As I've ridden Amtrak to/from Ft Lauderdale a couple of times in the past 30 years or so - including this past January - I figured I'd only go as far as Ft Lauderdale Airport which is about a mile or so south of the Ft Lauderdale station. There, it was a walk across the tracks at the street on the north end of the station to board a southbound train 6-7 minutes later. The timetable indicated I would 'just miss' making the same southbound train had I stayed aboard to Ft Lauderdale. While waiting for the southbound train, I discovered I was looking for a toilet AND my stomach was telling me I'm 'starving'. So I decided to ride all the way back to the MIA airport and satisfy both needs there.
I think it's a toss-up as to which airport, MIA or MDW in Chicago is the furthest away from the rail station. But first, it's necessary to ride airport automated rubber-tire 'train' to the terminals then it's moving sidewalks from there. Even with the moving sidewalks at MIA, it was still 8-10 minutes to get to 'food'. I made the mistake of first going to the 'rental car' counter 'building'. Toilets, yes. Food, NO! Even the toilets were hard to find there! And of course, along the way at a 'break' between moving walkways, there was a overhead sign 'good food and drink, take elevator down right here! The elevator entrances were boarded over. I found Le Bon Pain (what a name!) in one of the terminals and paid for a slice of pizza and a Diet Coke with some of my 'jackpot' Susan B's and Sacajawea's. She carefully looked at one of each type to make sure they were real money. I would have too had I not had a similar jackpot on the Philadelphia subway about a year ago.
So, taking the 'trek' back to the Metrorail station, I boarded the orange line train to ride to the first stop, then switch to the green line train to Palmeto...the end of the line, which is 3 stops west of the Tri-Rail station. Then taking the train back as far as Government Center' it was out the gates', down to the ground level (from 2nd level up), and up 1 level to get to the FREE Miami MetroMover.
The Miami Metromover is also completely automated individual or paired 30' long rubber tired cars that follow a dual center guideway with what appears to be dual power feeders on each side of the guideway. LIONEL Lives! Most interesting were the 'switches'. In railroad terms, they are 'stub' switches where the center guideway only moves across the 'frog end' in slow motion. Each of the 'wings' of the stub has a gap to allow the rubber tires to pass through as the guideway is about 4-5" above the concrete 'roadway' tracks for the tires. How the tires decide to take the switch or go straight must be the result of electronic 'magic'.
I plotted a couple scenarios of how to ride past all the stations and minimize the number of stations I passed though twice. It's basically 3 overlapping loops with the green line going north out of the loop, the red line going south, and the orange line going around the loop non stop in the opposite direction of the other two routes. The first train that showed up - a single 30' car - was the red line to Financial District end of the line at the south. I could have taken the same car back, but as there were a good number of people waiting to board, I decided to wait 5-10 minutes for the next car to arrive & depart. I took the next car back to Knight Center (on the loop) and transferred to the green line single car to 'School Board'. While waiting for that car to arrive, I looked carefully at the route map in the station and found that the Wilke Ferguson aka Arena/State Plaza on my paper map is at the south end of the Brightline station. So, my plan was to ride the green line train to the end and back, get off at the Wilke Ferguson station, switch to the inner orange line train and make a complete loop returning to Wilke Ferguson to board Brightline. Riding the entire loop was about 10 minutes and each of the other 2 routes is about 10 minutes each way from loop to end of track. What's interesting about these automated cars is that the red and green lines are single cars only and most were somewhat crowded in the downtown loop area. The orange line 'inner loop' cars were in pairs and only 5-10 passengers in each. Also of note is that there are only 4 seats in each car, everyone else stands and hangs on! Interestingly, the cars on the inner loop acted like an automobile and 'pumped the brakes' at 2 of the stations. Go figure.
I was back in the Brightline station about 4:20PM. As I was planning on riding the 'select' class (nicer than Acela First Class!) again and getting a bit of free nourishment and free soda (I've been sober for more than 20 years) in the lounge first, I was going to take the 5:10 train, but the schedule on the screen at the ticket machines showed it was cancelled, so I took the 4:40. I'd have just enough time to get my ticket and get aboard. When getting my ticket in the morning, I didn't see the 'change seat' option, and it assigned me to seat 43, a single, forward facing seat on the west side of the train in the middle of the car. I thought I'd try changing seats on the evening train, but when it showed me the filled and available seats, I couldn't get a forward facing seat at a table for 4, so I took the one the computer assigned automatically...43 again. Except at the tables, all the seats had been turned to face forward at MIA. The trip back to WPB was quick and fast as far as the Ft Lauderdale station. We proceeded out of the station at 5-10 mph and kept that speed for a good 30-40 minutes. We even stopped briefly a couple of times. I initially figured we were behind a slow freight (does FEC run ANY freight slow on very-smooth track?) or were we down to single track account the other was out of service for maintenance? After about 10 minutes of going slow, they made an announcement over the PA as to why but with my poor hearing aids that are getting replaced in a couple weeks, I couldn't understand a word of what they said account too many passengers talking. 2 more announcements and 2 brief stops later, we speeded up to 30mph per my cell phone GPS. THEN I saw the reason for the slow running...crossing gate problems. There was a crew working on the gates at one of the crossings, and it was about 6:30 when we passed them! THAT had to be the problem. We were cruising at 75 mph (per my GPS) from that point on. PTC must have been forcing us to go slow the whole time! That explains the couple of words I did understand of the last announcement...'apologize', 'safety' and 'security'.
When I rode south this past January, my only goal then was to ride the Brightline. But arriving at FTL a couple hours late that trip and a 9:30ish departure in the morning, I never got to ride Brightline at all. So, based on this thread and suggestions on another forum, spending 2 nights in Florida is the secret to 'riding it all end-to-end'.
And to finish off my south Florida joy riding...one of the click-bait threads I found online while on the Silver Star was about the best burger joints in the USA praised 'Grease' in West Palm Beach. It was at the north end of the Brightrail station and 3-4 blocks straight east on Clematis St. They were right! A super delicious burger (12 oz of meat!!) cooked to order! (very rare for me). It's a great sports bar with TVs and maybe 10 or more different stations being shown. But as a recovering alcoholic, seeing 500 or more DIFFERENT kinds of booze behind the bar was like being a kid in a candy shop! Diet Pepsi sufficed.
Been there, love Grease! Not a vegan thing but for others ....
