Brightline Update and First Ride
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- Опубликовано: 17 окт 2024
- I rode the first northbound Brightline train out of Fort Lauderdale at 9:25 AM on January 13, 2018, and then I rode the Tri-Rail train back to Fort Lauderdale. This video describes the experience and contrasts these two parallel trains.
This is the first northbound Brightline train with fare paying passengers. It was amazing to be in CityPlace in West Palm in just 1/2 hour! It has always been an ordeal to get there.
I recorded the view out the window for the entire trip, that video is on my Railfan channel here: • Brightline Fort Lauder...
Love the content, thanks for sharing! We hope to see you onboard again soon!
When the Miami leg opens I'll be on it a lot!
Lmao
It opened
Love the very informative commentary, I agree with all of it. Bright line like HSR in Europe or Japan serves the more affluent/business class, while tri-rail is for lower classes. I can also imagine many less affluent peoples taking brightlines for once/twice a year trips to Orlando or to watch a game say at Downtown Miami. I will be very interesting to see what happens in the future and how Brightline changes things in South Florida.
I don't think Tri-Rail riders would appreciate being called "lower class", lots of doctors, lawyers and techno-geeks take Tri-Rail every day. The difference in fare (currently) between Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach is about the same as a Triple Venti Half Sweet Non-Fat Caramel Macchiato at Starbucks. Just like fancy-pants coffee, minimum wage workers can't afford it, but lots of other people can.
You and your “classing” of human beings is pure BS, have you spent any time riding the Euro rails? I have, HSR is simply for people wishing to complete their journey is less time and doing so may actually save them money over a German or the Flying Scotsman and taking a roomette or sleeper. Many families with kids book 2nd/3rd class to save money be the family poor, rich, or in the middle. Taking the train out of Paris Nord station to Brussels or Amsterdam, I’ll go 1st class if the train has lots of school kids or I want to eat in a dining area rather than my seat. I take the HSR covering longer distances as it’s an express primarily. Hence there are many reasons to buy a certain tickets without the BS class answer you came up with. You must be from India to even think of social class standing and trains
Xerxesjc28 wrong the tri-rail is like the local train and the brightline is like the express. Similar to how subway trunk lines in Tokyo and NYC work
Bobby Paluga so true
liked the vidio, other information you might add when reviewing stations is what public transportation is available, how far to areas of interest, are there cabs, and are rental cars available. I live in Pensacola and plan on making a trip this summer to Orlando to ride Amtrak to West Palm and ride Virgin trains to Miami.
The brightline compares to the keisei skyliner. It isnt a high speed but it is still nice. Florida could use a true high speed rail soon. I will try to make vides of the trains here in Japan. It isnt easy cause talking isnt allowed on train (a godsend rule to be honest)
I took the Bright Line today. The pros: train is beautiful and the interior is spacious. I rode in the 'select' section for an added fee. This included free snacks and beverages, including free liquor. The ride was smooth. The cons: They don't accept cash for a ticket, only credit cards. To get a ticket you have to complete a biographical questionnaire first. Also they put your bag (I had a back pack) through a scanner. I was randomly selected for enhanced screening which included physically going through my back pack.
This train will be best when it is completed to Orlando. You have to jump through too many hoops just for a 30 minute ride.
The fact that it is only a 30 minute ride is the main reason I will use it. When I rode they didn't go through my bag. It seems a little much given that you can just walk onto Tri-Rail and Amtrak without any screening at all. You can walk off the street and right onto the train.
Here in the UK the only scanners and bag check are for our 'Eurostar' HS trains from London to Paris / Brussels / Amsterdam. Basically like an airport. For anything else you just get a ticket (we take cash at the ticket office) and board the train. I noticed Brightline are using the same electronic gateways we use.
I think the 'cashless' society is coming as London Buses haven't taken cash for years and you just scan your card over a reader.
I have a few questions:
-How did ridership look at the time you were there?
-Do you think word of mouth over the past couple days has been positive or negative and to what degree?
-If you think said word of mouth is positive, do you think it will positively affect ridership going forward?
now for one of my opinions:
I think a majority of, if not most of the negativity will cease when the quiet zones are introduced in the coming months.
The Select service was "sold out", but I think only about 2/3 of the seats were actually occupied. The rest of the train was maybe only 1/3 occupied. They had a lot of trouble with the reservation system though, so a lot of people did not show up or were incomplete sales.
Word of mouth has been mixed. There are more positive comments than negative on my videos. I have videos in the works on whether the service can be profitable, and what the opposition is.
