Brightline Trains Florida discussion

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George Harris said:
There appears to be some confusion here between "Loading Gauge" and structural capacity. Loading Gauge means defined clearances. There are usually two parts to this: Structural outlines and distances to other facilities, and then such things as platform offsets. For structural capacity the defining values are found in AREMA. (American Railway and Maintenance of Way Association) manuals. The AAR (Association of American Railroads) defines clearances and weights for vehicles, primarily for freight cars. Here is where we find such animals as "Plate C", etc. Generally rapid transit systems each have their own sets of standards both for clearances and for structural capacity. Since TriRail operates on the former SAL and other railroad lines and would be using standard railroad equipment for maintenance, it would seem that they would be following AREMA standards for structural loading. As to this "Consulting Engineer" who was not involved in the project: What is his basis for his claims? Would he even know a good railroad if he fell over it? There are always people like this wandering around making such claims. This is 200% or 120% of what? A year or so ago there was someone running around in California claiming there were defects in the design standards that could cause derailments. No details given. Being as I wrote the alignment standards, including details, it would be interesting to know the basis of his claims. If they are true then I should turn in my PE license, but it seems that all the systems I have worked on are doing nicely, including the Taiwan HSR, could it be that he does not know what he is talking about?

However, I will add that over the years I have see quite a few "why on earth did they do it that way" things, and I will admit to a few, OK that works, but I should have done it differently things, some of which still bug me.
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No confusion in my mind. The platform issue was loading gauge and viaduct issue was structural strength. It is not clear if there really was the second issue though.
 
Touchdowntom9 said:
do they have any data on the WPB to Cocoa segment regarding speed limits?
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The EIS has that information as planned. Of course there may be some deviations from that. But the bottom line is that almost all straight or close to straight segments are 110mph, including quite a bit of trackage through Melbourne where I live, segment that contains a large number of grade crossings even.
 
jis said:
No confusion in my mind. The platform issue was loading gauge and viaduct issue was structural strength. It is not clear if there really was the second issue though.
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JIS, did not think there would be for you. However these terms have proven to cause confusion for some. Since these tracks are obviously connected to the railroad system, to have designed them for less than standard AREMA loadings I would consider to have been a very bad idea.

To all, "Loading Gauge" means the maximum cross section of the vehicles and loadings allowed. (Early in my playing around with this stuff I had to get across to someone that you have to widen the Loading Gauge on curves for the mid car and end car overhangs as these give you a wider "Swept Path". The person in question was an administrative genius that had trouble with this reality. Guess he never played with toy trains or models.) Random thought: If the truck centers, bogie centers in British, are 0.7 of the vehicle length, the end overhangs and mid overhangs are near equal, and by the way, if you have superelevation, don't forget about body rotation.
 
George Harris said:
JIS, did not think there would be for you. However these terms have proven to cause confusion for some. Since these tracks are obviously connected to the railroad system, to have designed them for less than standard AREMA loadings I would consider to have been a very bad idea.
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I am not convinced that it was built inconsistent with AREMA. There have been many who will cook up any and all nonsense to tar Brightline. This could have been one of them. Afterall we have found no evidence that they required any remedial action on the viaduct.

They seemingly are terribly displeased that a private company has the audacity to try to provide a service that is better than publicly funded outfits because idiotically they believe that somehow publicly funded outfits are more in control of the public than private ones. I guess they missed the illustrious history of Amtrak somehow.

To all, "Loading Gauge" means the maximum cross section of the vehicles and loadings allowed. (Early in my playing around with this stuff I had to get across to someone that you have to widen the Loading Gauge on curves for the mid car and end car overhangs as these give you a wider "Swept Path". The person in question was an administrative genius that had trouble with this reality. Guess he never played with toy trains or models.) Random thought: If the truck centers, bogie centers in British, are 0.7 of the vehicle length, the end overhangs and mid overhangs are near equal, and by the way, if you have superelevation, don't forget about body rotation.
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Most people don't understand the difference between static loading gauge and dynamic loading gauge. Considering that these days it seems progressively more people cannot arrive at the answer 10 when asked what is 5x2, ......

Most people had difficulty understanding why the LIRR C-3s cannot use the Hudson tubes whereas the same height NJT MLVs can. The concept of overall operating envelope is beyond their comprehension. It can get pretty frustrating after a while.
 
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jis said:
Most people don't understand the difference between static loading gauge and dynamic loading gauge. Considering that these days it seems progressively more people cannot arrive at the answer 10 when asked what is 5x2, ......

Most people had difficulty understanding why the LIRR C-3s cannot use the Hudson tubes whereas the same height NJT MLVs can. The concept of overall operating envelope is beyond their comprehension. It can get pretty frustrating after a while.
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Not sure to what extent this is urban legend and to what extent it is history, probably something in between.

But according to an often related tale, when the initial line of the Paris metro was built the chief engineer, Fulgence Bienvenue, wanted to build it to a track gauge that was slightly narrower than standard gauge to preclude once and for all any ambitions of the mainline railroads to run thru trains on it. Among those who took offense was the leadership of the army who believed that in case of war it would be useful to run troop trains where and as they pleased. They thus sent a delegation to weigh down on the government of the day to make it a legal requirement to build the new lines to standard gauge. Fortunately the army chiefs didn't know much about trains and while the initial metro line did duly respect the letter of the law by being standard gauge, the clearances of the tunnels and the radii of the curves were engineered to make the concept of running useful military trains there a near impossibility.

Of course those skeptical of this story can point out that due to space constraints and having to follow existing streets and so on, that it was entirely rational to build the line with tight curves and narrow clearances. And the army would of course have been able to requisition the existing metro trainsets for any logistical needs, regardless. So maybe there is a small element of truth to the story and maybe there isn't.
 
