All Aboard Florida, Pullman Rail Journey's Future

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RickIronton

Train Attendant
Joined
May 2, 2013
Messages
92
As much as I hope that private rail lines will succeed, I see no way that All Aboard Florida and Pullman Rail Journeys will be profitable.

Pullman's parent company, Iowa Holding has just sold Pullman and All Aboard is two years behind schedule and it's parent company, SEC, is in debt.

Is anyone optimistic that private rail companies have a future?
 
I cannot speak to Pullman's situation, but that case seems to be one of a bunch of headscratchers and clashes with Amtrak causing problems.

All Aboard Florida, on the other hand, is in quite good shape. FEC is in debt, but so are all Class Is as far as I know. FEC is owned (by way of an intermediary holding company) by Fortress Investment Group, and it's pretty clear that the guys in New York thought this rail service made enough sense to bet a few billion dollars on it (even by way of a government-aided loan, it's still a lot of money). There's a lot of NIMBY stuff going on down there, but that's one part folks complaining about not getting a stop, one part unclear cost distributions...and one part generic NIMBY whining.
 
After reading the article, it sounds like they are looking for investment to grow. I believe they are building a foundation on which to operate the Hoosier State and keep their other passenger operations building for growth.

But if it doesn't make anyone money, then yes, they'll close.

FEC's All Aboard Florida continues to progress. Perhaps slower than initally planned, but it wasn't for financing. The irrational opposition to their plans by locals have stymied the schedule. But they are on track for an East Coast train by 2016 and to Orlando by 2017. Three years. In that amount of time, Amtrak may be able to fund another study that will tell them that people want the FEC used from JAX to MIA. And, they won't act on it.
 
After reading the article, it sounds like they are looking for investment to grow. I believe they are building a foundation on which to operate the Hoosier State and keep their other passenger operations building for growth.

But if it doesn't make anyone money, then yes, they'll close.

FEC's All Aboard Florida continues to progress. Perhaps slower than initally planned, but it wasn't for financing. The irrational opposition to their plans by locals have stymied the schedule. But they are on track for an East Coast train by 2016 and to Orlando by 2017. Three years. In that amount of time, Amtrak may be able to fund another study that will tell them that people want the FEC used from JAX to MIA. And, they won't act on it.
No, but FEC will, and Amtrak's studies will likely help them out on any EIS work. Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if Amtrak and FEC end up working on a study together (pooling the "consultant" state of the project as much as possible and just working off of different speed/frequency assumptions).
 
As much as I hope that private rail lines will succeed, I see no way that All Aboard Florida and Pullman Rail Journeys will be profitable.

Pullman's parent company, Iowa Holding has just sold Pullman and All Aboard is two years behind schedule and it's parent company, SEC, is in debt.

Is anyone optimistic that private rail companies have a future?
I am not, judging by the history of companies like Auto-Train and American European, to cite two of the more successful ones. They start off with hoopla and a modicum of success, but after a while, unfortunate occurrences finally do them in. Even Amtrak, without huge government support, would long be gone.....
 
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