I expect the trains to be fairly empty at first, and nay-sayers to say "see, I told you so". But it takes a while to build ridership, and I would expect something like 2/3 or more of the riders to be going to Miami. Very few people will ride it to work, because hardly anyone lives in Fort Lauderdale and works in West Palm Beach. It's just too far. So the commute-to-work will build over time as people take jobs that they could not have taken before, or they relocate because they can make the commute now.
This thing could be shut down by a court injunction any day, so I would not depend on it as my primary commute until it is better established.
I do updates on the Brightline passenger train service every week. Latest update can be found here: ruclips.net/p/PL8l0UbPoFfL2qdlJrE7d4qrOwvGhwDWjC
great video by the way.
Thanks!
In the video you mentioned there was about 10 minutes of nothing between the Brightline and Tri Rail stations. What do you think would be the best option in terms of rapid transit between the two stations? I think it would be beneficial especially when the Miami and Orlando stops open for people to easily get from their Brightline stop to get to Tri Rail for the local stops.
Or for people to take Tri Rail to get to a Brightline station for a longer- faster trip.
I don't think it makes sense to switch between these trains, until the Orlando link is running at least. If you were on the Tri-Rail going north, you could switch over at Fort Lauderdale, but those stations are farther apart. By the time you travel from Tri-Rail station to Brightline station and then wait for the Brightline train (because you don't want to take a chance on missing it) you will waste so much time that you will probably get there at about the same time anyway. Because West Palm is the end of the line for both trains, you'd have to be taking Tri-Rail the wrong way to get to the Brightline station at West Palm. If for whatever reason you wanted to switch there is probably a bus (there are a bunch of bus stalls at the WPB Tri-Rail station), you could do an UBER, you could bring your bicycle, and maybe Tri-Rail has a free shuttle. (They do in Fort Lauderdale.) Also I think any public transportation adjustments because of this train will take a while to implement.
Was this your first time riding Tri-Rail? It's always interesting to hear the views of foamers, because they supposedly know something about trains, but so often have oblique opinions about railways. Brightline is an intercity service; Tri-Rail is a commuter railroad. The two services are mutually exclusive. Brightline is a great program and I hope its impending success can be replicated elsewhere, but with four stations in the final build out, it's market its relatively niche. Tri-Rail's market is strictly commuter, due to its single line and limited schedule. Commuter rail isn't perfect, but it's better than the alternative, like most American cities, with no passenger rail of any kind. Brightline will no doubt provide a better service, but given that it's a private company, they have no obligation to run services when times get tough. Tri-Rail will always be slower, but barring the state stripping their funding, they will be running trains indefinitely. (And they've been doing it since 1989). I enjoyed the video, and I look forward to seeing more!
I did point out in the video that Tri-Rail and Brightline serve two different audiences. I also said that Tri-Rail serves a much wider audience, because a lot more people live near a station.
This was my first time actually riding Tri-Rail, but I've had friends and co-workers riding every day, and I've dropped off and picked up people many times over the years, so I am very familiar with it. I didn't say in this video, but Tri-Rial has a free shuttle service at the Fort Lauderdale station with several different loops around town. In the 80's I lived in Philadelphia suburbs with an office downtown, and I took SEPTA trains every day. When I lived in New Jersey I took PATCO trains into Philadelphia every day. Tri-Rail is very similar to commuter trains anywhere.
One observation however is that many commuter trains in older cities are based on rail networks that look more like spokes reaching out in different directions from a city center, because they were established a hundred years ago, and were built into the urban landscape. South Florida trains tend to run in a strait line, and that line is in the wrong direction for many people. (If you live in Coral Springs and work in downtown Fort Lauderdale, trains don't help you very much.)
I thought the trains were supposed to be running every 15 or 20 minutes. With that frequency where is the time to let the children play in the playroom or sit down with snacks in the lounge?
Maybe for whatever reason, riders arrive some significant time before their scheduled train or need to stay at the station for some time after they have arrived.
That was never the plan. There are only four train sets, if two are going north and two south (between West Palm and Miami) the most frequent it could possibly be is every 45 minutes. When trains run frequently you never worry about schedules, you just go to the station and get on whichever comes next. With less frequent schedule it matters that you catch it. Current schedule is here: www.gobrightline.com/trip/train-status
Las Olas Pix Can you buy a ticket at the station or you can only buy it on the internet?
Either way
I rode the Train on Saturday 1:55-2:35, 3:35- 4:05 awesome comfort ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Brightline business model is similar to how Japanese private rail companies do business.
it's a long term slow and safe investment model
Dude do you know of a concept called local/express?
Killer train, poor designed, it's a disaster.