MIAMI — Tri-Rail commuter service to Brightline’s MiamiCentral station is now projected to begin this fall, according to David Dech, executive director of the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority.
The website Miami Today reports Dech made that projection last week during a presentation to the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust board.
Tri-Rail, which currently has its Miami terminal at Miami International Airport, was supposed to have begun downtown service in 2017. But the $70 million project has encountered numerous setbacks, including positive train control issues that ended hopes for service in 2019 [see “PTC stalls Tri-Rail move …,” Trains News Wire, June 19, 2019] and platform clearance problems at MiamiCentral discovered in 2021 [see “Tri-Rail service to Brightline’s Miami station faces clearance issues,” News Wire, Dec. 13, 2021].
Dech said Brightline had completed platform work on the tracks to be used by Tri-Rail, and that a number of training questions involving Brightline, Tri-Rail, and the Florida East Coast Railway have been addressed.
“We’ve got some really quality conversations going on between us and our partners and Brightline and FEC,” Dech said last year, “and I think that’s one of the things that we were missing before.”
Finally.
Good work Dave!
Very Cool 🙂
“We’ve got some really quality conversations going on between us and our partners and Brightline and FEC,” Dech said last year, “and I think that’s one of the things that we were missing before.”
Stating the obvious. Signing a service agreement with Brightline before they did a check to see if the cars could fit @ Miami Central.
Reminds me of Illinois Terminal buying all those nice interurban cars from St Louis Car in the 1950’s just to find out they didn’t fit on 40% of their network.
The service agreement was signed before the station was built.