Brightline Trains Florida discussion

[JWM]

Start leaving before everyone gets off the train, and they'll learn.

DB in Germany still tries this on occasion.

 

[cirdan]

The Ports will still need a transfer from Cocoa that will take about 15 minutes or so.

Isn't there also a project to rail connect the ports for freight?

 

[jis]

Isn't there also a project to rail connect the ports for freight?

The current plan is to build an extension of the NASA Railway across the Banana River Shipping Channel on possibly a Bascule Bridge, just North of the SR 528/AIA crossing. It will not be suitable for passenger operation since there will be severe speed limits through the Space Center and you will have to go all the way to New Smyrna Beach to get to it. But it will be more than adequate for freight primarily headed to or coming from North which is what it will be built for, funded mostly by the Port Canaveral Authority and it will be to the Cargo Terminal, not the Passenger Terminals. There is an EIS floating around somewhere. Here is the proposed current plan map (note North is to the left):

For orientation, the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Center is at the bottom left corner. The road that enters the map mid-left and exists mid bottom is the Kennedy Boulevard which turns into Courtenay Parkway (SR 3)outside KSC (my favorite route to KSC). The road running along the left edge of the map is the NASA Parkway, which turns into SR 405 outside KSC and eventually joins up with SR 528/A1A headed towards Orlando.

The NASA rail spur crosses the Indian River near Mims to join an industrial spur which ultimately joins the FECR at New Smyrna Beach.

An alternative for building the link along SR 528 was considered and very rapidly shot down by several stakeholders.

Anyway, for passenger transport still the best bet will be a road transfer from Brightline Cocoa and that is what the current plans are.

 

[Qapla]

Brightline Construction: Ultra High Performance Concrete on the Sebastian River Bridge

 

[Anderson]

Cocoa is going to be important for cruise transfers. Port Canaveral is a MAJOR cruise terminal and has also recently become a port of call. Having fast, reliable transportation to Orlando from the Ports will be HIGHLY utilized. The question is, will there be seats available? Will they take away from MCO - Miami demand?

The Ports will still need a transfer from Cocoa that will take about 15 minutes or so.

As for a feeder route, I live in Melbourne. I doubt I would drive 30 minutes to wait for a train to wait for a 20 minute train ride vs just driving to MCO directly. Except, I like riding trains. I don't find that a practical solution, particularly because Brightline charges for parking. Of course, my DW could drive me to the station. But I have a good thing going flying out of MLB (for business, anyway).

I suspect it is situational. If you're going out of town for a week or two, then the prospect of getting an Uber to the station vs the $20/day (okay, $19/day) parking at the airport depends. $133/day (for a week) is pretty steep; if I'm reading it right, Brightline would be $49 booked in advance.

 

[user 1215]

I suspect it is situational. If you're going out of town for a week or two, then the prospect of getting an Uber to the station vs the $20/day (okay, $19/day) parking at the airport depends. $133/day (for a week) is pretty steep; if I'm reading it right, Brightline would be $49 booked in advance.

Don't forget, no free parking with Brightline, either. What are the daily rates at their current garages?

 

[Anderson]

Don't forget, no free parking with Brightline, either. What are the daily rates at their current garages?

As I stated, it's $7/day if you book it in advance (so, $49/week).

 

[user 1215]

As I stated, it's $7/day if you book it in advance (so, $49/week).

You're right. Glossed over that part.

 

[west point]

Don't forget, no free parking with Brightline, either. What are the daily rates at their current garages?

All the more reason to get Sun Rail running to Orlando airport

 

[user 1215]

All the more reason to get Sun Rail running to Orlando airport

Sunrail will be THE local mode of choice between MCO and whatever appears near Disney. But that is a LONG time away. I wonder if just connecting Sand Lake to MCO is something that is imminent. Brightline won't be using it fur a long time. Hardly enough to justify a new Sunrail route, but maybe as an alternate southbound terminus?

