MIAMI — Beginning this week, travelers commuting between West Palm Beach or Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and downtown Miami have more rush-hour frequencies to choose from.
Brightline, now officially known as Virgin Trains USA, on Wednesday supplemented its near-hourly weekday schedule with an additional southbound trip in the morning and northbound departure in the afternoon, upping weekday round-trips from 16 to 17.
Additional round-trips have also been added on weekends, bringing those totals to 10 on Saturday and 9 on Sunday.
Frequencies were ramped up in August, but the old schedule had hour-long gaps in peak periods. Now rush-hour patrons can board a train leaving West Palm Beach as early as 5 a.m. and then every half-hour from 6 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. southbound, with northbound trains out of Miami at 4:40 p.m., 5:10 p.m., and 5:40 p.m. The schedule also establishes Brightline’s first West Palm Beach northbound morning arrival at 7: 55 a.m. instead of 8:27 a.m.
“We believe the new schedule will work better for our current and future guests, and have already received positive feedback,” spokeswoman Ali Soule tells Trains News Wire.
The previous schedule was operated with only four of the five Brightline trainsets, with one always rotating out each day for maintenance. Now, all five trainsets are put into service every weekday, with the fourth one heading south from the West Palm Beach “Workshop b” maintenance facility in the morning and laying over all day at MiamiCentral until the extra 5:10 p.m. northbound train. The added dividend: a trainset ready on the south end to maintain schedules should a service disruption develop during the day.
This is encouraging. In regard to the deaths, a fair comparison to roadway fatalities would be to compare the number of people wandering out onto the roads or delibriatley throwing themselves in front of speeding cars in order to commit suicides. I don’t have those figures, but I suspect they’re quite low. But remove those numbers from Brightline, and I think they would have a perfect safety record so far. Can’t say that about autos!
This train in the photograph would look great with the Houston skyline as the backdrop. Brightline’s Siemens Charger locomotives are how Amtrak’s order for seventy-five locomotives should look if everyone of either party conducting the transaction at Amtrak and Siemens has good taste. After all, our tax dollars are investing in this.
Please, no more “cats without snouts”.
So there’s a market for rail? Why hasn’t Amtrak figured that out in 48 years?
When compared to the number of motor vehicle related deaths, 11 deaths is, tragically, a small number. We tend to ignore the 192 motor vehicle related deaths that occur every day…(2016 numbers)
Yet another trespasser was killed this week by a Brightline train. This one just north of the Ft Lauderdale station. Suspected suicide as he was thrown into Cypress Creek Canal. That makes for 11 fatalities since Brightline started service last year. The death in November was a bicycle rider who was wearing headphones and rode through the active crossing gates. Brightline has billboards, signs, commercials on TV on safety. You would think someone would get the message.