of the world but still insufficient to explain a $20 billion backlog increase.
My own conjecture is that the $33 billion estimate reflects a combination of Amtrak trying to overshoot its needs and incompetent management of resources. Even had Amtrak not implemented the strategies recommended by the OIG report, which should have cut Amtrak’s annual infrastructure maintenance costs by $50 — 150 million (2009 USD), the amount it has spent since then, while not enough to totally eliminate its backlog, should have materially decreased it.
The dramatic increase in Amtrak’s claimed backlog mirrors the increase in price for expansions such as the Amtrak Gateway Program. The total estimate for the project, including the unnecessary Penn Station South, grew from around $13 billion in 2011 to $30 billion today. Despite Amtrak drumming up ample doomsday rhetoric about the necessity of Gateway, no one appears prepared to commit that much money to it. And they shouldn’t be; the $25 billion Crossrail project in London will carry 500,000 daily riders, whereas Gateway is to add around 200,000. Crossrail was also legitimately tough to construct, including eight stations along 13 miles of tunnel through central London. Compare that to Gateway’s 2.7 miles of tunnel—mostly underwater or too deep to conflict with much of anything—and single unneeded station expansion.
Ultimately, people that see no problem with completing 1/9 as much tunnel per dollar as even Crossrail managed have no place at the helm of Amtrak. The company has pursued a maximalist strategy over the last few years that has even driven the Democratic-governed Northeast to its breaking point. It is time for it to stop making excuses and improve the yields from the significant outlays it already receives.