WASHINGTON — Amtrak’s overall customer on-time performance improved in the first quarter of 2025, compared to the previous quarter, according to the latest report from the Federal Railroad Administration.
But the 72% overall figure is down from 77% in the same quarter a year ago, and none of the company’s three business segments (long distance, Northeast Corridor, and state-supported) meets, as a whole, the FRA’s minimum 80% standard for arrival within 15 minutes of the scheduled time [see “FRA publishes final rule …,” Trains News Wire, Nov. 16, 2020]. State-supported routes performed the best, with 76% on-time performance, followed by the Northeast Corridor (73%) and long-distance trains (58%). The long-distance figure is down from 66% in the first quarter of 2024 but up from a 49% rate in last year’s third quarter.
Among individual service, the best performance was a 93% mark on the Chicago-Carbondale, Ill., Illini-Saluki route; the worst belonged to Auto Train, which plummeted to 34% from 75 in the same quarter last year and 64% in the fourth quarter of 2024. Other high-performing routes were the Chicago-Galesburg, Ill., Carl Sandburg-Illinois Zephyr, and the Chicago-Milwaukee Hiawathas, both at 89%. Others among the worst on-time performers were the Chicago-Miami Floridian, at 36%, and the Chicago-Los Angeles Southwest Chief, at 40%.
Three routes saw performance improve by more than 10 points from the first quarter of 2024: the New York-Atlanta Crescent, up from 67 to 80%; Northeast Regional service to Roanoke, Va., from 62% to 76%, and Chicago-Emeryville, Calif., California Zephyr, from 54% to 67%.
The Crescent’s improvement comes as Norfolk Southern and the Justice Department continue to discuss settling a lawsuit over the route’s on-time performance issues [see “NS and Justice Department remain …,” News Wire, May 15, 2025]. The Sunset Limited, the route that is the subject of an Amtrak complaint to the Surface Transportation board, was up slightly from the first quarter of 2024 — from 65% to 69% — although it had dropped to a 48% rate in the third quarter of 2024.
Union Pacific, host for most of the Sunset’s trip, was responsible for the most host-railroad delay minutes, at roughly 1,100 minutes per 10,000 train-miles; CSX was next at about 1,000 minutes. CPKC had the lowest rate at about 600 minutes per 10,000 train-miles. Host-railroad delays accounted for 53% of delay minutes on long-distance trains and 55% on state-supported trains. On the Northeast Corridor, where Amtrak is the host railroad, such delays accounted for 41% of the delay minutes.
The full 71-page report, including detailed route-by-route information, is available here. Additional and supporting information is available at this web page.
