Saturday Variety

fbb can remember several articles in the Railway Press that painted a sorrowful picture of train travel in the USA. The thrust of these articles was that everybody flies everywhere or drives a huge gas-guzzling car! 

Over the past ew years, fbb has been following the development of Brightline, which lays claim to being the first privately owned USA railway operation for over 100 years.

The service began by linking West Palm Beach with Miami on the east coast of Florida. Here is the southern terminus at Miami Central.

Everything about this line is new including some very spectacular stations. 

This year the line has bern extended from West Palm Beach to Orlando with a station adjacent to the new Terminal C at the airport.

Again it is spectacular …

But the station is dwarfed into insignificance …

… by the airport as a whole!

Somewhere to the south of the terminus, Brightline have been able to squeeze in a depot.

There is an on-line video of the first trial train to run from depot to terminus. It looks equally impressive!

… as was the razzmatazz for the opening of Orlando station.

Yep, it looks real good!

The lounges (waiting rooms in old-speak) are lush …

…and you can book an add-on minibus for that extra mile from station to hotel.

Currently, trains run every hour …

… taking something over three hours for the full length of the line.

The map (above) shows that the next target is Tampa.

And a promotional video:-

How is it going with High Speed 2, RishI?

When Trains Were Trains And Men Were Men!

Back then we were not too concerned about greenhouse gases. The locos were oil-fired.

Naff Network?

This weekend’s booby prize must go to Stagecoach on Skye with its superbly helpful network map.

Some detail from the branding of this service, a brand which will be appearing on the buses soon.

Travel is FREE if you have your Union Card with you. If not, you are “toast“.

What is (was?) going on here …

… and here?

Maybe involving one of these?

Answer tomorrow.

Tomorrow and Monday our duplicate meetings involve some Harvest Festival stuff. Here is part One of a quiz (fairly simple) to identify the missing words from a well known hymn.

Some pictures that might help?

Another verse tomorrow!

 Next Variety blog : Sunday 1st October