ORLANDO, Fla. — Virgin Trains USA formally ushered in the “red spike era” Monday with a public groundbreaking event at its Orlando International Airport terminal.
That Virgin’s signature color is beginning to supplant Brightline’s familiar yellow branding is no surprise, but the company is definitely intent on playing the Virgin card as it begins construction to bring rails to Orlando from the trains’ current northern terminus of West Palm Beach.
Construction has already begun on four different phases of the project [see “Virgin Trains USA announces contractors, construction details for Orlando expansion,” Trains News Wire, May 22, 2019], but today’s event gave company officials, federal politicians, and civic leaders an opportunity to weigh in on its importance.
Wes Edens, Virgin Trains Chairman and co-founder of the Fortress Investment Group that got the ball rolling in 2012, says he expects the venture “will be the first of many passenger lines in the U.S. that follow this model for connecting city pairs that are too close to fly and too far to drive.”
Earlier, Edens told cable channel CNBC, “Tax-exempt financing is the key to (building) infrastructure from a private investment standpoint,” a clear indication he expects to continue to utilize private activity bonds for future Virgin endeavors. “There are many billions, even trillions, of dollars of investment capital in the private sector that [people are] willing to invest in infrastructure projects,” Edens says, adding, “It took us a long time to get organized [but] we’re 100% financed, which is why we’re having this wonderful event here.”
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, and U.S. Reps Darren Soto and Val Demings also participated in the event.
Trains News Wire will continue to monitor the progress of Virgin Trains USA’s expansion.
— Updated at 5:45 p.m. on June 24 to correct caption information.
I just walked through that new terminal a few weeks ago in Orlando and will go through it again soon.
Today, it is very quiet and very clean, but you can tell this terminal is going to be booming in a couple of years.
The platforms for Virgin are off limits today to the wandering folk, but the views are pretty nice.
If TCR does build in Texas, I can’t see Virgin making anything happen in the state. But if TCR does fail to get off the ground, I can see Virgin making the jump easily. Sorry, I don;t see any service to Waco anytime soon. Perhaps that is where you live? There just isn’t any real estate to work from profitably there.
Think tourism or real estate when it comes to Virgin.
Virgin Trains USA is literally more grounded than Texas Central. The potential market of expansion is the Texas Triangle between Houston, Dallas and San Antonio. While Texas Central is well advanced in developing service on the Dallas – Houston leg, Virgin Trains USA could still serve communities such as The Woodlands and Waco that will be skipped or bypassed by the TCR bullet trains.