Brightline Trains Florida discussion 2024

Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Yeah...one of the issues is that you *can* have more pax/day than seats/day because seats can turn over (e.g. ORL-WPB/WPB-FLL/FLL-MIA).
Technically, yes. And I am sure that to some extent this is already happening. It seems in reality though that demand is far heavier and more robust on the Miami end. Ability to re-sell seats for short haul at the Orlando end may be limited. Maybe once the Tampa extension is completed and the Orlando-area resorts get their dedicated stations, this may change.
 
Last edited:
Technically, yes. And I am sure that to some extent this is already happening. It seems in reality though that demand is far heavier and more robust on the Miami end. Ability to re-sell seats for short haul at the Orlando end may be limited. Maybe once the Tampa extension is completed and the Orlando-area resorts get their dedicated stations, this may change.
I think it will change significantly when the Cocoa and Stuart stations come on line in a few years, way before anything comes to pass at the Tampa end.
 
Last edited:
That is why RASM and CASM are used in such analyses, but those figures are hard to get from outside. They need to come from the operating entity who have the necessary source data.
Oh, we can calculate a rough RASM no problem. It'll be a little rough because of various quirks in operating schedules we'll miss (e.g. disruptions from grade crossing incidents or weather), but we can get close. CASM is a bit harder to pin down on an ongoing basis.
 
I think it will change significantly when the Cocoa and Stuart come on line in a few years, way before anything comes to pass at the Tampa end.
I definitely could see a lot of value in those stations for airport connections out of Stuart, putting it in the catchment for MCO, and possibly PBI, FLL, and MIA depending on the quality of Brightline's last mile services in South Florida. It'd be nice to get from Stuart to Berlin with two trains, a shuttle bus, and one plane…
 
I definitely could see a lot of value in those stations for airport connections out of Stuart,
Airport connections yes, but the commuter market less so. In Miami, Brightline connects in very nicely with the various local transit systems, and so office workers can leave their car at their nearest Brightline station and commute by transit the rest of the way. This is not replicated at the Orlando end. So beyond people who work at the airport itself or within the immediate vicinity thereof, there is not going to be a huge commuter pull.
 
Airport connections yes, but the commuter market less so. In Miami, Brightline connects in very nicely with the various local transit systems, and so office workers can leave their car at their nearest Brightline station and commute by transit the rest of the way. This is not replicated at the Orlando end. So beyond people who work at the airport itself or within the immediate vicinity thereof, there is not going to be a huge commuter pull.
I agree, relatively small Commuter (though I do know people who commute to Orlando and back from here who may opt that way if there is good last mile service in Orlando)

But there will be very significant Airport pull A lot of people from Brevard County flying into or out of MCO, their primary large airport, acknowledging that there is an airport in Melbourne which has a few flights a day too, will tend to avoid a drive to/from MCO and paying large Airport parking fees and opt for local ride to Cocoa station and then ride to the Airport and back. Brightline's competition will be Uber and other car and shuttle service.

The second significant traffic generator will possibly be the tourist traffic from Orlando to Kennedy Space Center and Cocoa Beach, specially if Brightline sets up a good last mile transport network like it has done at other stations. But I think Brightline might need to fix its capacity problems first.

It may be time for Brightline to think in terms of s separate South Florida only service in the near future.
 
Airport connections yes, but the commuter market less so. In Miami, Brightline connects in very nicely with the various local transit systems, and so office workers can leave their car at their nearest Brightline station and commute by transit the rest of the way. This is not replicated at the Orlando end.
Yeah, someone I know is taking Brightline from Ft. Lauderdale to Orlando with two kids and all their accoutrements this week and I haven't figured out why; my speculation is they're being picked up by Brevard family at MCO and going somewhere past that.
But there will be very significant Airport pull A lot of people from Brevard County flying into or out of MCO, their primary large airport, acknowledging that there is an airport in Melbourne which has a few flights a day too, will tend to avoid a drive to/from MCO and paying large Airport parking fees and opt for local ride to Cocoa station and then ride to the Airport and back. Brightline's competition will be Uber and other car and shuttle service.

