Brightline Trains Florida discussion 2025

[pennyk]

From January 2, 2025 forward, please post comments discussing Brightline Trains Florida here. For previous posts regarding Brightline Florida Trains, please refer to this thread, which is currently locked:

https://www.amtraktrains.com/thread...da-discussion-2024.86668/page-16#post-1058394

 

[Qapla]

Just saw this video - clip is at the Brightline part ... and yet, many people want to blame the train

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Another dumb driver
https://www.local10.com/news/local/...train-collides-with-car-in-north-miami-beach/

 

[west point]

Here is a thought. When just FEC how many trains would make the trip Cocoa <> MIA before a grade crossing incident. Now with Brightline what is the number of trains before a grade crossing incident? I have no idea! Could it be the rate of incidences are close to the same per train??? This route is one of a very few any where in the USA where the train rate has increased probably more than 300%. Would be an interesting study by the FRA,

Of course, various study items such as no crossing protection, lights only and now all with gates both 2 gate and 4 gate. Might give regulators insight of motorist behaviors?

 

[joelkfla]

Trains magazine reports that Brightline was awarded a grant of "$33.8 million ... to help cover extending train consists from five to seven cars in two increments during 2025."

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-rev...ceive-federal-grants-for-service-improvements

 

[MARC Rider]

Trains magazine reports that Brightline was awarded a grant of "$33.8 million ... to help cover extending train consists from five to seven cars in two increments during 2025."

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-rev...ceive-federal-grants-for-service-improvements

Oho! We're the private sector, and we're superior to that publicly owned Amtrak because we don't take taxpayer funds that indirectly subsidize our real estate development schemes!

 

[bonzoesc]

I sure am tired of these dang wrapped trains. Changed seats north out of West Palm just so I could get a dot-free view to the west.

 

[joelkfla]

I sure am tired of these dang wrapped trains. Changed seats north out of West Palm just so I could get a dot-free view to the west.

On the Princess Cruises & Kissimmee wraps, Car #4, which was added to the consist, is unwrapped.

On the Orlando Health wrap, they went ahead and wrapped Car #4, too.

I haven't seen the Visit Orlando wrap lately; don't know whether it still exists.

 

[bonzoesc]

Yeah, this was the Kissimmee wrap on Bright Red; Coach 1 has always been wrapped though.

 

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

TWU won the election. Good news indeed.

https://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/...rm-first-brightline-union-in-florida-38639411

 

[SKS1944]

I'm wondering when Brightline will realize that wrapped trains or cars are less desirable to passengers and start increasing fares on the unwrapped ones. Whaaaaatttt? Never underestimate the opportunities of the corporation trying to increase their profit. Look at the airlines...they've thought of very possible way of making you pay more for what you've always gotten.

 

[MARC Rider]

I'm wondering when Brightline will realize that wrapped trains or cars are less desirable to passengers and start increasing fares on the unwrapped ones.

Are you sure that wrapped trains are less desirable to most passengers? Perhaps the vast majority of passengers are riding for its transportation utility and don't care whether trains are wrapped. Meanwhile, Brightline is getting advertising revenue from the wrapped trains, which might be a handy buffer for them during transient periods of low ridership. (Which brings me to the pint that while I love it when the trains are empty and I don't have to sit next to anyone, the company operating the railroad sure doesn't like those empty trains.) I think if we want to have frequent and comprehensive train service, we might have to ready to put up with wrapped trains and seatmates.

 

[cirdan]

I'm wondering when Brightline will realize that wrapped trains or cars are less desirable to passengers and start increasing fares on the unwrapped ones. Whaaaaatttt? Never underestimate the opportunities of the corporation trying to increase their profit. Look at the airlines...they've thought of very possible way of making you pay more for what you've always gotten.

True, yet despite pursuing every possible route to charge money for what used to be free, airlines have remained very hesitant to wrap their planes in advertising wraps, or even apply interior advertising or audio advertising (this safety on board announcement is brought to you by Pepsi).

Maybe airlines understand that the annoyance to customers outweighs the cashflow.

 

[railiner]

True, yet despite pursuing every possible route to charge money for what used to be free, airlines have remained very hesitant to wrap their planes in advertising wraps, or even apply interior advertising or audio advertising (this safety on board announcement is brought to you by Pepsi).

Maybe airlines understand that the annoyance to customers outweighs the cashflow.

The last few years I have flown on AA, the flight attendants have been hawking their Citi-Aadvantage credit cards…

 

[bonzoesc]

Are you sure that wrapped trains are less desirable to most passengers? Perhaps the vast majority of passengers are riding for its transportation utility and don't care whether trains are wrapped.

