LAS VEGAS, Nev. – Florida’s Brightline announced Tuesday that it intends to compete in the heavily traveled Las Vegas-Los Angeles Basin market by acquiring XpressWest. That company won the right from the Nevada High Speed Rail Authority...
http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2018/09/18-brightline-eyes-las-vegas-la
Brian Schmidt, Editor, Classic Trains magazine
Brian Schmidt LAS VEGAS, Nev. – Florida’s Brightline announced Tuesday that it intends to compete in the heavily traveled Las Vegas-Los Angeles Basin market by acquiring XpressWest. That company won the right from the Nevada High Speed Rail Authority... http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2018/09/18-brightline-eyes-las-vegas-la
For all of the nonsense that gets hashed back and forth in these forums I am surprised that no one has commented on this. This is a huge game changer and a positive development.
mdwFor all of the nonsense that gets hashed back and forth in these forums I am surprised that no one has commented on this. This is a huge game changer and a positive development.
Not so much. Read the anti-Brightline Palm Beach Herald. Brightline has missed both it's ridership and revenue projections as evidenced in the last set of financial statements it had to submit for the Bond issue for the Orlando line construction. Brightline pooh-poohed the info when questioned but the media is raising it's eyebrows in Florida at this expansion when it has yet to prove profitability in Florida.....and you know what? They are right.
Very bad business practice to expand before you prove your business concept. It leads very quickly to loss of confidence by investors or bond holders at the next bump in the road. Which can lead to a disasterous down grading of the quality of debt and a dramatic increase in the interest rates you pay on the debt........changing the overall financial picture. Brightline does not yet have to worry as much about that scenario because it has no stock on the market and is still a private company. Plus, they still have the deep pockets of Fortress Investments behind them. Post IPO though, they would probably not make such an aggressive move as this. It is very aggressive given they have not made any money yet in Florida AND the past two owners of this LA to Las Vegas rail line concept failed or dumped it on someone else.
I wish them the best of luck but the odds are against them unfortunately.
1) Vegas is the busiest during the weekends. I can get round trip plane tickets (depart Friday/return Sunday) for around $250 from any of the major airports that are within 30 miles of most of the So. Cal population.
2) Victorville is halfway to Vegas. Most people will opt to drive the entire way unless the tickets are inexpensive.
I would be more hopeful if the backers had nixed the bullet train and opted for regular speed trains running from inside the LA/OC metroplex (ex: fullerton and LA Union Station) with luxurious accomodations like leather seats and WiFi on existing rail routes. Unfortunately, the infrastructure owners (UP and BNSF) want too much money to make this feasable.
CMStPnP,
The ridership revenue projections that you and some in the media say they have missed are not for the service ramp up period that we are in presently. Brightline has always said in its documentation that there will be a 3 year period of time after the full project is built to achieve their projected ridership and revenue numbers. That means their expected 3 million riders per year will be valid for the year 2025. No one could reasonably expect a brand new passenger rail service that only goes 65 miles to make money from the very start. They have also started implementing demand pricing as well so they must feel confident that the ridership numbers are on track. None of us know the complete financial status at this time. But I do know that Wes Edens is personally involved in Brightline and I would assume he has the support of Softbank to expand Brightline at this time. I would not be too concerned about them expanding too fast or not making enough revenue as they have the backing of some very wealthy entities.
Brian_Tampa CMStPnP, The ridership revenue projections that you and some in the media say they have missed are not for the service ramp up period that we are in presently. Brightline has always said in its documentation that there will be a 3 year period of time after the full project is built to achieve their projected ridership and revenue numbers. That means their expected 3 million riders per year will be valid for the year 2025. No one could reasonably expect a brand new passenger rail service that only goes 65 miles to make money from the very start. They have also started implementing demand pricing as well so they must feel confident that the ridership numbers are on track. None of us know the complete financial status at this time. But I do know that Wes Edens is personally involved in Brightline and I would assume he has the support of Softbank to expand Brightline at this time. I would not be too concerned about them expanding too fast or not making enough revenue as they have the backing of some very wealthy entities.
I am not too concerned and I did say it was a clearly anti-Brightline newspaper because of all the NIMBY's in that city including Robert Crandall. It is a risky move though. I figured that Fortress Investments was still behind them on it.
JoeBlow2) Victorville is halfway to Vegas. Most people will opt to drive the entire way unless the tickets are inexpensive.
So what is amazing here is with corridors like Milwaukee to Chicago. There are actually more than a handful of people that get off the Milwaukee to Green Bay Amtrak Thruway bus and transfer over to Amtrak which surprised me. Only observed one frequency so far but I think the next time I am in town I might steak out the Greyhound part of the Amtrak terminal to see if that is the case on all the thruway busses. I was surprised to see they actually had folks from Green Bay on the Greyhound bus that moved over to the Milwaukee to Chicago train in Milwaukee. I presumed those busses moved mostly empty but it appears not.
Point of that story is that I have my doubts everyone will drive to Las Vegas and I think if Brightline initiated a bus shuttle from LA to Victorville they could capture part of the market without building to LA. Also with Milwaukee to Chicago, myself and my relatives on average drive 30-40 miles to the Amtrak station and park there to ride the train to Chicago. My Aunt drives 80 miles in to ride the train to Chicago. Because CUS is so convienent to the Loop and Chicago attractions, you really do not need a car once you arrive and it saves the expense and hassle of having a car in the city.
The weekend tickets to Las Vegas will probably be cheaper on Brightline as well.