 

[jis]

Sunrail will be THE local mode of choice between MCO and whatever appears near Disney. But that is a LONG time away. I wonder if just connecting Sand Lake to MCO is something that is imminent. Brightline won't be using it fur a long time. Hardly enough to justify a new Sunrail route, but maybe as an alternate southbound terminus?

OIA will need additional construction of the planned SunRail low level platform part of the station before SunRail can operate to OIA. Isn't going to happen any time soon AFAICT. Earliest it can happen is after SunRail operations is handed over completely to the Counties by FDOT as planned soon after completion of the Deland extension, and then someone can find the money to do the extension. The current plan is to use the consortium funding for the rail connection planned through Orlando from OIA to I-Drive. That infrastructure as planned is allegedly neither going to be owned by Brightline, nor SunRail. Not exactly clear what the governing setup will be for it yet.

The last of the 10 train set order, Bright Orange 2 was released by Siemens Sacramento Works today (2/11/23) for delivery to Brightline Trains Florida. This completes the current order for train sets from Brightline. The train set is headed for the Orlando International Airport Maintenance Facility.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

Not sure if this is the right thread but I’m on brightline and it’s a fully wrapped train. Very annoying and disappointing- why would they fully wrap a train so you cant clearly see out of the windows!!!

 

[Qapla]

Brightline Construction: Spot Tie Replacement - January 2023


That's pretty neat how they change those ties without actually tearing anything up

 

[west point]

The concrete tie gang appears to be much smaller than wooden tie gangs. Peobably the extration of spikes, replacement or at least moving tie plates, RR&R of ties, placing tie plates , spiking, then surfacing passes. all which are more labor intensive.

 

[OBS]

Not sure if this is the right thread but I’m on brightline and it’s a fully wrapped train. Very annoying and disappointing- why would they fully wrap a train so you cant clearly see out of the windows!!!

Because of $$ generated...

 

[jis]

Not sure if this is the right thread but I’m on brightline and it’s a fully wrapped train. Very annoying and disappointing- why would they fully wrap a train so you cant clearly see out of the windows!!!

Brightline must have hired some of the geniuses from Amtrak who at one point wrapped Acelas that way, and when protested Amtrak always brilliant management said that no one really looks out of the window anyway, so it is not a problem.

 

[user 1215]

Not sure if this is the right thread but I’m on brightline and it’s a fully wrapped train. Very annoying and disappointing- why would they fully wrap a train so you cant clearly see out of the windows!!!

Let your voice be heard in every survey or customer contact you engage in.

 

[Anderson]

Many railroads tend to look to airlines and think airlines do everything better. Typically airlines will disembark an entire 747 through a single doorway with several hundred people stepping out in single file. That is an inefficient use of an airplane, that could if it were cleared more quickly be available for another use more quickly. As a railfan I have struggled to understand why they don't find a way to disembark by multiple doors like on a train. But I then realized this isn't the point. It would actually be an inefficient use of airport infrastructure to disembark more efficiently, because, if say 600 people swarmed into the terminal building all at once there would be instant congestion and the building would need to be designed differently (more space), not to mention the effects on people movers, etc etc. Plus knock on effects on car rentals, taxis, or even the coffee stall. All of these would have to provide more costly capacity without getting additional revenue in return. Sometimes going slow is simply more infrastructure-friendly and I believe it is possible that some of the convoluted designs of airports (and also modern train stations) are intentionally inefficient to slow people down and spread them out to ease handling.

Have you ever noticed that escalators in shops go pretty slow, those in airports are similar, whereas escalators in commuter and metro stations move much faster? It's because they don't want people to hand around but actually want them to move on.

So to get back to Brightline, or Amtrak, the question is, how much monetary value is there in people being able to get off more quickly, versus how many problems would this be creating. I think if there was a genuine need to expedite disembarkation, finding a way would be the smaller problem.

Well, and airplanes also need 30-60 minutes to be "turned" (baggage unloaded and then loaded, plane refueled, etc.), so only but so much time is being "lost" by a slow-ish unloading process. I'd also point out that on a number of larger planes (especially the A380 for upstairs/downstairs loading, but sometimes on a more "normal" widebody) I've encountered two-door loading/unloading (generally for Economy and Business/First (Premium Economy can get sent to either door).

