In a more optimistic presentation to the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust, Steven Abrams, executive director of the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, reassured members that the Tri-Rail trains the authority oversees are going to roll into the downtown Miami station in November.

“We do anticipate commencement of revenue service by Nov. 1,” he said last week, noting that the starting date is also contingent on tasks to be handled by the Florida East Coast Railway and Florida East Coast Industries, the parent company of Brightline.

Nonetheless, a report from the county’s Office of the Inspector General says a realistic date for the initiation of Tri-Rail revenue service on the Downtown Miami Link is in early 2023.

Four main problems have been keeping the commuter service out of the downtown station. Brightline built the bridges and the viaduct infrastructure with a live load impact factor of 20% even though Tri-Rail’s consultant recommended 200%.

The live load indicates how much weight the bridges and viaduct can support. A Florida Department of Transportation review concluded that the impact factor used by Brightline was appropriate and did not raise safety concerns based on the maximum allowable speed of the trains and the loading of the bridges.

“The department did note that if Brightline had followed their design criteria for this project, the impact factor for the deck designs would be 100%,” Mr. Abrams said. The reduced load rating factor would probably lessen the useful life of the bridges and the viaduct, but that could be addressed through a maintenance plan, he said.

A sonar test to identify whether the project had material defects, performed because the platform had exposed rebar, found “that the passenger platforms were not installed with the proper quality controls in place,” Mr. Abrams said.

“Nonetheless, there was no conclusion that there was a safety issue involved,” he said. Passengers would be expecting a brand-new platform, but they’ll see some cracks.

The platform built by Brightline had areas where the structure would hit the steps that stick out from trains’ exit doors. Mr. Abrams said they negotiated a change order agreement whereby Brightline would undertake those repairs.

As Miami Today previously reported, Tri-Rail’s locomotives were going to hit the platforms. “The cantilever portion of the platform is what appears to interfere with the locomotives, which we’re evaluating right now,” said Efrain Bernal, the engineering manager of the project, at a February regional transportation authority meeting.

Mr. Abrams said Tri-Rail is working with its level boarding vendor to adjust the steps and on a modification that the transportation authority is required to do so that in the future when it orders the tier four locomotives, they will be able to fit into the station.

Tri-Rail needed to comply with the federal requirements of Positive Train Control, and update the Enhanced Automatic Train Control system required by Brightline to operate the trains safely. Mr. Abrams said the transportation authority is engaged in conversations with FEC Railway to ensure that Tri-Rail personnel are trained to use the new software.

At the request of transportation trust Executive Director Javier Betancourt, the Miami-Dade County Office of the Inspector General made a final contract oversight report, released April 5.

Inspector General Felix Jimenez made three recommendations to the trust: encourage the regional transportation authority to appoint a dedicated project manager to make sure the Downtown Miami Link service becomes a reality; require the authority to report quarterly and encourage it to post monthly reports; and assign a technical member of the Department of Transportation and Public Works to monitor the needed remedial work. In response, Mr. Betancourt sent a letter confirming the support for the recommendations.

The Tri-Rail service into downtown was supposed to be open by March 2017 but problems in the design and construction of the station and the trains have delayed the $70 tax-funded project.

Again, SFRTA hasn’t learned the lesson of keeping Steven Abrams in the role of mouthpiece. Mr. Abrams has misled the SFRTA Governing Board, and the public, in the past and there is no guarantee that he is not giving more unattainable guarantees to soften his failure in leading Tri-Rail. Anyone who has tuned in to the public Governing Board meetings can attest that the issues with Miami Central Station are only the tip of the iceberg. If you are uninformed, here is what Abrams and Tri-Rail aren’t telling you:

Only 12 of its 21-locomotive fleet are permitted into Miami Central Station due to environmental impact standards…. and all of these are long overdue for manufacturer-recommended service. Tri-Rail’s fleet of Hyundai Rotem coaches have serious defects in their disc-braking system, including cracks that have led to the discs crumbling and falling off while the trains are in motion.

Further, its fleet of Bombardier coaches are over 30 years old, and had to be grandfathered into practical use despite not being equipped with modern safety features such as a Passenger Emergency Intercom system, which allows passengers to summon crew in the event of an emergency. These coaches also lack vital Crash Energy Management systems, that assist in keeping the coaches from telescoping into each other in the event of a head-on collision. One need only research the 2008 Chatsworth, CA accident on Metrolink to see an illustration of the necessity of this equipment.

Indeed, if Miami Central Station were ready for Tri-Rail tonight, Tri-Rail would not be ready to run a viable, and most-importantly safe, service into Downtown Miami. Caveat emptor!

This is positive. TriRail at MC has always been two years away until now, so seeing it now just months away is a massive improvement. And it sounds like Brightline has swallowed its pride a little (I refuse to believe that the correct specifications of the existing Tri-Rail trainsets weren’t available to them when they built the platforms!) and is fixing the wrongly designed platforms.

It’s a shame the amount of money involved in doing so is so high, otherwise it’d be good to make MIC just an airport stop, and get Amtrak a platform at MC. The one at MIC only works for half their trains anyway, which is why they don’t yet go there. A huge advantage of train travel in most places is that you end up in the middle of the city you’re traveling to or from, having Amtrak at an airport or at the weird place it is right now was always suboptimal. Make MC the Miami rail hub. Brightline’s real estate focus would benefit from that, so I can’t see how anyone would be anything but better off if they do.

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