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  • Brightline (All Aboard Florida) Orlando - Miami FL FEC fka Virgin Rail

  • This is a forum for all operations, both current and planned, of Brightline, formerly All Aboard Florida and Virgin Trains USA:
    Websites: Current Brightline
    Virgin USA
    Virgin UK
This is a forum for all operations, both current and planned, of Brightline, formerly All Aboard Florida and Virgin Trains USA:
Websites: Current Brightline
Virgin USA
Virgin UK

Moderator: CRail

 #1492106  by Jeff Smith
 
http://railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=137&t=168630" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The above topic is for expansion and IPO discussion over in General Passenger Rail. This will remain for the “original” in Florida forum. There are also topics in “Florida” for Tampa and Jacksonville. There is also a dedicated topic for Las Vegas service in “General”.

At some point we may have a dedicated Virgin Rail forum. How far we’ve come!

I’ve also refitted this threa.
 #1492140  by gokeefe
 
Dominos keep coming down.
Another obstacle has been overcome in Brightline’s pursuit of expanding higher-speed passenger rail service between West Palm Beach and Orlando, but the track is far from clear.

Martin County commissioners held a special session in Stuart on Saturday and voted to approve a settlement with Brightline, ending years of court battles that cost the county an estimated $4 million, said commission Chairman Edward Ciampi.
 #1492149  by Jeff Smith
 
Among other things, the settlement calls for safety enhancements along the tracks, Quiet Zones, help with paying rail-related maintenance costs, increased boating navigation under rail bridges, and splitting the cost of building at least one train station on the Treasure Coast
You could see this coming... I’m glad common sense is beginning to prevail. With the cash infusion from Sir Richard as discussed in the expansion topic, this makes it much easier.
 #1493041  by Arlington
 
A quick review of what we knew, when:
MID-SUMMER
January: 17,800 passengers, $146,500
February: 24,100 passengers, $220,000
March: 32,900 passengers, $297,300
OCTOBER
Arlington wrote:So here are 5 more reasonable "how are they doing" estimates from passenger data so far:
FORECASTS for CALENDAR YEAR 2018

5) Better, consider that going from 11 tpdew to 16 tpdew may capture both time-of-day and S-curve (frequency-convenience) growth in Q3 & Q4
74k+106k+180k+250k = 610k = 55% of calendar 2018 forecast
60,000 riders and ~1.2M* revenue for October 2018*
80,660 riders and $1.5M in revenue for November 2018.

So my highest-end forecast from October (which swagged 250k riders for calendar Q4) is only 4% high if they do 100k in December, for a total of 240k for Q4.

January will be really interesting! If they're already doing $1.5m in revs in October, they'll probably be something like $2.1M in January 2019, which is a nice 14x growth in revenue. And ridership could be 120,000, a 6.7x growth vs last year.

Also note that riders "back then" were getting introductory fares, and with a move to "regular fares" (which seem to be, on average, double the intro fares), ridership will have grown 7x, but revenues will have grown 14x (showing that revenue growth is a mix of both ridership growth and a doubling of average fares).

*Extrapolated from press release saying ridership was up 34% since October
 #1493129  by Jadebenn
 
Arlington wrote:60,000 riders and ~1.2M* revenue for October 2018*
Arlington wrote:*Extrapolated from press release saying ridership was up 34% since October
You don't need to guess on the October figures; they were released on the 20th of November.
The figures for October are 60,013 passengers and revenue of approximately $1.0 million
 #1493137  by Arlington
 
^ thanks! How far back do monthly statistics go? Are they organized somewhere?
 #1493171  by Jadebenn
 
I believe October was the first time they released monthly (and not just quarterly) numbers since the first quarter of 2018. So while it appears they're going to be releasing them regularly now, there's a big "gap" in Q2 and Q3.

You can find all their released documents under the "Continuing Disclosure" tab of this page.
 #1493299  by Gilbert B Norman
 
gokeefe wrote:About that cake Mr. Norman
Mr. O'Keefe, I'm very pleased to learn that Brightline/Virgin is enjoying this passenger growth - especially since they have doubled their standard fares, starting to develop demand pricing, and are now charging for parking at their stations.

I'm planning two trips "down below" next year; January fly to Miami staying at a Marriott adjacent to the Arts Center for the Cleveland Orchestra, and the other in February staying "who knows where" (after the bad scene at my usual Boca hotel last year). I'll do a January joyride paying what I must, but the best would be to take a February REAL ride up to W Palm to the Kravis Center for a performance - and using AAF/BL/VR to simply "get there and back".
 #1493373  by gokeefe
 
I am surprised but I suspect not nearly as astonished as someone such as yourself who saw Amtrak takeover service from his own road. Hope the trip is rewarding.

I would note additionally that Brightline/Virgin is now claiming they will build their own Rights of Way some of their future proposed service.

Should be interesting to see how the airlines cope with the return of a competitor they had so gladly written off in most of the country.
 #1493420  by David Benton
 
I am trying to think of a precedent for a private passenger railroad line been built , without govt subsidy or incentives.
minds blank so far..., but that could be monday morningitis.
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