 

[chrsjrcj]

With a 3 day weekend, I was looking at doing a quick Brightline joyride. Tickets are $30 one way in Smart, and in some cases $100 for premium. Despite that, the seat map shows pretty high occupancy. An old coworker would ride Brightline a few times a week to work and can confirm the trains are full. My guess is many are taking advantage of the monthly passes which seem to be a decent deal if you are a frequent traveler. I think I'll save my cash for when Orlando opens.

 

[Qapla]

Delivering Brightline's Bright Orange 2 Train to Orlando - February 18, 2023

 

[Anderson]

January's ridership data came out quicker than I expected (usually they've released it close to the end of the month; this time they turned around and got it out before the halfway point).

Year    Month       Ridership   Tix Rev-A    Tix Rev-B     PPR-A     PPR-B    Tot Rev  Total PPR
2021    November     61,045     0.6         $  582,979    $ 9.83    $ 9.55    0.8     $13.11
2021    December     95,348     1.3         $1,259,547    $13.63    $13.21    1.6     $13.63

2022    January      64,243     1.3         $1,254,666    $20.24    $19.53    1.5     $23.35
2022    February     77,806     1.6         $1,624,589    $20.56    $20.88    1.9     $24.42
2022    March       107,069     2.3         $2,289,135    $21.48    $21.38    2.7     $25.22
2022    April        93,922     1.9         $1,926,340    $20.23    $20.51    2.3     $24.49
2022    May         102,796     2.2         $2,178,247    $21.40    $21.19    2.6     $25.29
2022    June         92,304     1.7         $1,713,162    $18.42    $18.56    2.1     $22.75
2022    July        111,582     1.9         $1,896,894    $17.03    $17.00    2.3     $20.61
2022    August      100,116     1.9         $1,917,221    $18.98    $19.15    2.4     $23.97
2022    September    91,577     1.8         $1,769,268    $19.66    $19.32    2.5     $27.30
2022    October     102,615     2.1         $2,126,183    $20.46    $20.72    3.0     $29.24
2022    November    102,544     2.2         $2,213,925    $21.45    $21.59    3.4     $33.16
2022    December    183,920     3.7         $3,733,576    $20.12    $20.30    5.1     $27.73
                  
2022              1,230,494    24.6        $24,643,207    $19.99             31.8     $25.84

2023    January     156,137     3.5         $3,538,064    $22.41    $22.66    4.7     $30.10

Ridership is a hair lower than I was expecting, but it's at a shade over 5k/day. It's also translating into about 140 pax/train (Brightline is basically running 18 round-trips per day...it's arguably 17 on Sunday and 19 on Saturday, due to there being a post-midnight train on Saturday nights, but it's close enough). We'll see where it ticks from here (I expect at least some slow ticking up from here). The per-train/per day ridership is something I note because February is a short month, so if ridership is "flat" it will actually represent an increase on the basis of those numbers.

Edit to add: PPR is up about 10% since last month (and ancillary income is up as well). I'm guessing that this is primarily due to the intro fares for Aventura/Boca Raton running out. Based on January alone, revenue appears to be on track to land somewhere between $40-50m, with all-in revenue on course for $55-65m.

Reading through the ridership write-up, it appears that overall ridership was up slightly from equivalent months last year outside of Boca/Aventura: Those stations accounted for about 42k riders, meaning that the other three stations accounted for 114k. This would be the highest month since the pandemic on the basis of those stations (and setting aside seasonal charter stuff around Christmas). I'd need to dig through this monster of a thread to determine where ridership peaked in 2019.

 

[west point]

December and Jan seem to be setting a new trend. Now if ridership in Feb increases as it did in 2022 then it will definitely set a trend.

 

[Anderson]

December and Jan seem to be setting a new trend. Now if ridership in Feb increases as it did in 2022 then it will definitely set a trend.

