The Republicans proposing a 54% cut in the Amtrak budget need to be reminded of the iumportance of both Northeast Corridor service and long distance gtrains immediately after World Trade Center and Pentagon December 2001.
Is it possible to find high-ranking military people who can sustantiate the imporgtance of a national passenger-train network for National Defense.
However, I do wish Amtrak would end the food-service Money pit by adopting the Station Restaurant Catering scheme.
I am actually interested to see how Brightline does in the food service area if it ever produces public reporting or we ever get that granular level of detail. They have it via fully automated counters in their stations and I believe they have it via pushcart on their trains for their first class passengers between Miami and West Palm Beach. Amtrak hemmorages money with the pushcart service so I am curious if Brightline does the same.
If I remember correctly, Brightline is a subsidiary of a private developer and is not part of the national rail network. I don’t think that we’ll ever see a financial report of any kind from Brightline.
But the guy who runs Fortress said only a week or so ago that, surprisingly, Brightline operations were profitable above the rail… and this was unexpected because they’d anticipated it being a sizable ‘loss leader’ for the real-estate developments.
It would follow that if the food service or ‘hospitality’ arrangements were a contributor to profitability, he might discuss that freely at an appropriate time, and in fact that might be something that could be requested. I would certainly think that Amtrak management could get reasonable detail information from him.
Amtrak, forever the political football.
I presume “above the rail” does not include the usage fees for running on the FEC, much less the costs of building and maintaining their own Cocoa-Orlando line.
Suspect that useage fees going far into the future are paid for by the rebuilding of the FEC into a very sound ROW. That is especially the replacement of almost all bridge’s infrastructure. Operating costs might be for bridge tenders?
Now what could be a death penalty is the possibility of a full long Brightline train running into an oversize very heavy piece of equipment at track speed. A somewhat comparsion is what happened to the original Auto Train.
How/why would you even think of something like that? It’s actually kind of sick!
Perhaps you can explain in what alternate universe the ‘costs of building and maintaining their own Cocoa-Orlando line’ would be considered above-the-rail costs.[;)]
All I have to go on is the Fortress guy saying the Brightline service was unexpectedly profitable to them when it had been expected to be massively unprofitable.
I do not know how Brightline, East or West, is financially isolated from the main Fortress operations or the real-estate part of the development. I also don’t know if they enjoy the same hard $225M cap on total liability from an accident to one of their trains that Amtrak has, but I’d expect some reasonable insurance coverage for the potential ‘worst case’ accident liability accruing to them (I’m reasonably sure that a finding of even 1% ‘liability’ or negligence in a particular accident, be it ever so much a violation of four-quadrant gating or separated ROW, would result in deep-pockets assessment of any claims not covered by the ‘heavy vehicle’ insurance or subrogated recovery… which would probably be “most”).
Why is “below the above-the-rail” cost not included as a charge in assessments? Only because the charge would throw all assessments into the red? Those charges would include capitalized expenses, would they not? Not gross investments.
I don’t think your going to get that until the system is complete. With an incomplete system I am not sure it has much meaning. For example did they build the current rail infrastructure just for Miami-Palm Beach or did they build it for Orlando-Miami…or was the original intent Tampa-Miami or did they expect also to include a future Jacksonville to Miami service. Thats my take on him limiting it to above the rail. Media interview where he has a very short time to communicate to the public and investors. We’ll know in a few years or at some point in the future I am sure.
Auto-Train was not as diversified at this point and did not have the access to capital that Brightline seems to have. Also, Auto-Train was using equipment that was used and in finite supply or out of their reach financially to buy new. Then there is the long distance vs short distance comparison in that the turns on Auto-Train equipment was fairly bad as well.
I rode Brightline from Miami to West Palm Beach and return in March of 2020. I had a premium class seat. The car attendant gave me a menu, took my order, and brought the food and drinks.
I am going back this fall and ride the train from Miami to Orlando and return.
I think other readers are also interested in exactly what food and drink and their quality. And ditto for your forthcoming trip.
Keep politics out of this Forum, please. A post has been deleted.
Your train makes money because ‘farebox recovery’ exceeds operating expenses. Maintenance counts. What you paid to acquire rights to and build the track doesn’t, and neither does the unamortized first cost of the equipment. Very little depreciation would likely apply to Brightline even with creative accounting.
Perhaps PJS1 will look at this and opine in better detail what Fortress might mean by ‘unexpectedly profitable’.
So they’re only looking at marginal revenue and cost?
Operating expenses (no overhead) compared to farebox revenues plus any allocated subsidies is how Iwould interpret it, but I’m not a CPA or CFA .
Yes, I think we need to understant that Briteline is a real estate company branching out into the railway feild. Reminds me of Pacific Electric.
Now, I very much appreciate what they have done, and wish them all the success in the world, but we need to remember that Briteline gets to pick and choose what routes and services it provides, and is not expected or required to operate unprofitable services. Amtrak is required to do both, plus maintain the NEC.
Furthermore, and related to the thread, none of Briteline services or proposed services affect national security. The NEC, at least, does.
David
I disagree:
In the event of a really serious National Emergency, example, a cyber-attack that shuts down all airport traffic control, all effective ground transportation will be of use, Brightline as well as Amtrak, and buses.