(The following article by Larry Sandler was posted on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel website on October 19.)
MILWAUKEE, Wisc. — Against a backdrop of soaring gas prices, Wisconsin’s two Amtrak routes played key roles in leading the national passenger railroad to a third straight fiscal year of record ridership, Amtrak reported Wednesday.
Ridership on the Milwaukee-to-Chicago Hiawatha route cracked the half-million mark for the first time ever in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, chalking up the biggest passenger gain of any route outside the East and West coasts.
And the Empire Builder, which stops in Milwaukee on its way between Chicago and the Pacific Northwest, posted the highest ridership of any U.S. long-distance train.
Amtrak provided a total of 25.37 million rides, up 1% from 25.05 million in the previous fiscal year, despite mechanical problems that shut down its flagship Acela Express high-speed line for three months and despite hurricane-related service disruptions, Amtrak President David Gunn said in a letter to railroad workers.
“This is a respectable achievement given the suspension of Acela Express . . . through most of the summer,” Gunn wrote. “Hurricanes Katrina and Rita also meant a loss of ridership for us.”
Marc Magliari, an Amtrak spokesman in Chicago, said railroad managers believe high gas prices contributed to nationwide ridership gains, “although we don’t have any firm evidence of it.”
Aboard the Hiawatha, however, passengers have told pollsters and conductors that gas prices pushed them onto trains, said Ron Adams, rail chief for the state Department of Transportation.
For most of the past year, gas prices stayed above $2 a gallon nationwide, sometimes shooting past $3 a gallon. On routes such as the Hiawatha, “we’re a great alternative to driving, as driving becomes more expensive,” Magliari said.
Overall, the Hiawatha carried 525,239 passengers in the fiscal year, up 64,809, or 14%, from 460,430 in the 2003-’04 fiscal year. The line runs seven round trips daily – six on Sundays and holidays – with stops at Milwaukee’s downtown Amtrak station, Mitchell International Airport, Sturtevant, Glenview, Ill., and downtown Chicago’s Union Station.
Magliari and Adams said the airport station, which opened in January, contributed to the Hiawatha’s ridership gain. August was the new station’s best month yet, with more than 5,000 passengers, Adams said.
With a new station under construction in Sturtevant and a major renovation planned for the downtown Milwaukee station, Magliari noted, “every Wisconsin station for the Hiawatha (will be) either new or substantially improved” within two years.
Meanwhile, Amtrak has chosen the Empire Builder as the model for reforming its long-distance lines, in an experiment to see whether passengers will pay more for better service. Starting in August, the railroad remodeled the train’s cars, retrained its crews, upgraded its food offerings and started offering the option of meal served to coach passengers at their seats, not just in the dining and lounge cars.
In September, the first full month after the upgrades, Empire Builder ridership rose nearly 14%, from 35,391 in September 2004 to 40,269. While it’s too early to claim a trend, Magliari called the rise noteworthy in a typically slow month.
Overall, Empire Builder ridership totaled 476,531 in the 2004-’05 fiscal year, up 9% from 437,191 in 2003-’04. In addition to Chicago, Milwaukee and the Twin Cities, the train stops in Columbus, Portage, Wisconsin Dells, Tomah and La Crosse, with one trip each way daily.
The Acela Express, which runs between Boston, New York and Washington, D.C., was sidelined by brake problems April 15, resuming partial service July 11 and full service Sept. 26. But slower trains picked up its passengers, and Amtrak reported an overall 1% ridership gain for its crucial Northeast Corridor service.