So, here's what I have for splitting ridership into three "buckets":
November: 102,544
Old Stations: 102,544
New Stations: N/A
[Special Trains]: N/A

December: 183,920
Old Stations: 124,797
New Stations: 17,682
[Special Trains]: 41,441

January: 156,137
Old Stations: 113,746
New Stations: 42,391
[Special Trains]: N/A

The new stations opened up in the middle of December: Boca Raton on December 21 (11 days of operation), Aventura on December 24 (8 days of operation). Let's say that they were open for 9.5 days in December and 31 days in January. That means they added 1861 pax per day of operation in December and 1367 pax per day of operation in January. Now, some of the higher number was the hoohaw of the stations opening (and related discounts and so on) and some of it was the fact that they were open for a major holiday period.

Looking at the old stations, they were open for the full month. In November, the original three stations accounted for 3418 pax/day. In December, they accounted for 4025 pax/day. In January, they accounted for 3669 pax/day. Numbers for the original three stations were lower in September/October.

Based on this, it looks like the original three stations saw about a 10% bump in ridership from their earlier numbers (I don't think Jan/Feb 2022 are a particularly useful comparison - I think that Brightline might not have been running a full schedule in the opening weeks, among other things). The two new stations appear to have bumped ridership by another 40% or so from the old baseline.

[I've updated the table in my prior post to add in Nov/Dec 2021 ridership. I will endeavor to add in pre-pandemic numbers for a comprehensive table, but I might be missing a few disclosures somewhere. I will also angle to add in a daily ridership figure, but that will generally not account for movements resulting from temporary closures.]

 

[jis]

Here is a publicly viewable video of Bright Orange 2 in St. Louis....



Move forward to 00:00:45 for the Brightline segment.

 

[Anderson]

Year    Month       Ridership   Tix Rev-A    Tix Rev-B     PPR-A     PPR-B    Tot Rev  Total PPR
2018    January      17,783       Unknown   $  146,500   Unknown    $ 8.24    Unknown  Unknown
2018    February     24,098       Unknown   $  220,000   Unknown    $ 9.13    Unknown  Unknown
2018    March        32,899       Unknown   $  297,300   Unknown    $ 9.04    Unknown  Unknown
2018    April        34,615       Unknown      Unknown   Unknown   Unknown    Unknown  Unknown
2018    May          56,781       Unknown      Unknown   Unknown   Unknown    Unknown  Unknown
2018    June         48,619       Unknown      Unknown   Unknown   Unknown    0.8     $16.45
2018    July         52,162       Unknown      Unknown   Unknown   Unknown    1.0     $19.17
2018    August       54,574       Unknown      Unknown   Unknown   Unknown    0.9     $17.12
2018    September    52,850       Unknown      Unknown   Unknown   Unknown    1.0     $18.92
2018    October      60,013       Unknown      Unknown   Unknown   Unknown    1.0     $16.66
2018    November     80,660       Unknown      Unknown   Unknown   Unknown    1.5     $18.60
2018    December     98,076       Unknown      Unknown   Unknown   Unknown    2.2     $22.43

2018                613,130       Unknown      Unknown   Unknown   Unknown    9.9     $16.20

Year    Month       Ridership   Tix Rev-A    Tix Rev-B     PPR-A     PPR-B    Tot Rev  Total PPR
2019    January      73,568       Unknown      Unknown   Unknown   Unknown    1.7     $23.11
2019    February     78,707       Unknown      Unknown   Unknown   Unknown    1.9     $24.14
2019    March        91,903       Unknown      Unknown   Unknown   Unknown    2.3     $25.03
2019    April        71,308       Unknown      Unknown   Unknown   Unknown    1.8     $25.24
2019    May          85,740       Unknown      Unknown   Unknown   Unknown    1.7     $19.83
2019    June         80,094       Unknown      Unknown   Unknown   Unknown    1.6     $19.98
2019    July         83,741       Unknown      Unknown   Unknown   Unknown    1.6     $19.10
2019    August       74,312       Unknown      Unknown   Unknown   Unknown    1.5     $20.19
2019    September    61,688       Unknown      Unknown   Unknown   Unknown    1.1     $17.83
2019    October      83,426       Unknown      Unknown   Unknown   Unknown    1.7     $20.38
2019    November    100,627       Unknown      Unknown   Unknown   Unknown    2.2     $21.86
2019    December    127,690     2.1         $2,048,147    $16.45    $16.04    2.9     $22.71

