Brightline from Miami to Orlando - First Trip and Station Reviews!

Crazy how most trains in the world operate fine without headcounts.

The airportificaiton of passenger trains is a huge mistake.

Still jealous that you got the train without the window dots. I cant believe my whole train had a wrap on every single window.

By international standards maybe this isn't as exciting, but I am incredibly jealous that FLORIDA of all places gets a sick new train...

Brightline out here competing with Via Rail to make rail travel as painful as air travel for no good reason. Manual headcounts, security, nit-picky rules, isle-cart instead of café car, excessive assigned seats for every class car, etc. Edit: Brightline has no current plans for a café car.

So at the time this was recorded, MCO uses two different types of rolling stock for their People Mover system. Airsides 2 and 4 uses Bombardier CX-100s (or now the Innovia APM 100; also used on Miami's Metromover) while Airsides 1, 3, and the Intermodal Terminal uses Mitsubishi Crystal Movers, which is what you ended up riding. Crystal Movers are the ones used by the Macau LRT, Singapore's Punggol and Sengkang LRT, Dulles's AeroTrain, and MIA Mover and Skytrain. The voice heard is Orlando mayor Buddy Dyer. And to be fair to that sign pointing you to the train station at the airport, it's probably futureproofed to include downtown Orlando and the theme parks when that expansion opens, and of course SunRail. While Brightline definitely isn't perfect, it's still a fast and frequent intercity service and that's the point! I'm a big believer of "If you build it, they will come". I support all the big projects like this, California HSR, Brightline West, and Amtrak expansion. The more transit options that people have in the US whether it's Brightline, regional rail, or Amtrak, the better! And Orlando/Central FL and South Florida are employment centers of the state for different reasons, so demand for this is there. And as a real estate company, they're building housing by stations to address housing demands in South FL. Not to mention this will attract cruise goers as well as a way to get to the different cruise terminals.

This is quality Miles content: well shot, cohesive, and focused on the fine details. Although this video is actually kinda like Brightline itself! I'd love to ride it one day.

"Shawty's like a melody in my head" More like transit's like a melody in your case! And the wooden Brightline toy train...people of culture know the Munipals NYC Subway, SEPTA, CTA, and NJ Transit wooden trains are where it's at! I know people don't like the airport-style security but considering this is Florida Man territory...it's understandable. MiamiCentral is such a solid location because on top of Brightline and Tri-Rail, you can also connect to Metrorail and the free Metromover! That weird intersection you saw by Stuart is Confusion Corner, called such because on top of the trains, eight different streets come together there! From 1893 to 1895, Stuart was called Potsdam. This name was chosen by Otto Stypmann, originally from Potsdam, Germany. It was renamed Stuart in 1895, in honor of landowner Homer Hine (Jack) Stuart Jr, who owned 160 acres around the railway station. Miami was named after the Miami River, which in turn is derived from Mayaimi, the historic name of Lake Okeechobee and the Native Americans who lived around it. Mayaimi meaning "big water". Miami is noted as the only major city in the United States founded by a woman. Julia Tuttle, a local citrus grower and a wealthy Cleveland native, was the original owner of the land upon which the city was built

Oh hey, I'm in the background of one of your shots! I awkwardly said hi to you at the Orlando station opening 😅

As I understand it, the usefulness of the airport location is really supposed to improve once SunRail also extends to the airport, and then they have proposed stops in the vicinity of Disney with Brightline and the convention center (which should cover Epic Universe / international drive visitors as well), which in turn would benefit Brightline customers getting there too, and with existing stops should allow for Brightline customers to connect to Amtrak. SunRail seems kind of useless for tourists right now but this should make it much better, so long as they start operating on weekends as well.

The reason it's labeled as train station and brightline separately is because it's technically called "the Intermodal Terminal" but average people would have no idea what that means and Brightline is the only one using it right now. There's a platform already built for SunRail there but they still have to fix the signals on the 1.5 mile gap to the SunRail main line. It's also set up for bus (coach) service.

So much of Brightline is super modern and nice, and then you have headcounts and a food cart 🤔

I don't think I've ever seen a train with a headcount before--so odd. I'm a flight attendant who went from a US airline to a Canadian one and we now have to do headcounts. It's a huge pain, but I normally just count the empty seats since the plane I work has 132 seats. 🤷‍♀Passengers also can't switch seats on my airline, which is weird. So this feels like a combination of Canadian airlines and VIA rail with the cart service. 😂 I'm excited that there's an easier way from FLL to MCO now though!

Shawty's like a melody in my head

There's something endearing about seeing a train full of nerds geeking out about public transit 😂 🤣👍🏻 we don't have enough people who appreciate stuff like you do nowadays bro! ❤️

10:21 “Do you know we are going 130 miles per hour right now?” Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it “Are we?”

I went to Orlando by Brightline on the last week of winter break for New Year’s Eve Weekend, which was part 2 of my 23rd birthday surprise

Nice review of Brightline. I loved that you went to the 11th St Diner. I used to go there a lot when I lived in Miami Beach in the late 90s. Brings back good memories.

Loving the modern look of the Brightline stations and I’m looking forward to seeing the network grow! (PS: save me a sandwich haha)

Nice video and great review of the Brightline Train and stations! I'll have to check it out at some point. This would give me a reason to go to Miami again (I've only been there once in my life (in early 2001) and I flew to get there.