Brightline (All Aboard Florida) Orlando - Miami FL FEC fka Virgin Rail

I'd be surprised if you find anything except the flattened lot upon which the station complex will eventually sit. "Vertical construction" is supposed to start this month in Fort Lauderdale, from what I've read.

On Sunday, I was able to complete my odyssey to the site of the former FEC Station that is to be redeveloped and including the proposed AAF Station.

Aside from some signage NOTHING, repeat NOTHING, is going on. I asked one gal sitting next to me at one concert about AAF and she didn't know what it was.

I think it's nothing but a sham with some objective other than to operate passenger trains for the private sector's account.

Has AAF ever claimed that they are going to make money off running passenger trains? I don't think they have. It's a loss leader for real estate ventures - just as much rail service was a century ago - and I don't believe they've been dishonest about that.

I concur with your point, Mr. EGE. The prospect that there just might someday be intercity passenger service running into the mixed use structures that Fortress is definitely developing (the parking lots are now blocked) in Miami and may develop in both Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm can only help to raise rents even if the expectation is simply "it's coming....it's coming". A 2016 start up is just going to be "one of those days".

I guess some could say that Henry Flagler pulled off a bit of flim flam with the whole FEC (including pulling off that the Dade County Court House was his Miami station to many an unsuspecting snowbird), and in that case, won by using the railroad to develop land that otherwise, even as late as the start of the 20th century, was just swampland. True, Henry did build a railroad, and today it is a mighty darned efficiently operated one. While not the case during the immediate aftermath of the Recession, the FEC is now making money after debt service arising from the leveraged buyout that converted shareholder equity into long term debt. Hence, I am backing away from my earlier supposition that Fortress was simply looking to sell the road to a public agency and AAF was simply a means to stir up public interest.

Finally, lest we not forget when passenger trains were used as flim flam; that was with the Chesapeake & Ohio (the "C" in CSX) in the immediate post-WWII years. Here a flim flam entrepreneur, Robert R Young, ordered twice as many passenger cars as would be needed to re equip everything right down to a branch line "mixto". He even ordered cars for a proposed Wash-Cinci domed day train - never mind that the Domes could not operate, at that time, through the Wash First Street tunnel. He simply never intended to put more that half of those cars into C&O revenue service, but at that time there was a ready market for the surplus. Young got his "one day pop" in C&O stock, and from which he sold out and left town - for the New York Central.

Miami's "downtown" population has doubled in the last decade, from 40k to 80k, most of them young (working age) professionals.

Meanwhile, TomTom (The GPS folks) rate Miami 14th worst in the Americas in auto congestion.

Between the two of these, you'd say that there's a growing market whose need for a train alternative to driving is getting stronger and stronger.

Mr. Arlington, I couldn't agree more with the USA Today Travel page reporter. The city is filled with vitality - and I was never near South Beach.

After my visit to the Government Center area to view the (non) progress on the AAF station, I toured around the Brickell area where I had never set foot in the past.

A totally different environment from when attending a seminar there during 1980 (at a hotel right across the street from the Marriott at which I stayed), the participants were told to "watch your back" if you ventured outside the hotel. I got ripped off; someone helped themselves to a checkbook (don't carry that with me anymore when I travel), and ran up some Room Service charges. Funny how they left me my return airline ticket (yes youngsters, those were actually once printed).

Walking about: "Recession, what recession?"

Now will all these positive sentiments translate into an intercity passenger rail service operated by and for the private sector? I have my doubts.

Apparently, the actual start of construction for the new Miami station, on the site of the old one, is in Spanish [link found in an E-mail from [email protected]]:

Comienza la construcción de la estación del tren a Orlando
Read more here: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/noticias/s ... rylink=cpy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.elnuevoherald.com/noticias/s ... rylink=cpy

Gilbert B Norman wrote:Now will all these positive sentiments translate into an intercity passenger rail service operated by and for the private sector? I have my doubts.

What are you waiting for, AAF actually running the trains?
Let's review what they have done; they have signed contracts with
A) building contractors to not only design but build the three South Florida stations,
B) Siemens to build the trains - both locomtives and coaches
C) construction contractors to double track portions of the FEC corridor
D) with Orlando's airport for them to build the intermodal facility AAF plans to use as their train station up there.