Yeah that's me. The dots on the windows are emphatically bad but they're not in the same world of badness as driving.

 

[Qapla]

Of course, there may be those who prefer the wrapped trains because it cuts down the glare and heat that can come in through an unwrapped window ...

 

[bonzoesc]

Of course, there may be those who prefer the wrapped trains because it cuts down the glare and heat that can come in through an unwrapped window ...

They don't cut it down nearly as much as the integrated window shades, and in August the a/c on Brightline works a lot better than on Amtrak or Germany's ICE.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

Are you sure that wrapped trains are less desirable to most passengers?

I'm sure that wrapped trains are less desirable to a significant portion of passengers - Brightline themselves and Amtrak have both said this over the years.

As to your argument for marketing money, unless you have data that shows that a fully wrapped train makes more advertising money than a wrapped train with windows cut out, it doesn't really matter.

 

[cirdan]

the a/c on Brightline works a lot better than on Amtrak or Germany's ICE.

That's not setting the bar very high

 

[SKS1944]

True, yet despite pursuing every possible route to charge money for what used to be free, airlines have remained very hesitant to wrap their planes in advertising wraps, or even apply interior advertising or audio advertising (this safety on board announcement is brought to you by Pepsi).

Maybe airlines understand that the annoyance to customers outweighs the cashflow.

Regarding your tongue-in-cheek ( I assume) comment about airlines not wrapping their planes in ads inside and out...that's a decision they can make and we, as passengers, can deal with it. But what if airlines decide to blur/wrap the windows of the planes with outside ads so passengers can't look out. This example is closer to what I'm thinking about.
By the way, have you ever been in a city bus wrapped in ads and have tried to see out the window to determine if your stop is coming up. Same issue. Money over passenger enjoyment, and in the case of bus passengers, practicality of knowing when you need to get ready to get off. Interesting thread. I enjoy the comments.

 

[west point]

FAA does not allow any visual impairment of windows for emergency evacuation reasons.

 

[Anderson]

I'm waiting on the December ridership report to run a detailed analysis, but using a placeholder assumption that December is a carbon copy of November (in 2021 they were just restarting service, in 2022 there was an 80% ridership jump because Boca/Aventura opened, and in 2023 ridership jumped by 15% but IIRC they were still ramping up service to Orlando across those months, so this will probably be low):

The official lower-end projections in their latest prospectus from this spring (05/06/24) was:
Short distance:
Ridership: 1.8m
Average fare: $32.42
Revenue: $57m

Long distance:
Ridership: 2.2m
Average fare: $103.47
Revenue: $228m

Combined:
Ridership: 4.0m
Average fare: $71.98
Revenue: $285m

Ancillary Revenue: $53m
Total Revenue: $338m

Now, where are we?

Short distance:
Ridership: 1,124,373
Average fare: $29.17
Revenue: $32.8m

Long Distance:
Ridership: 1,621,501
Average fare: $73.20
Revenue: $118.7m

Combined:
Ridership: 2,745,874
Average fare: $55.17
Revenue: $151.5m

Ancillary Revenue: $35.1m
Total Revenue: $186.6m

Obviously, Brightline is not making its ridership projections for 2024, and these were the low case projections. Now, let's be honest - as I noted last year, the big issue has been train capacity. Going from four car trains to five car trains has helped nudge ridership back up by about 15% over the last few months, and I think the trains have only just become reliably all five cars long in the last two months or so. Going to six (and then seven) should help relieve this. Loosely speaking, I'd think that each car on all of the sets is worth 40-50,000 riders/month, so at seven cars you'd be close to the above projections.

Of course, Brightline is officially projecting 6.7-7.9m riders for 2025 in their report, and given train capacity that dog won't hunt.

Over on the revenue side, $186.6m isn't quite enough to cover projected expenses for 2024 (that's $199m or $227m depending on what you roll in), but the numbers will likely flip to a net-positive situation on those numbers for Nov/Dec. Probably not by a lot, but it'll probably be positive vs the lower number going into 2025 and if the other cars are delivered on time it'd cover the higher number.

Covering debt service is still a long way off from where we are (though the Stuart and Cocoa stations should help there - adding a few hundred thousand more riders will be a net positive), but Brightline does seem to be approaching a point where, at worst, they could do a debt-reorganization bankruptcy and come out profitable.

 

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

Surprise, surprise a company that is happy to take millions while suckling at the government teat can't support their workers desires to have a union that is clearly desired based on a democratic election and supported by laws of this country.

This could be paywalled. If it is my apologies.

https://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/...endants-unionizing-effort-in-florida-38655131