Brightline Trains Florida discussion 2023 Q4

[Anderson]

Below is a portion of the paragraph; I bolded the part in particular that caught my attention. To me it reads as though there has been a second order of cars made fairly recently. I hope that's what it means. They will need a few more seats if they want to reach their ridership projections.

Interestingly, Wikipedia has it phrased as another five four-car trainsets...but I've always seen it as being 20 additional cars (2 per existing set). I think the additional 10-car order puts a fork in this alternate idea (as does a lack of any locomotive order being announced).

Also interesting is this:

In the first quarter of 2023, the Project Owner assigned to a third-party its right to purchase 20 of the passenger coaches that the Project Owner had ordered and entered into an operating lease pursuant to which the Project Owner leases the coaches from the purchaser.

Brightline working around the up-front capex via a sale-leaseback arrangement is interesting.

On the same page, since I'm there:

The Project, originally projected, based on the 2018 Ridership and Revenue Study, to serve 6.9 million passengers and generate $542 million in ticket revenue by 2025, is now projected to serve 7.9 million annual passengers and generate $654 million in ticket revenue.

Sorry, but that dog ain't gonna hunt. 7.9m pax/yr translates into an average of 21,644/day. Right now, they're doing quite well averaging around 5k/day on something like 8400-8900 seats available per day [1], but even going from 248 seats/train to 440 seats/train (adding three coaches with 64 seats each) would only allow for about 15k seats/day. [2] Yes, I realize that there's going to be some turnover, but at the same time there are going to be stray empty seats/"dead" legs and so on. The Boca-Fort Lauderdale pinch point I calculated from Brightline's data a long time ago is still there.

Assuming that they can fill 75% of available seats an average of 1.5x times per trip, they'd get 16,830 pax/day (or 6,142,950 riders per year). That feels like an "upper bound" in terms of ridership estimates (I think both numbers are a little optimistic). Going down to 60% (in line with where they've gotten "stuck" recently) would get you 13,464/day (4,914,360/yr). In order to make the projected ridership numbers pan out, Brightline would need either another two or three coach cars per train or another five to seven round-trips at the 75% level.

Again, adding five sets would probably fix this issue...but there's no loco order and you'd need to find a bunch of additional cars (the 70 cars ordered/delivered won't quite cut it).


[1] They've been at 17-18x round-trips per day for a while, you have 248 seats/train.
[2] 14,960 to be exact.

 

[VentureForth]

For what it's worth, I've seen that ridership has been sustaining after the initial rollout.

 

[EchoSierra]

Interestingly, Wikipedia has it phrased as another five four-car trainsets...but I've always seen it as being 20 additional cars (2 per existing set). I think the additional 10-car order puts a fork in this alternate idea (as does a lack of any locomotive order being announced).

Yeah, the Brightline wikipedia article is worded poorly because whoever made the charts decided to use year-on-year totals. If you go to the Siemens Charger article, you'll get a clearer picture. They currently operate with 20 cars (5 trainsets) and have received 20 more cars to double the train length if needed, plus one spare locomotive. (It's actually 4 cars per existing set. Remember, each set operates with two locomotives)

In addition, the now-cut hourly service schedule didn't add up. If it takes 3 hours end to end, and all they have is 5 trainsets, then all 5 sets would need to be in service, and every train would need to turn immediately at both ends to maintain such a schedule. That was not the smartest thing to do as the sets would have no downtime to allow for maintenance

 

[jis]

Yeah, the Brightline wikipedia article is worded poorly because whoever made the charts decided to use year-on-year totals. If you go to the Siemens Charger article, you'll get a clearer picture. They currently operate with 20 cars (5 trainsets) and have received 20 more cars to double the train length if needed, plus one spare locomotive. (It's actually 4 cars per existing set. Remember, each set operates with two locomotives)

In addition, the now-cut hourly service schedule didn't add up. If it takes 3 hours end to end, and all they have is 5 trainsets, then all 5 sets would need to be in service, and every train would need to turn immediately at both ends to maintain such a schedule. That was not the smartest thing to do as the sets would have no downtime to allow for maintenance

They have 10 4 car trainsets.

 

[Anderson]

For what it's worth, I've seen that ridership has been sustaining after the initial rollout.

Admittedly we're still within a potential honeymoon phase, but this is good to see. They go to 15x/day on Monday (WPB-MIA goes to 17x SB, 16x NB at that point). There's potentially another round-trip coming on line in December, but my guess is that the schedule then will get tweaked yet.

