Brightline Expansion - Tampa

http://www.tampabay.com/florida-politic ... d-orlando/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

State officials will consider private bids to build a high-speed rail link between Tampa and Orlando, reviving a dormant project to link the two cities, Gov. Rick Scott announced Friday.

Brightline, the high-speed rail linking Miami and West Palm Beach with hopes of reaching Orlando, said it has put it in a bid to build track along I-4, leasing land owned by the state and the Central Florida Expressway Authority.

Brightline submits sole proposal to launch Tampa to Orlando passenger rail service (Tampa Bay Times)

TAMPA — State transportation officials on Wednesday received one proposal to run an intercity passenger train from Orlando to Tampa, and it came from Brightline, the company that proposed creating the route in the first place....
The Florida Department of Transportation has named a three-member technical review committee to determine whether Brightline’s proposal meets the requirements the agency outlined in its request for proposals on June 22.

Their recommendation will go to a selection committee of high-ranking transportation officials, who are scheduled to make a decision on Nov. 28.

Other Tampa Bay Times articles on Brightline:
August 24th : Brightline’s combination of rail and development in Miami makes believers of Tampa leaders
August 4th: High-speed rail firm scouting land for station and development around proposed Rays ballpark site
(and various links and lists therein about potential Tampa station sites:

• The Tampa Park Apartments (0.2mi due north of Tampa Union Station) owned by a nonprofit group led by Florida Sentinel Bulletin newspaper publisher S. Kay Andrews. The future of the complex has been thrown into doubt after it this summer failed its fourth inspection in four years. As a result, some renters are being moved to Section 8 housing, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development plans to withdraw rent subsidies for more than half the units.

• Cleared (former jail) site at 1301 N Morgan Street has already had two brief flirtations with rail. It was considered a potential station site for a cross-bay rail network between Tampa and St. Petersburg that state officials briefly floated in 2007. That happened again in 2010 when City of Tampa officials talked about a high-speed rail system between Tampa, Lakeland and Orlando that would be completed by 2015. It is owned by the Florida Department of Transportation.

• Tampa Union Station was originally built in 1912 to serve the Atlantic Coast Line, the Seaboard Air Line and the Tampa Northern Railroad. It was restored and reopened in 1998. It is served by Amtrak’s Silver Service between New York and Miami. It is owned by the city of Tampa.

• The 7.6-acre Gas Worx property near the proposed Rays stadium (and 0.2mi compass Northeast of Tampa Union Station) The Rays want a parking garage built there for their new ballpark, but GasWorx owner Darryl Shaw has said there may be space for other development, too. http://www.phillipsdevelopment.com/port ... /gas-worx/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Another source, although the article is "thin" so I won't quote: http://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/tran ... o-fdot-bid" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Somewhat older, concerning the route: http://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/news ... ampa-route" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

...State Sen. Linda Stewart (D-Orlando) says any future high-speed expansion is expected to originate at Orlando International Airport's new intermodal terminal.

Service to Tampa will then likely run parallel to either State Road 528 or State Road 417 as connectors to Interstate 4.
...
Stewart says a new study will have to be conducted to determine the feasibility of high-speed travel for the route and which method works, pointing to various environmental challenges along the I-4 corridor.

"In certain areas where we can't be on the ground, we're going to have to bridge over, where there are rivers or streams or lakes, so there's a lot to consider before we move forward," Stewart said.

Additionally, Stewart says some past right-of-way options no longer exist, and there is no determination of where in Tampa a station could be built.
...

This may have been superseded.

Is there some place where Brightline or the state of Florida would publish Brightline's submission?

Or is there perhaps a PR or PowerPoint summary that brightline made, such as a presentation it would have given to Tampa audiences?

Attached is the unsolicited Brightline proposal from March 2018. The rules of the RFP do not allow for the solicited proposal from yesterday to be released publicly until 72 hours after the selection committee meets on November 28. So that will mean Monday December 3rd is the earliest it will be available for request. I suspect the latest proposal won't differ much from the unsolicited one, except to fit the format of the RFP and maybe define the Tampa station sites better.

I believe the unsolicited proposal is still on the FDOT website at this time.

Thanks! I was hoping for a map

This should help. https://geology.com/cities-map/map-of-f ... cities.gif" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

^ thanks but I was hoping to see a map that showed the high-speed rail reservations in addition to the existing rail rights-of-way in the state.

