Brightline West Construction and Projected Opening (2024 - 2028)

Gilbert B Norman wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2024 10:33 am

HenryAlan wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2024 9:54 am It's worth noting that this "funding" is a bit different, though, from the $3 billion grant. In this case, the Fed gov is essentially incentivizing bond sales. But make no mistake, the $2.5 billion will be debt on Brightline's balance sheet, whereas the $3 billion will be booked as revenue on the income statement.

Paid In Capital is more like it, Mr. Alan.

GBN; CPA

Thank you Mr. Norman, but the article said bonds, not shares. I work in health care finance, and some terms might be different by industry, but bonds are always debt, and paid in capital, so far as I've ever seen, is always the shareholder funds.

Details of upcoming work: News3LV.com

Work set to begin for Brightline West high-speed train connecting Las Vegas, California
...
According to the announcement, field work began in January to advance the final stages of design in preparation for a groundbreaking. Field investigation work includes geotechnical borings and samplings, utility potholing, and land surveying.
...
In some instances, short-term closures of freeway shoulders will be required. All work will be done in compliance with applicable environmental regulations and in coordination with Caltrans and the Nevada Department of Transportation.
...
see link for project areas listed
...

It looks like Siemens is proposing the American Pioneer 220 for this service.

Lucid Stew's new 3D Youtube video of the proposed Brightline West route from 30% design.




Very informative if you do not have time to read through the entire document.

Brightline West Groundbreaking to take place Monday

Brightline West plans to break ground next week on its Las Vegas-to-Southern California high-speed train system.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will join Brightline founder Wes Edens and federal, state and local officials from Nevada and California on Monday at the planned Las Vegas station site for a ceremony kicking off construction on the 218-mile rail line.

Interesting that the Vegas paper only mentions Cucamonga and Apple Valley in the station list, omitting the commuter stop in Hesperia.

NEWS ITEM:

BRIGHTLINE BREAKS GROUND[

Brief, fair use quote

Treasury Secretary Pete Buttigieg joined state and federal officials Monday to break ground on a $12 billion high-speed rail line between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles suburb Rancho Cucamonga. Brightline, the company building the railway, said the electric-powered trains will travel at more than 186 mph and shuttle passengers through the Mojave Desert in 2 hours 10 minutes, about half the time of driving on frequently gridlocked I-15.

My comment: I’m waiting for California’s air pollution and plant/animal preservation people to insert their monkey wrenches. See also Central California.

John_Perkowski wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2024 4:14 pm NEWS ITEM:

BRIGHTLINE BREAKS GROUND[

Brief, fair use quote

Treasury Secretary Pete Buttigieg joined state and federal officials Monday to break ground on a $12 billion high-speed rail line between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles suburb Rancho Cucamonga. Brightline, the company building the railway, said the electric-powered trains will travel at more than 186 mph and shuttle passengers through the Mojave Desert in 2 hours 10 minutes, about half the time of driving on frequently gridlocked I-15.

My comment: I’m waiting for California’s air pollution and plant/animal preservation people to insert their monkey wrenches. See also Central California.

I'm not sure, as it's in / next to an existing highway full of polluting cars.

JohnFromJersey wrote: ↑Mon Jan 01, 2024 9:40 pm
KONT is surrounded by railroads, but there is no direct railroad route that could be established between KONT and the Rancho Cucamonga station. That being said, 3.7 miles is a short distance, a simple shuttle should suffice, but that puts you at the mercy of Southern California traffic...

The light rail formally called the Gold line is what in the end seems the most likely to connect all these things. There was talk of extending it to ONT at times. It isn't yet funded beyond Pomona. It is in the metrolink ROW just short of Rancho so it can be extended to this BLW station in principle. It can then turn south to ONT via Milliken Ave. This is a 6 lane strode which they could pretty easily take 2 lanes of to reach the rail ROW to ONT (about 1 mile at most).

CAHSR is going to be routed out here also so it will make sense to use the light rail to connect all the services here. The only issue at all with doing this is that LA county pays for the light rail and this is in San Bernardino. They should be able to work out formula funding though for the short line into their county or via the state.

Of course BLW can connect to CAHSR at Palmdale as well which would be a direct connection. I nevertheless believe a light rail connection to ONT will be built at some point as it is insane to have a rail link terminate 2 miles from your major airport and not connect it. Hopefully the planning of the CAHSR and BLW will be far enough along to connect everything up with one final segment.

Good luck; especially considering the reports that Brightline (Florida) is not "making numbers".

2028 of course means 2030, or about when Amtrak can expect to have the Airo equipment in revenue service.

Maybe they'll let me out of the nursing home to fly out to KONT, take a joyride, and return home from KLAS.

But finally, to close more on point, we should note that East only required some twenty eight miles of new right of way, compared with, IIRC from the vid, 210. East could not be more conducive to a rail considering Florida's "pancaked terrain". Same can hardly be said of Southern California's.

Of concern to me is the distance of the Meadows station from the Strip. Wonder why, they did not try to access UP's ROW and have the station at the heart of the Strip - say at Flamingo Road.

All told, it would be more comfortable to me if East were "making numbers" before plunging into West.

The Brightline extension might have required only 28 miles of new ROW, but it also entailed extensive additional trackage, new bridges and grade crossing improvements in the stretch from West Palm to Cocoa. BLW, by comparison, has fewer grade crossings, and the rivers it will need to bridge have no boating interests since they only intermittently contain water. So while it contains a lot more track, I have a hunch that in all it's a simpler project.

When I looked at the latest Metrolink map, I saw that there is, in fact, an existing shuttle service from RC to ONT; the schedule has it making the connection in c. 15-20 minutes. So that apparently already exists, but I am not sure how valuable it is in relation to BLW except possibly for people coming from the other two California stops.

markhb wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2024 9:02 am The Brightline extension might have required only 28 miles of new ROW, but it also entailed extensive additional trackage, new bridges and grade crossing improvements in the stretch from West Palm to Cocoa

Indeed true, Mr Mark HB.

However, lest we forget that King Henry long touted the FEC as the "Double Track Route" to shippers and passengers. It was only since the '62 strike that got FEC out of the through passenger business (save the two car "plug run" an agency forced them to return), and which was the prompt to yank the second track.