Brightline–Orlando to Fort Lauderdale

For several years, we’ve been anticipating the opening of the Orlando extension to the Brightline route in Florida. A few weeks ago, we bought tickets for the Orlando to Fort Lauderdale segment. Today, we finally got to experience it for ourselves.

History

Brightline began construction in mid 2014. Service from Miami to West Palm Beach began 19 May 2018. The line was extended from West Palm Beach to Orlando and opened for first passengers on 22 September 2023. Future stops have been announced for Stuart and Cocoa.

Orlando to Fort Lauderdale

We left early this morning to be sure that we could find a parking spot and get to the station with plenty of time to spare. The Orlando station is at the Orlando International Airport, in Terminal C. Our tickets were for the 9:50 train to Fort Lauderdale. We parked in the short-term parking lot and were in the station 20 minutes early.

Brightline Orlando Station

At 9:40, they opened the gates and started boarding. We took the stairs down to the platform and entered Coach 2. Our seats were facing each other around a shared table. At 9:50, the trains rolled out of the station; right on time.

We slowly rolled along past the airport's main terminal area and eventually left the airport property and turned east to parallel highway 528. In this section of track, we hit the maximum allowed speed of 125 miles per hour. It was so fascinating to see how ‘slow’ the cars were going, and we whizzed smoothly along.

Maxing out at 125 miles per hour

Soon we crossed over Interstate 95 and passed through a tunnel under 528. We were now travelling at a slightly slower 110 mph. We quickly reached “the Cocoa Curve” and turned south along the existing Florida East Coast rail line. We enjoyed the familiar scenery as we glided along past Rockledge, Suntree, Melbourne, Palm Bay, Malabar, and Vero Beach. Beyond that, we were less familiar with the sights, but enjoyed watching the world quickly pass by. Passing through Stuart, we noticed that they were having a street fair. We briefly stopped at the West Palm Beach station, where we were joined by a woman who was visiting from Atlanta. We skipped the Boca Raton station and soon arrived in Fort Lauderdale.

Brightline Fort Lauderdale Station

Fort Lauderdale

We arrived in Fort Lauderdale right on time at 12:35. The plan was to spend the day exploring the city, then catch the 6:20 train back to Orlando. The agenda mostly involved walking along the Riverwalk.

As we left the station and walked toward the river, we noticed that the streets seemed exceptionally crowded. Then we realized that the city was celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. We were ready to eat, so we found a place on the Riverwalk - Big Buns Damn Good Burgers. We ordered and sat at a table outside to eat and watch people, boats, and trains go by.

After lunch, we crossed the tracks and walked to Esplanade Park. We had visited this park in 2019 while chasing trains with the drone. Here’s a video that Andrew created from that visit.

Then we crossed the street to check out the Museum of Discovery and Science. As we approached, we noticed that the atrium contained a giant marble run clock. The ‘marbles’ were the size of bowling balls!

We continued our walk along Riverwalk, then crossed the river at Avenue of the Arts. Here we waited for the free water taxi, but it was already full. We continued walking around a large construction site and rejoined Riverwalk on the other side. We followed Riverwalk to the Southeast end, then sat down in the shade for a while.

Once rested, we took the water taxi across the river. We were surprised to see that US 1 goes under the river at this point. Here we found the center of the St. Patrick’s Day celebration. There were vendor tents set up along the blocked off streets. We stopped to listen to a group of police officers as they played their bagpipes and drums. Then we stopped at Hof’s House of Sweets and got orange floats. We continued walking along the closed streets before finding the entrance to a parking garage. We went up to the top floor for an overhead view of the river and the festivities.

We then considered riding the water taxi over the full loop, but it was too busy. We still had some time before our 6:20 departure, so we walked around town to kill some time. We knew we’d get hungry on the train, so we bought some snacks at a nearby 7-11.

Brightline – Back to Orlando

We returned to the station at 6:00 for our 6:20 ride back to Orlando. When we boarded, we found a woman sitting in a seat at our table, and the table was covered with empty drink glasses. Clearly, there was a party going on at this table before this stop. The lady told us about her visit to a winery near Miami to celebrate her cousin’s birthday.

The sun quickly set on our ride back to Orlando, so we didn’t see a lot. We crossed over Parkway Avenue in Melbourne at 110 mph, and I thought about how it would be an hour and a half before we returned to this location. I smiled as the train honked its way through crossings in the Rockledge area, remembering that a certain co-worker told me that the trains honk too much. :)

Back at the airport in Orlando, we slowly entered the station. We exited the train and returned to our car, grinning and full of joy from our day out with Brightline.