My understanding is that Scott isn't
as opposed to this project for a variety of reasons, and that the money is already appropriated from FL's side, at least for the first phase.
Another point in this project's favor: When you look at the Florida 2006 Rail Plan (linked to at the site above), the FEC project is an integral part of it while the (totally disconnected) Orlando-Tampa project just doesn't come into the mix, and as far as I can tell, you get almost the same service speed between the two cities with the 110/125 MPH trains as you did with the bullet train. I hate to say it, but Disney's Ghost was a bad plan because of all sorts of flaws. Good concept, bad execution.
Another interesting point:
Per page 17 of the FL planning document from 2006, the project is expected to be self-sustaining. Also of interest is that the Star split is, per Amtrak's Silver Service PIP, expected to be net profitable. With all due respect to Amtrak,
their numbers on page 9-4 seem oddly (or, to be blunt, almost stupidly) low. They're only projecting $17-18 per passenger on the Corridor train, which to be blunt is
stupidly low unless they're expecting virtually all traffic to be "short hop" traffic. Assuming that their numbers are in the right ballpark on total ridership (86,800), if things come out in the same ballpark as the Pennsylvanian (PPR of $42.70), you get revenue of $3.7 million. Going with $35 (in the range of the San Joaquin, Wolverine, or Cascades), revenue would be in the $3.06 million range. The only routes with PPR figures in/below the $17-18 range are:
-The Downeaster ($13.76)
-The Capitol Corridor ($15.05)
-The Piedmont ($17.84)
-The Hiawatha ($18.25)
-The Pacific Surfliner ($19.85...and spiking quite sharply at the present)
In plain English, the only trains with those low PPR numbers are
far shorter corridors. Even the Keystones (intercity commuter trains as well) are bringing in almost $22/passenger. The only thing I can really guess is that they must either be assuming virtually no traffic north of about West Palm Beach...something that their figures later in the presentation just don't bear out.
Edit:
Just throwing some "derived stats" (and thoughts) in from the Service Development Plan:
-The sleeping car stats estimate 15,800 passengers per year on the Star (5,000 snagged from the "main" Star and the Meteor). This would come out to 43.28/day or 21.64/train. From this, my best guess is that they're planning to run one sleeper in the FEC section and sell it out most of the time (21.64 would basically be right at capacity for a new Viewliner).
-Based on those same numbers, 132,700 riders in coach comes to 181.78/train (that is, (137,200/365)/2), or almost assuredly at
least three and possibly four coaches. Per the explicit statement, they assume 2 (and indicate no cafe
or diner, which
screams **** to me)...I do not buy this number one bit, as they'd have to turn over a
lot of traffic. I could buy this with a set of bilevels, but not with single-level equipment.
-Ok, more nuttiness in the document. Pull up attachment B. Apparently, the added Phase 2 corridor service south of Cocoa Beach is expected to lose several hundred sleeper passengers. On the one hand, as someone who does that sort of trip from time to time, I can understand the effect in theory. On the other hand, I don't think folks who are consciously choosing to take a private room from A to B are likely to be lured out by the offer of a cafe-only corridor train. Coach traffic? Absolutely. Sleeper traffic? Not likely.
--Also, the document makes absolutely
no allowance for ridership ramp-up on the corridor above these numbers. Yes, I'll say it...as "mature" numbers, these seem absurdly low.
-Another interesting question here: How
does this document assume that service from Cocoa-Tampa is going to look? Per the 2006 plan, there's supposed to be an Orlando-Cocoa "B-Line" (punning undoubtedly intended), but the document seems unclear on that. Attachment C mentions having a Tampa-Orlando HSR station co-located at Cocoa, but this seems odd because even had that project come to fruition, Phase II was (IIRC) likely to be completed outside the timeframe the report covers (i.e. up to 2020).
--Of course, a conecting Cocoa-Orlando-Tampa corridor train and/or having one (or more) Cocoa-terminating trains run on that rout can't help but help the FEC's numbers. Even a connecting train only generating moderate through-business would seem to provide a substantial boost to the FEC line's numbers.
