How does Brightline make money?

Hi, thanks for tuning in to this installment of #bluestoolexplains, our new offshoot of the #bluestoolrants series. Today's video is about Brightline, private rail, and business! Brightline is a private rail company that's building highspeed rail lines in Florida and California. There aren't many private rail lines in the US, or many trains at all for that matter, so Brightline is definitely an outlier. Thing is, why aren't there more private rail companies? Why are there so few trains? Why is only Brightline doing this? Well, the reason there aren't more private rail companies like Brightline is because trains just aren't very profitable. Hold on though, if trains aren't profitable, then why would anyone ever open a private rail company like Brightline? Well, to answer that, you'll have to watch the video!
In this video we answer the questions:
- Why is private passenger rail so rare?
- Are there any modern examples of private passenger rail?
- How does private passenger rail (and Brightline) make money?
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Why is private passenger rail so rare?
0:36 - Are there any modern examples of private passenger rail?
2:30 - How does private passenger rail make money?
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[@traedpizza]

It's still kind of in the air, but it seems like open access operators in Europe are breaking even and some are making a profit. Private companies, like Iryo in Spain and Flixtrain in Germany, operate train services on publicly owned tracks. I don't know the details of Flixtrain, but Iryo (and Ouigo, but it's owned by the government of France) is actively expanding in the Spanish high speed network.

[@jlgf3148]

The main problem that exists with railways is the duality of their purpose. They can be a public good (comuter rail) or a commodity (intercity HSR) one normally isnt profitable (It really shouldn't need to be (to a degree) since it is a public service) and the other can be really profitable if build in the correct places.
If you take a look at the Spanish rail system, since the rail owner and builder ADIF was separated from the train operator RENFE and severlines were liberalized (private companies can operate their onw trains on them) The fees from these new services has turned certain lines like the Mdrid-Zaragoza-Barcelona line into cashcows. Even other lines like Madrid-Valencia and Madrid-Seville witll problably become profitable.

[@bluechairreviews]

I’ll have to look more into those!

[@kaminski8000]

Great business case! If you have more examples, I'd love to see them, too. :)

[@jhmcd2]

Never heard anyone take this angle before, and your right. Emirates doesn't really make money as an airline, sure they I don't they are broke, but I think their profits off their airlines are thin. What they do make money on is real estate in Dubai. I will be careful about the Japanese train companies though. They may own those stores by the lines themselves are heavily funded by the Japanese government, so they also don't put a lot of money into their systems ether.

[@bluechairreviews]

Brightline, like the Japanese Companies, actually has a good amount of government funding as well! It’s not 100% privately funded, or at least its construction wasn’t.

[@user-hp5sy9ut9b]

So brightline will be connecting with trirail?

[@bluechairreviews]

Seems like!

[@MrMarshmallow26]

Tri-Rail’s shuttle train has already been in operation to the Miami station. There are even talks for commuter rail on Brightline/FEC tracks.

[@qjtvaddict]

Amtrak barely runs and outside of NEC is bloody useless brightline is decent and useful

[@bluechairreviews]

As of right now, that is very true, Amtrack is working to fix this though, and you’ll likely see better Amtrak service in the future.
media.amtrak.com/amtrak-connects-us/
Some of the improvements will also be done on the NEC to allow the acellas to actually reach high speeds. This along with Brightline, CAHSR, and (maybe) Texas Central should make for a more robust future network in the US!

[@kaminski8000]

On paper Hong Kong transit corporation is owned by its government, but in reality it fully operates a private business model called rail & property. They are so profitable that they are one of the sources of government revenue. More about it in the video "How 🇭🇰 Hong Kong Built the World's Best Transit" by the channel @PolyMatter :)

[@bluechairreviews]

That’s an interesting arrangement. For profit government owned housing is definitely not common in the west.