2019              1,012,804    17.1        $17,086,003    $16.88    $16.87   22.1     $21.82

Year    Month       Ridership   Tix Rev-A    Tix Rev-B     PPR-A     PPR-B    Tot Rev  Total PPR
2020    January     115,109     1.9         $1,892,391    $16.51    $16.44    2.4     $20.85
2020    February    109,630     2.2         $2,172,866    $20.07    $19.82    2.9     $26.45
2020    March        47,039     0.9         $  854,228    $19.13    $18.16    1.2     $25.51

2020                271,778     4.9         $4,913,746    $18.03    $18.08    6.5     $23.91

Year    Month       Ridership   Tix Rev-A    Tix Rev-B     PPR-A     PPR-B    Tot Rev  Total PPR
2021    November     61,045     0.6         $  582,979    $ 9.83    $ 9.55    0.8     $13.11
2021    December     95,348     1.3         $1,259,547    $13.63    $13.21    1.6     $13.63

2021                156,393     1.8         $1,842,309    $11.51    $11.78    2.4*    $15.34

Year    Month       Ridership   Tix Rev-A    Tix Rev-B     PPR-A     PPR-B    Tot Rev  Total PPR
2022    January      64,243     1.3         $1,254,666    $20.24    $19.53    1.5     $23.35
2022    February     77,806     1.6         $1,624,589    $20.56    $20.88    1.9     $24.42
2022    March       107,069     2.3         $2,289,135    $21.48    $21.38    2.7     $25.22
2022    April        93,922     1.9         $1,926,340    $20.23    $20.51    2.3     $24.49
2022    May         102,796     2.2         $2,178,247    $21.40    $21.19    2.6     $25.29
2022    June         92,304     1.7         $1,713,162    $18.42    $18.56    2.1     $22.75
2022    July        111,582     1.9         $1,896,894    $17.03    $17.00    2.3     $20.61
2022    August      100,116     1.9         $1,917,221    $18.98    $19.15    2.4     $23.97
2022    September    91,577     1.8         $1,769,268    $19.66    $19.32    2.5     $27.30
2022    October     102,615     2.1         $2,126,183    $20.46    $20.72    3.0     $29.24
2022    November    102,544     2.2         $2,213,925    $21.45    $21.59    3.4     $33.16
2022    December    183,920     3.7         $3,733,576    $20.12    $20.30    5.1     $27.73
                   
2022                1,230,494  24.6        $24,643,207    $19.99             31.8     $25.84

2023    January     156,137     3.5         $3,538,064    $22.41    $22.66    4.7     $30.10


NOTE:
Data for Q2/Q3 2018 reported on a quarterly basis:
2018    Apr-Jun     106,090       Unknown   $1,143,000   Unknown    $10.77    1.5     $14.47
2018    Jul-Sep     159,586       Unknown   $2,296,000   Unknown    $14.39    2.9     $18.36

Notes:
(1) Prior to 2021, data was reported differently. I'm having to, in part, rely on my old records from "back then" to patch a gap in the available reports. Fortunately, I was recording this stuff pre-pandemic and I found the thread where I was tracking ridership and overall revenue.
(2) Year-end overall revenue for 2018 was discerned by adding Q1, Q2, and Q3 of 2018's total revenue data to the monthly data from Q4 (as the bond in question was wrapped up prior to issuing the Q4 report).
(3) Service was suspended from March 25, 2020-November 8, 2021. As such, April 2020-October 2021 ancillary revenue data is ignored (it's unclear what the source would have been, but it wasn't pax ops related) as it would distort the year-end pictures for those years in terms of overall total PPR. For 2020 I just cut off recording after March; for 2021, I manually backed out the $800k or so that appeared Jan-Oct.