A firefighter from Highland Beach, Florida, headed to a meeting in Miami, the money manager for his office in Boca Raton. The family, with young children wearing Mickey Mouse ears and totting their Little Mermaid backpacks, filled with train sun-soaked tetras on their way to Disney cruises and various theme parks.
Florida is rebooting passenger rail travel in American cities, everywhere. In the second half of the 19th century, oil tycoon Henry Flagler quickly tracked Florida's growth and built railroads down the state's Atlantic coast, which mapped cities such as Miami and Palm Beach. After that, cars multiplied.
Now operating on Flagler's old line, a privately owned service called Brightline, has created a 21st century pitch for the lasting virtue of train travel, travelling 235 miles of passengers between Miami and Orlando, hoping to stop several times during that time and reach Tampa.
The company is also pursuing a second service. It pursues $12.4 billion, 218 miles, all electric trains that connect Las Vegas to Los Angeles or, more precisely, Rancho Cucamonga, California. Unlike the Florida project, the project received a $3 billion promised federal grant, as its construction costs are paid almost entirely by Brightline. According to Brightline officials, the company's hope was to go up before the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. It's the end of 2028.
Is private companies corrected as Intercity Rail travel is struggling in the US? The truth is that training is a powerful engine of urban and economic development. But can they make money?
These questions arise as the Trump administration threatens to target public services such as Amtrak and New York's metropolitan transport and withdraw federal funds. The potential calamities of millions of American commuters and the economy they support, too, create opportunities for private railroads to make a comeback.
In the mid-1800s, three private companies that exploited migrant workers completed their first transcontinental railroad in six years. The private passenger seat in America rang for another century, until airplanes and interstate systems damaged their businesses. Congress intervened in the 1970s and established Amtrak, which took over the last remaining private intercity passenger train (Rio Grande Zephyr between Denver and Salt Lake City) during the Reagan era.
Today, Amtrak riderships have risen after years of decline, but last year's annual operating deficit exceeded $700 million. California proposed a bullet train between Los Angeles and San Francisco. It is now years behind, entangled in regulations and legal battles, staring at the $100 billion North price.
Almost all public subways, commuters and intercity trains run in the red, except for Amtrak's Acera Service between Boston and Washington. Brightline itself spends hundreds of millions of dollars more than revenue, officials say, because of the increased costs. But they predict that this year or this year or this year should be “a equally approached.”
The company is the brainchild of Wes Edens, co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks billionaire. Edens co-founded the Fortress Investment Group. That freight railway acquisition includes Flagler's Old Florida East Coast Railway. After coming across a book about Flagler trains over a decade ago, Edens had the idea of ​​Brightline.
This was about the same time that then-Governor of Florida, Republican Rick Scott, rejected the $2.4 billion that the Obama administration proposed to the state to receive high-speed passenger service between Tampa and Orlando. Scott said the train is too expensive to operate.
Edens' private line skyrocketed earlier. Importantly, the company owns the rights to the road, avoiding the long and expensive real estate wars that have plagued California's high-speed trains. “It was a 'significant advantage',” Edens said.
Construction began in 2014. Passengers began boarding more than three years later.
Not all the news was rosy. Some Floridians are calling the Brightline Death Train after more than 100 people have died across the truck. Nevertheless, Brightline attracted 3 million riders in Florida last year, and hopes to double that number by 2028 this year. The Orlando station opened in the second half of 2023. More than a million customers have since taken the train between Orlando and Miami.
“The Wind” is a way of explaining Joanna Chen's experiences when she met one morning. She and her two young children flew from New York City to Fort Lauderdale to visit a friend on their way to gymnastics competitions in Orlando. They were planning to drive, but when the flight from New York was delayed, Chen's car rental booking was cancelled.
At the suggestion of a car rental line stranger, she checked out the Brightline app. The service dynamically price tickets. Premium seats with more rooms and meals can go over $300. However, all routes average $55. Thanks to online discounts, trains are not only faster and more convenient than cars, but also cheaper.
“We were lucky,” Chen said. “It reminds me of European trains.”
That was Mr. Edens' hope. That means Brightline is compared to services like Eurostar and Italo. It's not a high-speed rail. However, the company has leaned towards customer-friendly service and excellent design, designing global architecture companies Skidmore, Owings and Merrill with an impressive hub called Miami Kentral, and signed up the New York-based Rockwell Group to design efficient, stylish stations and spacious, technology-friendly cars that provide in-seat dining.
The Brightline remains the most luxurious and not at the level of European and Japanese railway lines, but it is a leap above the Amtrak and most commuter lines that are carried by Americans. Whether a business is financially viable is a topic of many speculation and is part of Schadenfreude in the transport circle.
Like Flagler's railways, Brightline is actually not just a train, but also a real estate venture. The company built and sold three towers and another door next to it above Miami Kentral, as well as an apartment near the West Palm Beach station. West Palm and Boca have become boomtowns for high-end development along the coastal corridors currently served by Brightline.
In Las Vegas, as Begas services are called from Los Angeles, Brightline West arrives at a new terminal on the strip that has purchased more than 100 acres that it plans to develop.
“In hindsight,” Edens told me, “If I could do one more thing, I would buy all the land around the station.”
But of course, the private rail outfits cherry pick its stops and routes. It exists to benefit shareholders. Public railways serve a wide range of public, including people in places where stations may not benefit. Privatizing intercity railways in place of public services would disenfranchise the country's large-scale scope.
“We're a moment when funds are frozen,” said Janet Sadiq Khan, former New York City transport committee chair.
“But,” Sadiq Khan added, “Private companies don't have the same priorities and obligations as the public system.”
Edens sees future beneficial opportunities for high-speed trains between other trafficked pairs in the city, like Charlotte to Atlanta, Dallas and Houston, which are now long-driving but painful to fly. Brightline West's business plan imagines converting 8.6 million out of the 50 million people annually driving or flying between Los Angeles and Vegas. This will reduce passenger travel time and reduce carbon footprint by approximately 325,000 tonnes a year, company officials say.
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In Florida, I spoke to Brightline commuters who complained about the costs. However, I did not meet any passengers who complained about the ride. Walt Gates, who shines on a Razorback T-shirt, hosted a Disney cruise in Miami from Little Rock with his daughter and son-in-law, along with his wife Lydia.
I came across them in Orlando on Brightline. “I've lost so much time in my life and am driving on the highway between Little Rock and Memphis,” Gates said.
He told Edens, “I could use one of these in Arkansas.”
When it comes to transportation and mobility, what are the projects changing communities?
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