J.D. Wong outlines Amtrak’s never-ending financial difficulties:
“Amtrak” by Mike Knell is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 
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Founded 54 years ago, Amtrak set out on a bold adventure to see if passenger trains could be profitable. Fast forward to today, this experiment has been unsuccessful. Politicians have often crafted routes to win votes rather than attract riders. As a result, Amtrak has been squandering taxpayer money since its start in 1971.
Take, for instance, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. It allocated a monumental $66 billion to bolster passenger rail. Yet, even with this backing, Amtrak’s losses soared from $1.12 billion in FY2019 to $2.12 billion in FY2024. This financial drain isn’t new; America’s passenger trains have lost money for 79 years.
Amtrak asserts that it is “on-track to reach operational profitability”. Yet, this is a bald-faced lie. While Amtrak reported a loss of $705.2 million for FY2024, it didn’t include:
- $966.2 million in depreciation;
- $447.3 million in “Project Related Expenses”;
- $314.1 million in state subsidies, which it classified as “revenue”;
- $26.9 million in Office of Inspector General funding
By omitting these costs, Amtrak paints an optimistic view of its financial health. In reality, Amtrak needs larger subsidies than ever before. In fact, Amtrak has been deceiving Congress with its “path to profitability” since 1990.
Although Amtrak touted a “ridership record” for FY2024, this figure is misleading too. Ridership numbers don’t reflect the average length of each passenger’s trip. A more insightful metric is passenger-miles, which measures how far people are traveling. In fact, Amtrak only transported 6.54 billion passenger-miles in FY2024. This is a decrease of 3.40 percent since FY2013.
Amtrak often attributes its financial struggles to its long-haul routes. Yet, the outlook is even bleaker for its short-haul, state-supported routes. Amtrak reported a $251.5 million loss for these routes in FY2024. Yet, with $314.1 million in state subsidies included, the true loss hits $565.6 million. This represents a shocking 94 percent increase from the $291.7 million lost in FY2019.
Amtrak’s advocates often cite highway “subsidies” to explain its financial debacles. But Amtrak guzzles about 39 times more subsidies per passenger-mile than highways do.
Amtrak asserts that freight trains “interfere” with its passenger services. However, Amtrak often makes questionable route choices despite having legal priority over freight. Between Chicago and Los Angeles, the Desert Wind lost less money than the Southwest Chief. Despite this, Amtrak favored the Southwest Chief, which passed through more congressional districts. It discontinued the Desert Wind in 1997, leaving Las Vegas with no train service.
