VIA Rail cuts services in Southern Ontario

[rbt]

Looking at their 2011 Annual report (http://www.viarail.ca/sites/all/fil...-reports/2011/VIA-Rail-Annual-Report-2011.pdf).

They slice them up 2 different ways. Ticket revenue (before snack carts, baggage fees, penalty/change fees?) leaves Corridor at about 30% subsidy.

BUT when you compare "Passenger Revenues per Available Seat-Mile" against "Direct Costs per Available Seat-Mile" Corridor East looks to be break-even and Corridor-West has about a 20% subsidy.

So what is an indirect cost? Head office?


I took a number of trips on the Canadian and Ocean in 2009/2010. Glad I did as they charge nearly 150% more for the same trip in the same time of year now ($1200 instead of $500).


Q1 2012 looks quite a bit worse than Q1 2011 financially. Costs are up and revenues are down.

http://www.viarail.ca/sites/all/fil...artely-reports/2012/en-Q1-quartely-report.pdf

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

In accounting terms an indirect cost, as you said, is something like the head office, or management salaries, or basically any cost that doesn't tie back to any one particular product (in this case route). So maintenance personnel and general advertising expenses are indirect costs as well.