Florida High Speed Rail Route Breaks Records

Florida’s high speed rail line has broken a number of its own records, Brightline Florida has announced.

The Brightline route, launched in September 2022, runs between Miami and Orlando, and is the only privately owned and operated intercity railroad for passengers in the U.S. According to its latest report, the company outdid several records in March, including revenue and passenger numbers on its routes, one of which opened in September 2023.

In a summary of its March ridership report, the company said it posted ticket revenue of $15 million, a 218 percent increase from the same month in 2023, and total revenue of $18.1 million, both records for the company. Ridership is also up year on year, with 258,307 passengers using the service compared with 179,576 the year before. An average of 8,332 people used the service per day, which the company says is a record. Newsweek has contacted Brightline for comment via email outside of normal working hours.

The rail company also reported that daily bookings for March were approximately 4,600, up from 4,300 per day in February and 4,200 per day in January.

Brightline is going from strength to strength in a country that, in more modern times, has prioritized air and road travel over passenger trains. Tracks dating back to the 19th century are now most commonly used by freight trains, and while Amtrak operates across the breadth of the contiguous U.S., it is most heavily used in its Northeast Corridor, far away from the Sunshine State.

As such, Brightline is capitalizing on an open market. In March, the company announced it has selected Martin County and the city of Stuart, Florida, as its latest locations for intercity passenger rail stations.

Also in the works is a high-speed rail connection between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Brightline West will make the journey between Las Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga, an LA suburb, in little over two hours. The project has been granted $3 billion in federal funds from President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

“At long last, we’re building the first high-speed rail project in our nation’s history,” Biden said regarding the project in December 2023. “We’ve been talking about this project for decades. Now we’re really getting it done.”

Once complete, electric trains along the route will travel at speeds of up to 186 mph. According to Google Maps, the drive between the same destinations would take around three hours, not accounting for traffic.

“You’ll be sitting there flying by on Brightline looking at all these brake lights on the highway and thinking, ‘It sucks to be you,'” said Jim Mathews, CEO of the Rail Passengers Association, according to the Robb Report. “That’s what it’s going to be like for all those people trying to get from greater Los Angeles to Las Vegas.”