MIAMI – The first big test of whether privately owned high-speed passenger train service can prosper in the United States launched Friday morning when Brightline began running trains between Miami and Orlando, reaching speeds of 125 mph.
It’s a $5 billion bet Brightline’s owner, Fortress Investment Group, is making, believing that eventually 8 million people annually will take the 3.5-hour, 235-mile trip between the state’s biggest tourist hubs — about 30 minutes less than the average drive between the two cities.
“Intercity passenger rails exist in every other country except ours,” Brightline President Patrick Goddard said. “We’re about 50 years behind Europe and Asia. It’s about time we caught up.”
The company is charging single riders $158 round-trip for business class and $298 for first-class, with families and groups able to buy four round-trip tickets for $398.
Thirty-two trains will run daily and Local 10′s Christina Vazquez was on the inaugural ride from Miami Friday morning.
“Complimentary Wi-Fi, outlets everywhere, high quality food and beverage. We knew that in order to get people out of their cars, it needed to be more than just about transportation. It needed to be about an experience,” Goddard said.
Brightline’s Mary Mary bar is named after Florida East Coast Railway founder Henry Flagler’s first and third wives, Mary Lily Kenan and Mary Harkness Flagler. It will serve all-day breakfast, lunch and dinner. They are also launching MRKT, a fully autonomous market, to facilitate the purchase of snacks and other packaged travel items.
Brightline, which began running its neon-yellow trains the 70 miles between Miami and West Palm Beach in 2018, is the first private intercity passenger service to begin U.S. operations in a century. It’s also building a line connecting Southern California and Las Vegas that it hopes to open in 2027 with trains that will reach 190 mph. The only other U.S. high-speed line is Amtrak’s Acela service between Boston and Washington, D.C., which began in 2000. Amtrak is owned by the federal government.
“There are no other models like Brightline anywhere in the United States. This is kind of like their big debut. The business model has always hinged upon connecting South Florida to Central Florida,” John Renne, director of the FAU Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions, said.
The Florida trains, which run on biodiesel, will travel up to 79 mph in urban areas, 110 mph in less-populated regions and 125 mph through Central Florida’s farmland. Brightline plans possible extensions to Tampa and Jacksonville.
Renne said the Miami-Orlando corridor is a perfect spot for high-speed rail — about 40 million Floridians and visitors make the trip annually, with more than 90% of them driving.
If Brightline succeeds that could lead to more high-speed lines between major cities 200 to 300 miles apart, both by Brightline and competitors, he said.
“It is quite exciting for South Florida to kind of be a test bed for what could be seen as a new paradigm for transportation, particularly high-speed rail transportation, in the United States,” Renne said.
Because Brightline is privately owned and seeking a profit, it was more sensitive to getting the project completed quickly to save money. On the government side, Renne pointed to California’s effort to build a high-speed rail system. Approved by voters in 2008, it isn’t near fruition, has already cost billions more than expected and its prospects for completion are uncertain as finding a route through mountains is proving difficult and politicians added dubious side projects. Brightline began planning in 2012.
Brightline’s development has suffered setbacks, though. COVID-19 shut down the Miami-West Palm Beach line for 17 months. A 2018 partnership with Richard Branson’s Virgin Group to rebrand Brightline as Virgin Trains USA quickly soured. Brightline terminated the partnership in 2020 and Virgin sued in London. According to the lawsuit, Brightline says Virgin “ceased to constitute a brand of international high repute, largely because of matters related to the pandemic.” That case is pending.
Then there is the question of safety for residents near the tracks.
Brightline trains have the highest death rate in the U.S., fatally striking 98 people since Miami-West Palm operations began — about one death for every 32,000 miles its trains travel, according to an ongoing Associated Press analysis of federal data that began in 2019. The next-worst major railroad has a fatality every 130,000 miles.
None of the deaths have been found to be Brightline’s fault — most have been suicides, drivers who go around crossing gates or pedestrians running across tracks. The company hadn’t had a fatality since June, its longest stretch except during the pandemic shutdown.
Delray Beach police, however, said Friday morning that they were investigating a fatal collision involving a Brightline train and a pedestrian in the area Southeast Second Avenue and Fourth Street.
The company’s fatality rate concerns officials in the extension area.
Indian River County Sheriff Eric Flowers said a Brightline official seemed callous during a recent meeting, saying he seemed more worried about explaining Brightline’s procedure for getting passengers to their destination after an accident than how it deals with deaths.
“They don’t seem to have any empathy for our community. We’re just in their way,” said Flowers, whose county includes Vero Beach. “It’s a cost of doing business for them that they’re going to run some people over.”
Brightline has taken steps its leaders believe enhance safety, including adding closed-circuit cameras near tracks, installing better crossing gates and pedestrian barriers and posting signage that includes the suicide prevention hotline.
“We have invested heavily in the infrastructure so that we have a safe corridor,” Brightline CEO Michael Reininger said. “We continue to operate literally every day with safety at top of mind.”
Reininger said most of Brightline’s Miami-Orlando passengers will come from those who drive the route regularly and others who stay home because they hate the drive. Prime targets are families headed to Orlando’s theme parks and travelers to South Florida’s nightlife, concerts, sports and cruises.
The drive between Miami and Orlando takes about four hours each way on Florida’s Turnpike with round-trip tolls costing between $40 and $60. Gas costs between $50 and $80, plus wear and tear on the vehicle.
Reininger said his company’s challenge is to convince travelers that its trains’ amenities make any extra cost worthwhile.
“It’s the value of your time,” Reininger said. The train “gives you the ability to use your time that you are dedicating to travel in any number of ways that you can’t do when you are behind the wheel.”
He also said the company knows an elevated experience is the key to convincing folks to swap their car for rail.
“We all think intuitively about vacation business and the travel and tourism industry and of course that is important, but you have to think broadly, there are people who do business up and down this corridor,” Reinger said.
Miami-Dade Mayor Danielle Levine Cava also hopped on board a piece of history where she said: “There are children’s amenities for sure, but it is also great for the adults.
Industry analysts nationwide say they have had their eyes on the route for a long time.
“Can this be done without government support?” asked Cliff Dunn, of the Rail Passengers Association. “Amtrack has been supported by the government in all sorts of ways for years so can a private sector model work? I think it can.”
Brightline in its quest to prove the time is right for a rail renaissance.
Company officials said they have a special rate of $199.00 each way and they are thinking about a new stop in Florida from Orlando to Tampa, and have their eyes set out west on a possible route from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.