If Brightline reaches Tampa and Jacksonville, intra-Florida Amtrak ridership (which is large) will fall off to near-zero. NEC-Miami and NEC-Tampa service would also drop off significantly. I expect NEC-Orlando traffic would survive, but given that ridership in Georgia/South Carolina/North Carolina is anemic, the financial performance of the Silver Service will crater.
If Amtrak had any sense, it would be upgrading the Lake Shore Limited, for which there is no competition coming any time soon. But Amtrak's current CEO is an idiot.
Pretty sure Brightline won't impact Amtrak at all. I'm optimistic they will raise the overall profile of rail travel as an option for Floridians who will discover Amtrak can take them to many more places, at far cheaper fares, than Brightline will ever offer.
We can make all the arguments we want here over and over and over again. It will not change a thing though.
And Politicians can make a point over and over and over, as long as they don't bring money to the table, or arrange some other attractive quid pro quo, nothing is going to change.
If everyone who claims Amtrak should be run as a business ( and I have not come across too many politicians who don't) is serious about it, the basic computation here would be "Does extending service cover the cost of doing so from added revenue. At least Boardman's regime claimed it would not. I doubt that Anderson's will think differently. Unfortunately.
The answer is that extending service to an intermodal station covers the cost of doing so from added revenue. If Boardman's and Anderson's idiot staffers think otherwise, they are flatly wrong. There's plenty of evidence for the ridership and revenue increases from this sort of connection, and they're *large*. Increasing Miami revenue by 20%, which is the likely number, is not something to throw away for the operational convenience of lazy Amtrak employees.
Who has ever said we don't serve the Miami Airport out of operational convenience?
Would you kindly provide the data you have used to determine what the added costs and revenue estimates will be? I assume you have current copies of all work agreements and pay scales, plus the station rental contract and railroad use contracts with FDOT. I'm sure you've also figured out the timing of moves between Tri-Rail's morning and evening rush hours to understand when the deadheads would be able to move between the MIC and Hialeah Yard (keeping in mind this has a big effect on wage cost). You must also have a statistical ridership model using the latest GIS dataset to estimate the revenue increase. Kindly Private Message me your data sources along with bottom line cost and revenue numbers and I'll pass them right along. Surely we'll be running to the MIC within a few weeks of your information setting Amtrak straight.
After looking at the map, the only MIA airport station works for Amtrak is if they move their yard closer. There is no way or place to bring the yard closer unless you buy out some warehouses River Drive. And as JIS stated, unless someone brings alot of money (politicians love "job making programs") the move south is not ( or ain't) happening.
I was like many here was wandering why Amtrak would not want to move into a new facility. After researching it, its plain to see that someone forgot to ask the operations people.
That's because you TELL the operations people, you don't ask them. If you ask them, they'll be idiots and propose revenue-destroying policies, as we are discovering.
Well, perhaps it's all for the best anyway. Brightline is going to destroy Amtrak's Miami business pretty effectively. Arguably Amtrak should bite the bullet and relocate Hialeah shops to a more sensible location, like Pennsylvania. The Silver Service can reverse at Orlando, since nobody will be taking them south of Orlando in a few years.
So someone sitting at 1 Mass has a better understanding of all the operating intricacies/costs involved with this station relocation and would be better equipped to determine the costs and movement requirements than the actual on-the-ground operating people who will have to make this work every day? If the operations people were told to go, we'd go. It's been discussed at the operating people level many, many, many times. We've had people qualified down there because the operations people were told to get ready only to have a deal fall through again.
Do you actually believe everything that spews from your keyboard, neroden? Move Hialeah to Pennsylvania? Brightline kill everything south of Orlando? How are people going to get from Amtrak to Brightline and vice versa? Passengers traveling to anywhere other than West Palm, Ft. Lauderdale or Downtown Miami won't be able to take Brightline assuming they even want to make the 30-45 minute drive between Orlando Amtrak and the Orlando airport.
What about passengers traveling to Kissimmee, Lakeland, Tampa, Winter Haven, Sebring, Okeechobee, Delray Beach, Deerfield Beach, Hollywood and Miami/Hialeah? What option do they have on Brightline?
Have you even ridden Brightline? Brightline and Amtrak might as well be on two different planets. Yes, I wish our equipment and time keeping was more on Brightline's planet, but demographics are completely different. Brightline is creating a NEW market. They aren't going to cannibalize Amtrak or Tri-Rail. They're going after existing highway users and eventually those who currently fly or drive between Orlando and South Florida. I think they might actually raise the profile of rail as an option in Florida and help more Floridians find that Amtrak can take them more places at cheaper fares than Brightline.
