I would consider it legitimate for Brightline West to charge higher fares per mile than Brightline Florida, not least because it is an all-new system and will offer considerably higher average speeds and thus greater time savings and competitivity to airlines.
Brightline has security but it's fast. The newer stations are built to accommodate a separate passage for commuter rail passengers, if commuter rail ends up being non-security.
At least in Florida, because the Commuter Rail equipment is low floor while Brightline is high floor, Commuter Rail and Brightline do not share platforms. So it is relatively easy to keep the passenger streams separate and away from each others platforms.
How exactly is Brightline West "America's first true high speed rail system"? Isn't the Acela in the North East Corridor considered a high speed rail system?
By international standards no.
Surprisingly the Wikipedia page on High Speed Rail has more concrete information and less puffery than the UIC page
:The article states that renovated lines that run 200 km/hr (125 mph) are considered "high speed rail." Thus, the NEC, including the Northeast Regional, is "high speed rail." No other high speed rail in North America. Brightline doesn't make it. because the 125 mph running is in newly constructed tracks, and the criteria for newly constructed tracks is 155 mph.Surprisingly the Wikipedia page on High Speed Rail has more concrete information and less puffery than the UIC page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail
Confusion with Texas Central or Brightline FL, perhaps?
Most likely Brightline Florida. Texas Central was going to be electric in that incarnation.
If you go back to the early days of LVRE d/b/a "X Train" I believe it was going to be one diesel powered consist of a dozen refurbished gallery cars running two trains per week over mostly UP and some BNSF trackage. If it had any chance of making it they needed to start small and build up, but UP's demand for 70 million up front before the first passenger train could run nuked their finances.
Some of the artists's renderings produced over the years did appear to show diesel trains. But I guess this was more lack of knowledge of the artist than a question of policy.
Until they specifically said it will be electric, the general wisdom in railfandom, such as it is, was that it will be something like Brightline Florida. Repeatedly shouting in the wind that they cannot meet their stated speed goals with diesel did not seem to change any opinions for a while.
The piggybacking came a little later. Originally it was just a Las Vegas to Victorville thing and people were scratching their heads about what happens after Victorville.