The second significant traffic generator will possibly be the tourist traffic from Orlando to Kennedy Space Center and Cocoa Beach, specially if Brightline sets up a good last mile transport network like it has done at other stations. But I think Brightline might need to fix its capacity problems first.
I do wonder how Cocoa to MCO catchment is going to work. My experience from Melbourne is that Cocoa is about the halfway point to MCO, and for someone being dropped off by a friend or returning a rental the mode change probably eats up any time savings.

If there is a shuttle (😉) from Brightline Cocoa to the Space Center I could absolutely see myself looking at annual passes, and if there was car rental at the station I'd be all over it.
 
I do wonder how Cocoa to MCO catchment is going to work. My experience from Melbourne is that Cocoa is about the halfway point to MCO, and for someone being dropped off by a friend or returning a rental the mode change probably eats up any time savings.

If there is a shuttle (😉) from Brightline Cocoa to the Space Center I could absolutely see myself looking at annual passes, and if there was car rental at the station I'd be all over it.
It all depends on the details. I would expect Cocoa's catchemnt to be more like North Melbourne, Vierra. and Merritt Island Afterall that is where the cool rich young folks lurk :) And of course Titursville/Coco/Rockledge too. I suspect Most of Palm Bay/Malabar/West Melbourne will take it on a case by case basis.. Personally I would take it from West Melbourne simply because I hate fiddling around in the crazy Orlando traffic whether in my own car or in Uber/Lyft. The Cocoa station will be about 5miles short of half way to MCO from my place.

I am almost certain that there will be a shuttle to Space Center and to Port Canaveral + Cocoa Beach. This has been mentioned by folks at the TPO Meetings. That was the whole reason for choosing Coca as opposed to Melbourne, and also to capture some ridership from the North, going South. That is the other component from Melbourne that will land up using that station, to go South.
 
Rough notes, per Google Maps:
Miami-West Palm: 66 miles
Miami-Cocoa split: 196 miles
Miami-Orlando Airport: 236 miles

So, daily train-miles would be:
(32*236)=7,552
(4*66)=264
7,552+264=7,816

With 248 seats per train daily seat-miles would be:
(7,816*248)=1,938,386

For 28-day months, that gets you 54,274,304 seat-miles
For 29-day months, that gets you 56,212,672 seat-miles
For 30-day months, that gets you 58,151,040 seat-miles
For 31-day months, that gets you 60,089,408 seat-miles

So, for January, I ballpark $12,373,093 in ticket revenue. Ticket revenue RASM would be 20.59 cents. I also have about $15.3m in total revenue, which would yield RASM of 25.46 cents.
 
By the way, I will probably move stuff into an Excel spreadsheet (or similar) and start using that to calculate some stuff. As I set this up, are there any other stats folks would like to see me analyze based on what I can do with the monthly Brightline reports?
 
So, for January, I ballpark $12,373,093 in ticket revenue. Ticket revenue RASM would be 20.59 cents. I also have about $15.3m in total revenue, which would yield RASM of 25.46 cents.
Just for comparison Amtrak's RASM is 23.7c. Its CASM target is 26.8c, but actual so far YTD is 29.6c. (from the Jan 2024 Performance Report).

Yes, unlike Mr. Anderson who had hidden everything away to try to hide his overall incompetence, these are now published every month.
 
Last edited:
Personally I would take it from West Melbourne simply because I hate fiddling around in the crazy Orlando traffic whether in my own car or in Uber/Lyft. The Cocoa station will be about 5miles short of half way to MCO from my place.
Yeah that's fair. I don't find the traffic into MCO from the east to be bad at all, even compared to Orlando in general, but I have different standards for crazy traffic after fifteen years in Miami.
 