As for BNSF and UP, your presumption is Brightline will use their tracks, maybe not all the way. I think out West in the unpopulated areas the BNSF and UP right of ways are a lot larger then within a built up city. Also, I am not sure Brightline is proposing to be on their track the entire distance. Laying new track out in the boonies is probably an option........in which case I would not expect Brightline to use the line over whatever pass BNSF and UP uses.........rather they might engineer their own line and lay their own track BUT use or purchase usage rights for the existing right of way where they need to.........to avoid eminent domain. In which case the BNSF / UP fees would be a lot cheaper.
The reporter for the newspaper, Jeff O. has never written a positive story about Brightline for as long as I can remember. I can't believe that Brightline thought they would get 1M riders in 2018 without Orlando operational. I have the document for the PAB solicitation last year that Jeff refers to somewhere. But I also have seen earlier documents that consistently mentioned a 3 year ramp up time but that was assuming Orlando would not be online 4 years after WPB to Miami started. If BL gets 400k riders this year that would be excellent. I have the redacted original ridership study from 2012 hidden away that I need to find again... it doesn't show revenue but it did have ridership numbers.
My point is that we won't know if the whole Brightline concept is successful until Orlando has been part of the system for at least 3 years. Thankfully the owners have deep pockets and what appears to be a long term vision to reimagine passenger rail in this country.
[quote user="CMStPnP"]
What you might be missing is that on weekends and especially Sunday afternoon the drive from Vegas to SoCal can take 6-8 hours instead of the typical 4+, especially if there is an accident. There is no alternate route to I-15 across the Mojave Desert to Vegas so you can sit for hours behind an accident backup. Also, even in the best conditions there can be a 40 min. slow crawl to the Nev./Calif. boarder at Prim, Nev. because I-15 narrows from 3 lanes to 2. If you had read any of the press releases, XpressWest has received all necessary approvals to build a new rail line (avoiding difficulties with the always difficult UP) paralleling I-15. Brightline brings the money to build. Your though of a bus feeder to Victorville for now would be a good idea (BTW most of worst part of the drive is from Victorville on). Remember that in the works now is the High Desert Corridor from Victorville to Palmdale, a freeway with a HSR right of way built into it so XpressWest can connect to Metrolink now and later join the California HSR line to LA.
Remember that there is about 3-4 million people in central Orange County and most of the Inland Empire in SoCal for whom Victorville is only a 45 min. to 1 hour drive away. I saw this is a game changer because if Brightline gets this built, it will open a huge market and build huge momentum to get the California HSR line though the San Gabriel Mnts. into LA to fully tap this market. It seems obvious that this can leverage money from the Vegas casinos because this will feed their hotels.
mdwIt seems obvious that this can leverage money from the Vegas casinos because this will feed their hotels.
They do not always have the deep pockets everyone presumes. In Dallas an effort was made to get the Shreveport, LA Casinos to pay for partial or full year costs of the Dallas Southern Crescent extension. Initially they said yes but when they saw the final projected tab they backed away and said no. So be careful on counting on a Casino for support. Though I will say in Milwaukee the Casino there is paying the first year costs of running the city trolley starter line. I don't think that is a large amount of money for them though.
All the previous posts miss one important factor: Real Estate. The primary purpose of Brightline, as I see it, is to enhance Fortress's real estate property values.
Possibly this is also the important angle in Nevada?
CMStPnPIn Dallas an effort was made to get the Shreveport, LA Casinos to pay for partial or full year costs of the Dallas Southern Crescent extension. Initially they said yes but when they saw the final projected tab they backed away and said no.
And when you look at the cost and then the prospective traffic to Shreveport/Bossier from the actual Dallas extension, you'd probably back away too. Clever of the Texans to ask for the cheap OPM, but what they're going to find is that they'll have to build it, and be sure they will come, before the casinos fork out for that particular pig.
Now, were the case made to give assurance of attendance from an adequate and demonstrated number of passengers, and provide opportunities for the kinds of things casinos can do to draw or facilitate traffic, it would be interesting to see what kind of assistance could be provided for a Crescent extension already built and running.
OvermodAnd when you look at the cost and then the prospective traffic to Shreveport/Bossier from the actual Dallas extension, you'd probably back away too. Clever of the Texans to ask for the cheap OPM, but what they're going to find is that they'll have to build it, and be sure they will come, before the casinos fork out for that particular pig. Now, were the case made to give assurance of attendance from an adequate and demonstrated number of passengers, and provide opportunities for the kinds of things casinos can do to draw or facilitate traffic, it would be interesting to see what kind of assistance could be provided for a Crescent extension already built and running.
It was some guy or group in Shreveport, LA that setup the whole proposal, then the Mayor of Meridian, MS jumped on board. Texas stated up front they would not pay for the service in it's entirety that there had to be cost sharing with LA and MS. MS said unlikely, LA said no at the state level but somehow this guy or group got the Casino's interested and they said "possibly" So the proposal moved forwards until it came time to fund the test/eval train over the route. Casinos stated they needed to see some hard numbers first. Amtrak sent them a forecast based on what they knew so far AND thats when they backed away. The Texas position was they would go for it as long as they only were paying primarily for a portion of the costs rather the majority of costs. It all fell apart when Amtrak asked who would pay for the test train though............which I found to be a little humorous.
What were they proposing to do, fork the train and operate over the Meridian Speedway through Shreveport? Has a weird sort of logic if you keep the connecting service relatively cheap ... or if traffic from the feeder areas ramps up reliably to support something more interesting or luxurious. I'd be interested to see just what the 'casino guys' anticipated would be the areas of ridership that would go to their boats. As you can see from my comment I was ill-informed on the specifics.
OvermodWhat were they proposing to do, fork the train and operate over the Meridian Speedway through Shreveport?
Yes that was the proposal (above). I suspect the Casinos thought the price would be approx to a couple of charter buses......just a suspicion I have.
It's hard to find info on it now via the Internet as it is the former CAP ROCK express proposal which was Dallas to Denver on BNSF.
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