Passenger Trains > Virgin Trains Construction Photos

At the bottom of this new article about a new highway there are a number of photos showing some of the construction of the Virgin Train line along route 528 from near Orlando.  Great seeing the progress of this line and it's really impressive seeing the construction, the crews, and the grading going on.

https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2019/11/27/future-highway-just-west-of-brevard-may-link-u-s-192-with-sr-50-spurring-development/2270375001/

A new highway article?  I love it!  This Virgin trains thing is all being built on borrowed money!
Time will tell if the revenue will be there to repay the bonds.  I have my doubts.

Very good video on the the "tube" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I10qUBmFyAg

This was posted 6 days ago. It shows much more than anything I have seen anywhere else.

Thank you for sharing

That’s a great video of the progress!

Posted from iPhone

mp51w Wrote:
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> A new highway article?  I love it!  This Virgin
> trains thing is all being built on borrowed
> money!

And things like the NEC improvements and LD service are not on borrowed money? Specially given the sorry state of the source of the federal grants in terms of borrowing? LOL!

At least the lenders to Brightline are doing so of their own choice. Not so with stuff funded through federal subsidy necessarily as we have seen in the moanings on this board and elsewhere.

Hello...  wake up.   This country is built on borrowed money......
You really think they are going to go into default?   I dont think so.

mp51w Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A new highway article?  I love it!  This Virgin
> trains thing is all being built on borrowed
> money!
> Time will tell if the revenue will be there to
> repay the bonds.  I have my doubts.

pdt Wrote:
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> Hello...  wake up.   This country is built on
> borrowed money......
> You really think they are going to go into
> default?   I dont think so.
>
They won't, because they will dump the rail operation onto the local/state governments,
and walk off with all the real estate profits!

You sure got that right.

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

mp51w Wrote:
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>
> They won't, because they will dump the rail
> operation onto the local/state governments,
> and walk off with all the real estate profits!

Nice to see a private company doing this instead of the government.    Who cares if it's borrowed money. That's up to the individual doing the borrowing.  While I haven't yet ridden, from photos and reports, Virgin's Brightline operation is far superior so anything Amtrak offers even on the beloved NEC. 

I'm always amused at the "nervous nellies" here on Trainorders who spend so much time worrying over whether or not a high speed rail project will operate at a profit or be able to pay off its bonds.  

I guess inside every Trainorders subscriber is an accountant, trying to get out.  

CA_Sou_MA_Agent Wrote:
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> I'm always amused at the "nervous nellies" here on Trainorders who spend so much time worrying over whether or not a high speed rail project will operate at a profit or be able to pay off its bonds.  
>
> I guess inside every Trainorders subscriber is an accountant, trying to get out.  

Yup!  Never a complaint about building highways either.

Did you make a profit on your car ride to work?  Did you even pay the driver?

Brian

i don't complain about building our roads, highways, and interstates because that is how people even get to work and sustain the commerce that drives our economy............

66 

goneon66 Wrote:
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> i don't complain about building our roads, highways, and interstates because that is how people even get to work and sustain the commerce that drives our economy............
>
> 66 

People take transit to get to work and sustain the commerce that drives our economy.

We are so heavily automobile dependent because "Government" funded highways, changed zoning laws, subsidized sewer and other infrastructure expansions, subsidized mortgages for new construction only, ignored redlining and block busting.  The list goes on and on.  Yea, "people" wanted it -- Real Estate speculator lobbies funded their favorite politicians.

Robert Moses work blasting highways and parkways through the urban New York metropolitan area could just as well have been extending rail transit, except for him having "visions."

Government policies helped empty out rural America with crop subsidies encouraging get big or get out farming. 

Not all changes were government led, Containerization helped kill off the small factories that used to sustain lots of small towns in the American Heartland.

So I disagree that it is a bad thing for Government to push the pendulum back by helping out rail transportation.

Brian