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cirdan said:
Not sure to what extent this is urban legend and to what extent it is history, probably something in between.

But according to the often related tale, when the initial line of the Paris metro was built the chief engineer wanted to build it to a track gauge that was slightly narrower than standard gauge to preclude once and for all any ambitions of the mainline railroads to run thru trains on it. Among those who took offense was the leadership of the army who believed that in case of war it would be useful to run troop trains where and as they pleased. They thus sent a delegation to weigh down on the government of the day to make it a legal requirement to build the new lines to standard gauge. Fortunately the army chiefs didn't know much about trains and while the initial metro line did duly respect the letter of the law by being standard gauge, the clearances of the tunnels and the radii of the curves were engineered to make the possibility of running useful standard equipment there a near impossibility.

Of course those skeptical of this story can point out that due to space constraints and having to follow existing streets and so on, that it was entirely rational to build the line with tight curves and narrow clearances. So maybe there is an element of truth to the story and maybe there isn't.
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Paris Metro loading gauge was never designed to accommodate main line anything. Maybe the bureaucrats had no idea that there were other factors involved beyond track gauge. All for the better for the sanity of the rest of the world. 🥴
 
jis said:
IIRC they had one in their early days. Suggest send an email to them and see if they follow up. Thanks.
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how would such a system work? A GPS beacon attached to the train? Or by sharing data from the signaling / dispatching system?
 
cirdan said:
how would such a system work? A GPS beacon attached to the train? Or by sharing data from the signaling / dispatching system?
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IDK. How do Tri-Rail and Amtrak do it? Probably GPS because they show speed and presumably with Starlink they'll have uninterrupted communication throughout the route.
 
cirdan said:
how would such a system work? A GPS beacon attached to the train? Or by sharing data from the signaling / dispatching system?
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The information is usually obtained from the CTC/Dispatching system by the operating company and then some even provide a web API for the information.

Of course any locomotive/cab car operating under I-ETMS has a GPS in the unit to provide it with position information.
 
Touchdowntom9 said:
Any idea why they shifted back to 4 car trains?
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Because they need all ten train sets to run the proposed schedule after service starts to Orlando. Also, by their own declaration it was done to deal with a temporary traffic situation. That has passed, so they have reverted back to standard consist.
 
joelkfla said:
Why does one car not have a gap filler?
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One end has steps I believe for detraining passengers without a platform after an accident, if necessary. The other end still has a gap filler. The 5 new sets each came with 2 cars equipped with steps at one end. At some point, a yellow square was placed on each window of a door with steps. Occasionally those doors cause trouble for passengers that don't realize they won't be opening. :D
 
jis said:
Yup, he is basically a snake oil salesman once one gets away from the original Virgin Atlantic Airline. Branson brings nothing of value in terms of rail service. He has only a number f failed services to show off in the UK where he failed to retain any of the franchises. that he had, and that was the original basis for Brightline to even talk to him.
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even so, the blame is also partly with Brightline IMHO. Anybody with any knowledge of international trains could have told them that Virgin trains was not exactly covering itself in glory in any of its UK activities, and that the Virgin brand as a whole was taking a serious knocking as a result of this. If Brightline honestly believed they could ride on Branson's coattails, they were seriously deluding themselves.
 
cirdan said:
even so, the blame is also partly with Brightline IMHO. Anybody with any knowledge of international trains could have told them that Virgin trains was not exactly covering itself in glory in any of its UK activities, and that the Virgin brand as a whole was taking a serious knocking as a result of this. If Brightline honestly believed they could ride on Branson's coattails, they were seriously deluding themselves.
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I don't know exactly what we would be blaming Brightline of. Exploring a deal with Virgin and get some Bransonian flare? Yeah they were naive. but they were bright enough to bail sooner rather than later once they realized their mistake. I don't know of any business that does not make such errors of judgement from time to time, and it would be presumptuous of us to expect such incredible perfection from any IMHO.
 
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ManganeseFrog said:
Occasionally those doors cause trouble for passengers that don't realize they won't be opening.
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When I ride Amtrak, NJ Transit, MARC, etc. Announcements are always made when all doors will not open and where passengers should expect to detrain. When I rode Brightline no announcement was made and the manager guy on our train (the one wearing the polo shirt who acted like a manger? The other workers were the ones selling concessions) yelled through the car to the passengers waiting for that door to open, he was extremely rude and unprofessional.
cirdan said:
that the Virgin brand as a whole was taking a serious knocking as a result of this. If Brightline honestly believed they could ride on Branson's coattails, they were seriously deluding themselves.
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In Miami, Virgin is a great brand name with the new Virgin Cruise Ships and Virgin Cruise Terminal. It would have been a great brand to partner with in Miami if the deal would have worked out. I've taken Brightline to and from Virgin Cruises a couple times already and will take many more I'm sure.
 
jis said:
I don't know exactly what we would be blaming Brightline of. Exploring a deal with Virgin and get some Bransonian flare? Yeah they were naive. but they were bright enough to bail sooner rather than later once they realized their mistake. I don't know of any business that does not make such errors of judgement from time to time, and it would be presumptuous of us to expect such incredible perfection from any IMHO.
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To me, exploring the options means having some low-key behind the scenes meetings to test the ground and critically evaluate the other party's value proposition. Maybe followed by a fact finding mission involving an actual journey on the misery that called itself Virgin Trains, of course anonymously and pretending to be normal travelers so they don't get the red carpet treatment.

Before you go full blast public with branding and announcements, you would expect some due diligence to have been done first. Of course anybody can make a mistake, but IMHO this was a huge mistake as mistakes go.
 
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