Yeah that's fair. I don't find the traffic into MCO from the east to be bad at all, even compared to Orlando in general, but I have different standards for crazy traffic after fifteen years in Miami.
Don't forget that at least some folks taking the train in would be skipping having to deal with airport parking. For a week-long trip, that can be a non-trivial savings.
 
Rumors emanating from the bowels of Brightline apparently:
  • The 30 cars ordered delivery dates have been moved up as follows:
    • 10 by Summer '24
    • 10 by Dec '24 - Jan '25
    • 10 through 2025
  • An additional car order has been placed, details to be disclosed shortly.
    • One unverified rumor is that it is for the postponed Bistro Cars and an additional full train set. But stay tuned for an announcement before taking it to the bank.
 
If Brightline moves up it order from Siemens who gets put off? Amtrak?? Summer 24 unfortunately covers a lot of the summer season June 20 or worse September 20??
 
Rumors emanating from the bowels of Brightline apparently:
  • The 30 cars ordered delivery dates have been moved up as follows:
    • 10 by Summer '24
    • 10 by Dec '24 - Jan '25
    • 10 through 2025
  • An additional car order has been placed, details to be disclosed shortly.
    • One unverified rumor is that it is for the postponed Bistro Cars and an additional full train set. But stay tuned for an announcement before taking it to the bank.
I'd read something similar at some point (10 cars by the middle of 2024, 10 cars by the end of 2024, and 10 cars by mid-2025 is my recollection).

An additional set or two would make sense so they can supplement peak-hour capacity (esp. in South Florida) and/or to help with a probable expansion westward.

The question of the bistro cars is trickier - I can see the case for them - at some point you're replacing more employees going through selling snacks (at what point do you sort-of need extra employees doing that?), and the ability to sell hot food (even just stuff thrown in a microwave) would definitely be a plus for the customer experience on longer trips. On the other hand, that's also 64 revenue seats that they could probably use.
 
t may be time for Brightline to think in terms of s separate South Florida only service in the near future.
Why? Doesn't Tri-Rail already serve that purpose? Maybe instead, Tri-Rail could run some trains on the FEC, and leave Brightline to serve longer distance traveler's?
 
It all depends on the details. I would expect Cocoa's catchemnt to be more like North Melbourne, Vierra. and Merritt Island Afterall that is where the cool rich young folks lurk :) And of course Titursville/Coco/Rockledge too. I suspect Most of Palm Bay/Malabar/West Melbourne will take it on a case by case basis.. Personally I would take it from West Melbourne simply because I hate fiddling around in the crazy Orlando traffic whether in my own car or in Uber/Lyft. The Cocoa station will be about 5miles short of half way to MCO from my place.

I am almost certain that there will be a shuttle to Space Center and to Port Canaveral + Cocoa Beach. This has been mentioned by folks at the TPO Meetings. That was the whole reason for choosing Coca as opposed to Melbourne, and also to capture some ridership from the North, going South. That is the other component from Melbourne that will land up using that station, to go South.
I would consider using Brightline from West Palm Beach to Cocoa, if I were going on a cruise for longer than a week. For just a week, I would probably drive and park at the port...
 
Why? Doesn't Tri-Rail already serve that purpose? Maybe instead, Tri-Rail could run some trains on the FEC, and leave Brightline to serve longer distance traveler's?
Because they are at present forced to leave money on the table. They have had to restrict South Florida bookings. The question is how much money they are leaving on the table that they could capture vs. how much it will cost to do so. Since they apparently are considering getting additional train sets it suggests that they may be considering additional service of some sort.

The question of the bistro cars is trickier - I can see the case for them - at some point you're replacing more employees going through selling snacks (at what point do you sort-of need extra employees doing that?), and the ability to sell hot food (even just stuff thrown in a microwave) would definitely be a plus for the customer experience on longer trips. On the other hand, that's also 64 revenue seats that they could probably use.
Apparently now they considering the possibility of Bistro in one half of the car and seats in the other half, so the lost seat comes down to something like 32 perhaps.
 