This is what I was looking for, from FDOT's January 2010 statewide rail plan
Investment Element of the 2010 Florida Rail System Plan, Chapter 3 Passenger Rail
We find Figure 3.11, which shows the HSR alignment exiting the MCO South Terminal on the south side, which sort of completes the picture that:
Miami-MCO will run along the 528 Beach LIne and enter the MCO South Terminal from the north side
MCO-Tampa will run along I-4, but get their by exiting the MCO South Terminal on its south side
(see attachment in the post above)
So the Brightline path from Miami to Tampa actually involves "overshooting" the airport (to its northside) before "back tracking" through the airport and exiting on the south, and then "back north again" to get to the convention center. It kind of says that if they were building the Rail as its "own thing" you'd have put it across the north edge of the airport and not had all this up-down-up-down (literally) as one goes Convention Center (a "northside) - MCO south Terminal (a "southside") - MCO/Beachline (a "northside") - Brightline Phase 1 (a "southside")

In the 2010 plan there were 5 station between MCO and Tampa:
MCO Airport South Terminal
Orlando Convention Center
Disney
"midway" station in Polk/Lakeland
Tampa Downtown

The Brightline lease proposal to FDOT/CFXis out now. Lots of interesting stuff. High points: Meadow Woods Sunrail station will get a transfer platform so that Brightline riders can take Sunrail to access much more of Orlando. Also, Sunrail riders can get to the airport (or Tampa or Miami for that matter) without taking a bus. Brightline will need expanded hours of service between Meadow Woods and MCO. No station site in Tampa shown, as expected.

There is a decent map too showing the route!

One interesting operational characteristic. In Lakeland there is a hill on I-4 just west of US98 that I calculated from topo maps to be about a 4% grade of around 1500ft. With most trains not stopping at the Lakeland station, it will be fun to watch eastbound Brightline trains tackle this grade going 100mph. This will definitely put to use the 8000 hp that the two Chargers supply!

Link to proposal:

http://www.fdot.gov/procurement/pdf/Bri ... 1-5-18.pdf

I read that to say:
+ Station at Orlando Airport
- Silent on a "Convention Center" station
+ Station at Meadow Woods (SunRail)
- Silent on a "Disney Area" station
+ Future Station at Lakeland (only one I see mentioned on I-4)*
+ Station at Tampa (somewhere in the terminal area)

Does this mean they're planning that the Airport's South Terminal is where you'd "get to Disney" from? The new South Terminal does have lots of bus bays (already), which would seem to be where a "Magical Express" (or bus direct to the other resorts, like Universal) could run from.

I suppose one could argue that since they're not going to get onto Disney property anyway, you were always going to have a fairly elaborate ground connection, even if they'd put a station right on I-4 at one of the Disney exits?

* Lakeland ends up being the "midway" station similar to the Brazos Valley station on the Texas Central HSR

Bonevalleyrailfan wrote:The Brightline lease proposal to FDOT/CFXis out now. Lots of interesting stuff. High points: Meadow Woods Sunrail station will get a transfer platform so that Brightline riders can take Sunrail to access much more of Orlando. Also, Sunrail riders can get to the airport (or Tampa or Miami for that matter) without taking a bus. Brightline will need expanded hours of service between Meadow Woods and MCO. No station site in Tampa shown, as expected.

There is a decent map too showing the route!

One interesting operational characteristic. In Lakeland there is a hill on I-4 just west of US98 that I calculated from topo maps to be about a 4% grade of around 1500ft. With most trains not stopping at the Lakeland station, it will be fun to watch eastbound Brightline trains tackle this grade going 100mph. This will definitely put to use the 8000 hp that the two Chargers supply!

Link to proposal:

http://www.fdot.gov/procurement/pdf/Bri ... 1-5-18.pdf

Maybe future electrification in this spot!

Although the lead is about Orlando, lots of Tampa details: SUnSentinel.com

...
Filed in late November, a preliminary prospectus for stock in Virgin Trains USA Inc. predicts that service between Miami and Tampa through Orlando has the potential to carry 9.5 million passengers annually.
...
“This is to advise you that OUC is supportive of Brightline’s proposal to construct a rail line extension and provide express passenger rail service between Orlando International Airport and Tampa,” said the utility’s chief operating officer, Jan Aspuru, in a letter to the state Department of Transportation in late October.

From Orlando’s airport, the route to Tampa initially would follow several miles of a rail corridor owned and used by OUC for coal trains.

That segment would lead to the SunRail north-south corridor. Brightline proposes to link with SunRail at its Meadow Woods Station in south Orange County.
...
The proposed Brightline corridor would then turn back to the west, landing in the median of State Road 417, which is owned and maintained in separate sections by the Central Florida Expressway Authority and the state Department of Transportation.

From there, the Brightline corridor would merge to the median of Interstate 4, long reserved for passenger rail, for the rest of the route to Tampa.
...

Remind me of Brightline's Siemens' top speed (or max operating speed)? And how it applies to a possible timetable serving:
Tampa Downtown
Lakeland
Sunrail@MeadowWoods
MCO Airport
(Treasure Coast infill)
West Palm Beach
FLL
MIA Central

And how bogged down does I-4 get at rush hour near the "Tall building" employment centers in Tampa and Orlando?

Seems like Brightline could go for years of "winning at 125mph" along I-4 before it needed to electrify.