(The following story by Hawes Spencer appeared on The Hook website on October 7, 2010.)
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virg. — The new Amtrak train in Charlottesville celebrated its one-year anniversary with a Thursday morning party that brought together state and local officials and revealed— sort of— that what might have been a subsidized extension of the Northeast Regional train is actually making a profit.
“They’ve exceeded all our expectations,” said Mayor Dave Norris at the October 7 event.
Last October, the wheels began rolling with a promised three-year state subsidy as Amtrak brought one of its New York-terminating trains though Charlottesville and as far south as Lynchburg.
By July, the train had doubled its goals with $5.2 million in revenue from 103,351 Virginia passengers (against annual goals of $2.6 million from 51,000 passengers). And there are still two months remaining of first-year data yet to be reported.
“This is one of the best-performing trains in the nation,” Thelma Drake, the director of the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation, told celebrants as she noted that there is “a little bit of money in the pot.”
Pressed for details, she deferred to officials in the home office, but told a reporter that the contract for the first year of the service reserves 79 percent of the revenue for the state, which committed nearly two million a year for three years to subsidizing the operating costs. (In a parallel move, the state agreed to subsidize a new link to Richmond for an additional $10+ million.)
It’s tempting to multiply .79 by the revenue and conclude that the state has piggybanked $4.1 million versus that $1.7 million commitment. Is that fair? The Hook has emailed some questions to the home office.
Meanwhile, it appears that 82 people climbed aboard the train whose on-time arrival interrupted the birthday party, and Richards noted that 217 people had already made reservations to climb aboard Friday morning. The goal was to get 70 people boarding each time.
So this is a developing story if it’s the story of a profitable train. On the other hand, Richards conceded in a recent article that the state has handed over $43 million in infrastructure improvements to the rails and stations that made the Lynchburg extension possible. The Hook is seeking details on those expenditures too.
“It was so unheard of that a train would make money,” said Drake.