Apparently now they considering the possibility of Bistro in one half of the car and seats in the other half, so the lost seat comes down to something like 32 perhaps.
Yeah, that's a lot more workable. I don't see the cafes on the Regionals slam full that often (I don't know about the Acela, since I haven't been up there in like...10-15 years), so a half-cafe/half-coach would probably suffice.
 
Yeah, that's a lot more workable. I don't see the cafes on the Regionals slam full that often (I don't know about the Acela, since I haven't been up there in like...10-15 years), so a half-cafe/half-coach would probably suffice.
It really will depend on passenger demand. If Amtrak or BL trains get to 8-12 revenue cars the situation might change.
 
It really will depend on passenger demand. If Amtrak or BL trains get to 8-12 revenue cars the situation might change.
VA Regionals, at least, have often had 7-9 revenue cars over the years (8-10 car trains being reasonably common, aside from the reverse-peak ones, especially pre-pandemic). The cafe on the Carolinian gets more crowded, but that's probably a function of the train carrying more longer-distance passengers (e.g WAS-CLT, RGH-NYP), but on the Regionals you have a lot of folks just taking stuff back to their

Brightline will cap out at about 9 revenue cars (10 car limit on the platforms, less half a car or so for baggage and half for the cafe proper), presumably with one (Premium) not sending a lot of pax back to the cafe.

[As I've noted on a few occasions before, a large part of the case for more sets is the sheer inability of Brightline to meet official ridership projections. Longer trains could address this, in theory, but setting aside the already extant facilities, at a certain point more trains->more departures->more convenient travel options->more demand is a virtuous cycle to the extent that physical capacity exists to handle them.]
 
Apparently now they considering the possibility of Bistro in one half of the car and seats in the other half, so the lost seat comes down to something like 32 perhaps.
Doesn't sound like they need a Bistro. Trolley service for such a small trainset is more than adequate. You already have the staff, the inventory, the storage, etc.

It was sad to see the Shinkansen first lose it's buffet car decades ago. But it was a travesty when last year they lost their trolley service AND got rid of onboard vending machines. They did this on what is presumably their most profitable line (Tokaido - the original). They eliminated a significant amount of labor, capital and inventory by doing this. It's still close to three hours from Tokyo to Osaka on a Hikari (one step below the fastest express). Plenty of time to want a little snack or drink. I think we had three stops that were long enough to get something out of a platform vending machine, but it was limited to beverages and ice cream. No food at all (at least reachable from our 6th out of 16 coaches).

I think Brightline should stick with a well-stocked trolley service (including sandwiches, or even perhaps Amtrak dining quality microwavable meals). Increase revenue without a crazy influx of capital, stocking logistics and specialized labor.
 
Doesn't sound like they need a Bistro. Trolley service for such a small trainset is more than adequate. You already have the staff, the inventory, the storage, etc.

It was sad to see the Shinkansen first lose it's buffet car decades ago. But it was a travesty when last year they lost their trolley service AND got rid of onboard vending machines. They did this on what is presumably their most profitable line (Tokaido - the original). They eliminated a significant amount of labor, capital and inventory by doing this. It's still close to three hours from Tokyo to Osaka on a Hikari (one step below the fastest express). Plenty of time to want a little snack or drink. I think we had three stops that were long enough to get something out of a platform vending machine, but it was limited to beverages and ice cream. No food at all (at least reachable from our 6th out of 16 coaches).

I think Brightline should stick with a well-stocked trolley service (including sandwiches, or even perhaps Amtrak dining quality microwavable meals). Increase revenue without a crazy influx of capital, stocking logistics and specialized labor.
They're fine at four cars (now). I think the trolley might get a bit overwhelmed once you're around 7 cars (that might require a second attendant, and the cart only has but so much space). This feels like a case where a reasonable call could be made either way.
 
Back
Top