Brightline Trains Florida discussion 2025

[bonzoesc]

I think they do have an "advantage" in that traffic here is very bad, and the RTO push (Miami-Dade County is starting to require it soon) is making it worse.

 

[Anderson]

Thanks for the excellent and detailed analysis.



I think it's always difficult to constrict ridership and then want to rebuild it. Customers tend to be loyal and will often build their lifestyle around being able to use the train, and in doing so bank on the railroad upholding their side of the bargain by maintaining the service. Brightline have struggled over this twice. the first time was with their total and prolonged shutdown over Covid (at a time that Amtrak delivered a reduced but still essential service) and this in Florida, a state that was supposedly more lenient than many other states on restrictions from a legal perspective. And then a second time by constricting out short haul riders in favor of long haul ones. So basically now they are trying to re-start a third time. Passenger confidence or loyalty is not a commodity that can be taken for granted.

I think they got a mulligan on the first one, if only because the initial shutdown happened alongside everything else shutting down (even Disney!). However, I agree that the second squeeze will be harder to recover from - per their reports at the time, Brightline basically had a *commuter train* covering its operating costs, but they were also shaking out extra capacity at the time (e.g. there was an extra rush hour round-trip) that can't be done with all of the sets now spoken for.