Nebraska rail travel follows national trend

Holiday rail travel projections in Nebraska indicate strong interest in the California Zephyr, the cross-country line that passes through the state. Amtrak claims the numbers could be even higher if it weren’t for a shortage of rail cars.

“We're constrained by the size of our current fleet,” said Mark Magliari, the spokesperson for Amtrak’s Midwest region. “Reaching a sellout condition is not terribly unusual nowadays.”

Rail travel advocates were pleased with the record-breaking holiday traffic.

“Thanksgiving kind of blew the doors off,” said Jim Mathews, the President of the Railroad Passengers Association, shortly before the Christmas rush. “They really were kind of bursting at the seams in terms of ridership, and we certainly heard that and saw that in our own travel.

Mathews said there were “very full trains everywhere you went.”

The Zephyr includes five stops in Nebraska along its route between Chicago and the Bay Area of California. In the last reporting period, 44,322 riders bought tickets at Nebraska stations, almost doubling sales.

“We're seeing this sort of steady growth,” Mathews said. “The trick is that you don't have the capacity to grow much more. You only have so many seats to sell.”

The origins of the railcar shortage can be traced to the 1970s, when commercial railroads turned over passenger service to Amtrak. The facilities that built the cars and engines all but vanished. The government was slow to subsidize the cost of new equipment, but new railcar factories have come online recently in the United States.

Magliari pointed out that the limited number of available sleeper and coach cars makes it difficult to find discounted fares.

“If there's a one-train-a-day frequency, as we have across Nebraska, then it's not a lot of opportunity to put a lot of discounted seats out there, because the trains themselves are so full.," he said. "Our revenue is also up.”

The Biden Administration prioritized funding for rail infrastructure. A new generation of rail cars recently began rolling out onto tracks, but mostly on the high-traffic eastern commuter routes.

Mathews said rail passengers report frustration with “basic kinds of things like lights or power, the plug for your phone” that are “really getting long in the tooth.”

“Particularly on the long-distance trains like the Zephyr, people are annoyed, (and) they want to see newer equipment," he said.

A survey released earlier this month by the Passenger Rail Association showed that ticket price remains the most important consideration for travelers, but cost must be balanced with comfort and on-time service.

No one, according to Magliari, should expect the government-run train service to be a high-end luxury travel option.

“Our job at Amtrak is to run an efficient system, to run a safe system, and to run a comfortable system," he said. That's why, when people come to me about luxury travel, that's not the business we're in. We're in the business of safe and comfortable travel.”

Traffic at Nebraska’s five Amtrak stations has been increasing steadily since the pandemic. The highest traffic station in Omaha saw nearly 23,000 people getting on board last year, an increase of over 10,000 passengers. At the smallest station in McCook, ticket sales doubled in the past year.

It’s a tiny fraction of the amount of air and highway travel, but Mathews pointed out that ticket sales are an essential measure of the importance of maintaining passenger rail service.

“It didn't come from above,” he said in a phone conversation at the RPA headquarters in Washington. “It came from the grassroots, from people saying, I want to take this train, and if you put this train in place, I will ride it.”

Riders are showing considerable interest in recently added short-hop Amtrak routes between Chicago and Minneapolis known as The Borealus, and a popular Gulf Coast Line shuttling between New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama.

While there have been occasional calls for addition routes linking Nebraska to Kansas City or Seattle, there are no plans beyond the long-running Zephyr.

The federal government has made funds available to states to explore rail projects. The Nebraska Department of Transportation did apply.

In an email statement, DOT spokesperson Jay Omar wrote, “the state is not aware of interest from providers in expanding passenger service in the state... New rail service poses significant investment that would need to be driven by significant need.”