Astyanax The difference between the two figures just proves that this $5 billion 170-mile Orlando extension of theirs allowed Brightline to lose more money faster
But at least it is their money, not Florida taxpayers money.
The major problem with passenger rail is most commonly a lack of interconnection and a lack of local transit.
In October of 97 I was contracted as a photographer to ride along with a writer who was also contracted by a railroad trade magazine, we where going to ride the Florida Fun Train, to add to the fun I brought my son along as a way of rounding out the article.
It ran from Hollywood Florida to Orlando Florida and was 4 hours each way, the concept was to shuttle tourists coming into Port Everglades up to Orlando to go to Busy World and other attractions in the Orlando area.
The company First American Railways, first mistake, was to utilize the CSX line, their second mistake was the north end was in the middle of nowhere, all that was there was a single wide office and a shell rock parking lot, but no connecting transit, arrivals would have to pre-arrainge for transit or have a rental car waiting there to go to anywhere, plus no shelter other than remaining on the train until someone was there to pick them up.
My son who was probably 6 at the time looked around and commented "this is stupid how are we supposed to go to Busy World," which I did not plan on doing anyhow.
But if a 6 year old can figure that out it speaks volumes about screwed the concept was.
And worst of all it was supposed to be a pull-pull consist, but since the trailing locomotive had a blown engine it turned into a pull-push consist, now I don't know if you have ever ridden on a pull-push/push-pull train but in push it is an unnerving ride, it feels like the locomotive that is pushing the consist is lifting it off the tracks, because that is actually happening, not enough to cause a derailment but enough to make a person very nervous.
Then it hit the fan, as we crossed the trestle over South New River the cars went dark, the locomotive ran out of fuel, shutting down both the prime mover and the head end power, but being a train it had enough inertia to coast 6 miles south just short of the Sheridan St FFT station.
Then it was mayhem, screw paying the bar tab everyone wanted off the train and literally everyone was getting off walking south to the parking lot to go back toh where ever they came from and that crowd includes a lot of media, investors, local politicians seeking lens to get in front of and the 3 of us.
The just for some fun I keyed up my Motorola handheld which was programmed to all of the SFL rail frequencies and asked the engineer if he wanted me to go across the street purchase a couple 5 gallon cans and fill them with diesel then bring them back to get the engine started, of course that would never work it would take more like 50 gallons to get it restarted and from what I heard back from the engineer he was not amused demanding to know who I was, but at the time I didn't hear him clearly asking that, so I never answered his demand.
However the writer I was assigned to found that to be rather humorous.
Now we might have made it all the way back without running out of fuel if not for the fact the train was running late and the engineer has the throttle notched up quite a bit, he needed to get it back to Hollywood as to not interfere with the CSX's nighttime freight operations, he had it so notched up the train blew through a defect detector somewhere just south of Orlando and it indicated the speed the train was traveling at was 92 MPH, in a section of track with a 49 MPH limit, oops busted.