In theory, especially with the implicit ticket prices and so on, the added trains should add some additional demand to the mix (especially since this should plug most of the remaining holes in the schedule, notably moving the last departure from MCO to nearly 2100 - later than I recall being previously advertised and late enough to allow folks to finish a full day at many of the Orlando parks, and getting almost as close as is practical for some of the others).

Yeah, the Brightline wikipedia article is worded poorly because whoever made the charts decided to use year-on-year totals. If you go to the Siemens Charger article, you'll get a clearer picture. They currently operate with 20 cars (5 trainsets) and have received 20 more cars to double the train length if needed, plus one spare locomotive. (It's actually 4 cars per existing set. Remember, each set operates with two locomotives)

In addition, the now-cut hourly service schedule didn't add up. If it takes 3 hours end to end, and all they have is 5 trainsets, then all 5 sets would need to be in service, and every train would need to turn immediately at both ends to maintain such a schedule. That was not the smartest thing to do as the sets would have no downtime to allow for maintenance

I think they probably need 9-of-10 right now (the end-to-end being over 3:30, the odds of having to pull a ninth set regularly seems to be pretty high). I presume they're taking care of at least some maintenance overnight, but this overall feels a bit too tight for comfort.

While I don't see a full order of five more sets on the horizon (based on their ridership projections, something like that is plausible, just not likely), a supplemental order of 2-4 locos alongside another batch of cars doesn't seem improbable (especially if/when they start adding additional stops along the coast and/or extending towards Disney/Tampa). And their ridership estimates definitely imply additional equipment, too.

 

[EchoSierra]

They have 10 4 car trainsets.

Yeah, the idiot who made that chart wikipedia confused me too.

 

[west point]

If I read this correctly Brightline has 21 locos and 40 cars? As well another 20 cars on order? How many train sets to cover the schedule now? Maybe a breakout between MIA - Orlando and MIA - West Palm Beach?

 

[VentureForth]

Admittedly we're still within a potential honeymoon phase, but this is good to see. They go to 15x/day on Monday (WPB-MIA goes to 17x SB, 16x NB at that point). There's potentially another round-trip coming on line in December, but my guess is that the schedule then will get tweaked yet.

It is frustrating to try to put together some sort of time table. Trying to sync up trains with sports events makes it impossible to see any sort of consistency. Most of the current sports trains appear to be the last train(s) of the night. Looks like all the trains they were promising on 10/24 started today. And, with that, they cancelled a mid-day train (1:45 PM out of MIA). Whatta bouncy ball to try and follow!

I just noticed... Some of the prices are changing, too. Now, it can be cheaper between MCO and WPB than MIA on the same train ($69/79 vs $89/99, etc).

 

[Anderson]

If I read this correctly Brightline has 21 locos and 40 cars? As well another 20 cars on order? How many train sets to cover the schedule now? Maybe a breakout between MIA - Orlando and MIA - West Palm Beach?

As I understand it (there's a bit of garbling), it's 21 locos and 40 cars on hand now. They have 30 cars on order, in three batches of 10 (an additional 10 seem to have been ordered recently).

The current schedule probably needs 8 or 9 of the 10 sets. On a schedule analysis, as of right now, the first MIA-MCO train leaves at 0641 and arrives at 1019. If it turns directly, it would depart at 1054 and arrive back at MIA at 1427. I have trouble seeing Brightline betting on a 14-minute turn (1441), but you'd either be looking at that or at a 1546 departure back to Orlando. The 1441 departure is the seventh departure after the 0641 and the 1546 departure is the eighth. This also explains that mid-afternoon schedule gap - they don't have the train to fill in that gap.

 

[cirdan]

The current schedule probably needs 8 or 9 of the 10 sets.

That sounds like sailing very close to the wind, especially with trains having to be taken out of service due to crossing incidents etc.

 

[VentureForth]

That sounds like sailing very close to the wind, especially with trains having to be taken out of service due to crossing incidents etc.

For now, passengers on a cancelled train can likely be accommodated on the next train, albeit at a huge seating inconvenience. As ridership grows, this is truly tight.

 

[bonzoesc]

Also has some interesting tidbits from Patrick Goddard about travel times, including saying "it's less about travel time...". It personally makes me wonder why they are spending so much money on higher speeds if many of their passengers aren't in it for the speed. This could be a side topic in and of itself.

The speed isn’t just a customer service thing, it’s better for operations if their expensive capital trains can do one extra turn per day, or if they can say “yeah that stop took two minutes longer than expected, but we can actually make it up en route.”

