Private passenger train company Brightline Holdings and Siemens Mobility showcased its new modern train sets being built in Sacramento for the Florida market.
Siemens delivered its first train set to Brightline in 2017.
Brightline’s proposition is that it can build “passenger rail on a profitable scale,” said Michael Reininger, CEO of Brightline Holdings. “We are here to do no less than challenge the status quo.”
He said the rail options are more convenient than alternative transportation such as passenger cars and planes, more ecologically sound and safer. He pointed out that Florida, the third-largest state by population, doesn't have any other intercity passenger train service.
The company has invested $4.5 billion in Florida so far, and its lines are 60% complete. The Southern Florida lines have been up and running since 2017, and Brightline is completing stations farther north including in Aventura, Boca Raton and at Orlando International Airport, expected to be completed next year.
An additional future line will connect Orlando to Walt Disney World Resort and then Tampa.
Brightline likes relatively large metropolitan markets that are about 150 miles to 250 miles apart, which are “too close to fly and too far to drive,” Reininger said.
It also looks for opportunities to leverage previously made transportation investments, which allows it to work faster and use existing right-of-ways, he said. That also helps make permitting easier and faster.
Beyond just being a ride, Brightline is also about the experience, Reininger said. All of its train stations are purpose-built from the ground up.
“It’s not like a transit system but more like a hospitality company,” he said.
The coaches feature extra wide aisles and are wheelchair accessible throughout, including the bathrooms. The seats feature table trays like commercial airplanes, and each seat has access to USB chargers as well as full electric outlets. The entire train has high-speed internet, and the coaches feature bike racks. The trains are 100% reserved seating.
“It’s a true service,” said Michael Cahill, president of Siemens Mobility Rolling Stock in North America. “The trains are only a subset of the entire experience.”
The train stations feature music, attractive amenities and even their own signature scent, said spokesman Ben Porritt.
The Florida Brightline trains are diesel electric locomotives that meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new stringent Tier 4 emissions standards.
Brightline's first order was for 10 locomotives and 20 coaches. Its second phase will add 11 more locomotives and 20 coaches, with an option for 30 more coaches. The train sets have a life expectancy of about 30 years with proper maintenance.
Brightline is funded by New York-based investment management company Fortress Investment Group LLC.
Brightline is also planning to begin work next year on an all-electric dedicated passenger rail service from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. That $8.4 billion investment will be the “greenest transportation system in the country,” Reininger said. The trains will follow the Interstate 15 corridor to make a 260-mile journey at up to 200 miles per hour. That system will take four years to complete once its breaks ground, Reininger said. It will feature hourly train service each way, 16 hours a day.
The Florida Brightline trains will travel at 79 miles per hour from Miami to West Palm Beach, which are congested corridors. When the trains get to dedicated lines north of that, from West Palm Beach to Orlando, they can travel at 125 miles per hour, Reininger said.
The Siemens train factory in Sacramento sits on 64 acres with 800,000 square feet of factory buildings. It employs 2,100 people, and it has 2.1 megawatts of solar photovoltaics that serve as shade structures in the parking lots and partially power the factory, which supplies heavy rail locomotives, coaches and light rail cars to Amtrak, and operators of rail and light rail passenger systems in the U.S. and Canada. The factory in the past three years has received new orders for more than $5 billion in trains, coaches and light rail from Amtrak and other rail systems. Siemens Mobility has more than doubled its Sacramento workforce in the past six years.
