Ridership On Track For Full Recovery

By Rail Passengers Staff

July was a good month for Amtrak ridership and revenue, according to its latest monthly financials reported this week, with a year-to-date ridership gain of 17 percent and a nine-percent revenue increase putting the railroad firmly on track to fully overcome pandemic-era declines.

Amtrak saw improvements nearly across the board last month, with especially impressive revenue gains on state-supported services like the Illinois Zephyr, Piedmont, and Downeaster. The Vermonter and Cascades services saw revenues decline year-to-date versus the same period a year ago, but overall state-supported services saw their collective ridership soar 18 percent, with a ten percent revenue increase.

On the Northeast Corridor, ridership is up sharply – nearly 11 percent on the Acela and more than 21 percent on the Regional services. Revenues through July on the NEC were $100 million higher than a year earlier.

For long-distance services, the Capitol Limited was the clear winner in the ridership category, notching nearly 24 percent growth over the same period in Fiscal 2023. The Lake Shore Limited carried the most passengers in absolute terms through July, at 332,600, nearly 16 percent better than year-earlier levels.

In fact, eight of the 15 long-distance routes posted double-digit ridership growth through July, with the Silver Star, Cardinal, Empire Builder, Texas Eagle, Palmetto, and Crescent all enjoying healthy increases over last year.

The Sunset Limited and, perhaps most surprisingly, the Auto Train, saw declines compared with 2023. Sunset ridership was off two and a half percent, while the Auto Train’s ridership was down more than five percent.

Long-distance revenues were up overall by more than six percent, and topped half a billion dollars through July – nearly $30 million more than the same period a year ago. And despite the ridership slip, the Auto Train continued to gross more revenue than any other long-distance train at $104.3 million through July.