Short of actually running the trains, AAF has done everything anyone should expect to operate passenger trains two years from now, including finding funding sources. As for running and maintains their trains, FEC crews should have the experience and capability to do the job.

I think the observation of "no ground broken yet" is perfectly reasonable ground for mild skepticism especially given the history in Florida of passenger rail.

Ron, first please forgive my parse of your material. At times, it is simply the most expedient response to a multi-faceted inquiry such as your immediate presents:

electricron wrote:What are you waiting for, AAF actually running the trains?

The answer to that is simply yes - and without any kind of public funding - direct or indirect.

electricron wrote:Let's review what they have done; they have signed contracts with
A) building contractors to not only design but build the three South Florida stations,

I'll gladly acknowledge that "something happ'nin" at First & First in Downtown Miami on the site of the former FEC station. The owners (whoever) of that underdeveloped property (parking lot) have simply waited fifty years for "the right place right time" to develop such into a mixed use facility that will "clean up the neighborhood" (from first hand observations it is "scruffy" because there is so much judiciary at present which means the proliferation of cottage industries like "Better call Saul" and Bondsmen). Undoubtedly, the plans include a passenger train station, but that could readily become a parking facility.

electricron wrote:B) Siemens to build the trains - both locomtives and coaches

Remember the pages of "flim flammery" from Robert R. Young; how ordering twice as much passenger rolling stock that the C&O could ever use along with "rolling tenements" and"a hog can cross America by train" that put a railroad nobody outside of on-line communities ever heard of, the Chesapeake & Ohio, on the map? Someone is prepared to place their bets that there would be a ready market for the equipment "if/when" the whole AAF charade becomes stillborn - just as did Young's Chessie.

electricron wrote:C) construction contractors to double track portions of the FEC corridor

I'll gladly acknowledge that is moving forth, even though on my visit to Miami two weeks ago I did not have an auto and hence no means to personally view these improvements. However, FEC is placing their bets that the Port of Miami will see substantial traffic increases post-PANAMAX. Not only has rail access to the Port been restored, but also the channels are being dredged so that any vessel afloat can be handled. The West Coast ports, and their employees, did themselves no favor with the recent "job actions"; the maritime community will be like elephants, and the Panamanian canal authority will gladly abet, and have a long memory of the labor conditions - and now have an alternative. FEC holds sole access to this port, and the only reasonable and practical interchange is their most favorable line-haul, Jacksonville, 350 miles away,

electricron wrote:D) with Orlando's airport for them to build the intermodal facility AAF plans to use as their train station up there.

Believe it when I see it.

gokeefe wrote:I think the observation of "no ground broken yet" is perfectly reasonable ground for mild skepticism especially given the history in Florida of passenger rail.

Ground HAS been broken, and they are driving piles at this time.

Indian River County is suing to overturn the $1,750,000,000 private activity bond finance deal. The county claims DOT did not cross all t's on the environmental studies.

http://media.cmgdigital.com/shared/news ... awsuit.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

SlowLayne wrote:Indian River County is suing to overturn the $1,750,000,000 private activity bond finance deal. The county claims DOT did not cross all t's on the environmental studies.

http://media.cmgdigital.com/shared/news ... awsuit.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I don't think this is going to go anywhere. They're making a claim about how the bonds should have been issued when the brief itself plainly acknowledges that the bonds can be issued as directed by the Secretary of Transportation. The NEPA still has to be followed regardless. I think the federal judge who ends up presiding over this one is going to be quite annoyed. There are plenty of other ways this could have been brought to court. This one out of all potential options seems the most tenous.

AAF selects signalling supplier:

USA: Private inter-city service promoter All Aboard Florida has selected GE Transportation to supply signalling equipment for the 375 km corridor it plans to use between Miami and Orlando.

GE Transportation said its sites in Melbourne and Jacksonville, Florida, would lead the design and engineering, with manufacturing in Warrensburg, Missouri.

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/infr ... lling.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Vero Beach Train Station cited as historic structure likely to be harmed by trains going by. Let that thought sink in.