 

[Exvalley]

Brightline just lost a lawsuit to Virgin. The potential damages are $246 million.

https://onemileatatime.com/news/virgin-lawsuit-brightline/

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

Brightline just lost a lawsuit to Virgin. The potential damages are $246 million.

https://onemileatatime.com/news/virgin-lawsuit-brightline/

The number of CEO who don’t or can’t read a contract are staggering. If you can’t read or understand a contract hire someone who can.

Where this is Disney or Iowa Pacific this type of business practices needs to stop.

 

[jis]

The number of CEO who don’t or can’t read a contract are staggering. If you can’t read or understand a contract hire someone who can.

Where this Disney or Iowa Pacific this type of business practices needs to stop.

That is one of the few profitable businesses of the Virgin Group

 

[tgstubbs1]

If Brightline was obligated to pay a certain percentage of their profits to Virgin as part of the branding deal you wouldn't think the amount would be that great, since Brightline hasn't made much profit yet.
On the other hand if Brightline was to pay a fixed fee per year I think that would have been a bad deal for them to enter into an agreement for such a large sum of money.

 

[west point]

1. we do not know what the UK court will award.
2. What assets does Brightline have in the UK?
3. What are the international laws regarding tort awards?
4. Anything else that could happen in US courts to reduce any award?

 

[Anderson]

1. we do not know what the UK court will award.
2. What assets does Brightline have in the UK?
3. What are the international laws regarding tort awards?
4. Anything else that could happen in US courts to reduce any award?

AFAICT Virgin can probably move to enforce in Florida once everything sorts out in the UK.

 

[west point]

Has any effort been made to post Brightline trains on transit docs? Or a separate site?

 

[GDRRiley]

That sounds like sailing very close to the wind, especially with trains having to be taken out of service due to crossing incidents etc.

80% is pretty common spare ratio for coaches but its normally pushing it for locos. But if you do preventative maintenance it can totally work.

 

[GDRRiley]

They have actually ordered a total of 20 additional cars - 2 cars to be added per train set.

I read it as they ordered another 10 car so they are getting 30 more in total to make 10 7 car trains.

 

[Anderson]

80% is pretty common spare ratio for coaches but its normally pushing it for locos. But if you do preventative maintenance it can totally work.

The main issue is that it works much better with a large pool of sets/cars. I did a post on here a few years back where I observed that with 50 sleepers on the eastern LD trains you needed a higher share than you really needed at 200. IIRC at 200, you basically just had an extra set sitting in NYS to cover both shop issues *and* delays, with implications for the timetable if you standardized equipment across the trains in question.

One problem with Brightline's "set" approach is that if a car becomes unavailable they can't just cut it and do a swap, so one car out pulls three others with it. For now, that's probably fine (new cars, etc.). In a decade or two, it might get touchier...but hopefully by then, 20% will mean 4-5 sets, not 2.

 

[jis]

One problem with Brightline's "set" approach is that if a car becomes unavailable they can't just cut it and do a swap, so one car out pulls three others with it. For now, that's probably fine (new cars, etc.). In a decade or two, it might get touchier...but hopefully by then, 20% will mean 4-5 sets, not 2.

They cannot do a car swap on the road. But they can certainly change out a car in the shop overnight, if they have additional cars available to do so. It takes an hour at most to swap a car in a consist in the shop. So a consist becomes unavailable only for the balance of the day.

But you are correct when you have a larger fleet you can really keep consists together and do spare management in terms of consists and not cars.

 

[lordsigma]

I just rode Brightline for the first time. Enjoyable trip - Orlando - Miami round trip. The newness of the equipment makes me excited for the Acela 2.0 and Airo equipment up north and now that could dramatically refresh the Amtrak experience. Stations were heavily reliant on technology but neat. There definitely seemed to be a major desire to please. As for “premium” class I’d say it’s not quite Acela first as far as what they offer but the price point isn’t either - so it’s probably just right for the price point they’re charging.

 

[Anderson]

They cannot do a car swap on the road. But they can certainly change out a car in the shop overnight, if they have additional cars available to do so. It takes an hour at most to swap a car in a consist in the shop. So a consist becomes unavailable only for the balance of the day.

But you are correct when you have a larger fleet you can really keep consists together and do spare management in terms of consists and not cars.

True. The different paint schemes probably lean against doing too much of that, but that's an aesthetic matter, not a technical one.
[The bigger issue is that I know they have at least three distinct cars, maybe four, in each set - Premium, coach+bag, and I don't recall if the last two coaches are identical or a bit different.]