Amtrak celebrates America's return to rail

Amtrak sets new ridership record while improving on-time performance

The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, also known as Amtrak announced record ridership and revenue figures this morning for the fiscal year ending September 2012. With today's good news and the third division series baseball game starting this afternoon, the District of Columbia must be in a rare ebullient mood this morning. Amtrak ridership was at 31.2 million passengers for the year, the highest level ever since its 1971 start. The year end results also mark the ninth (out of the last ten) year a ridership record has been achieved.

L to R, Joe Boardman - President, Amtrak,
Janet Napolitano US Sec. of
Homeland Security,
Ray Lahood US Sec. of Transportation

"People are riding Amtrak trains in record numbers across the country because there is an undeniable demand to travel by rail," said President and CEO Joe Boardman.

During FY 2012, ridership on the Northeast Corridor is up 4.8 percent to a record 11.4 million. State-supported and other short distance routes is up 2.1 percent to a record 15.1 million and long-distance services is up 4.7 percent to their best showing in 19 years at 4.7 million. State-supported routes are mainly commuter or shorter routes such as California's Capitol Corridor or the Pacific Surfliner.

Also, FY 2012 produced other ridership achievements including new records for 25 of 44 Amtrak services, and 12 consecutive monthly records with July being the single best month in the history of Amtrak. Since FY 2000, Amtrak ridership is up 49 percent.

 

Year to year comparison on
long distance routes