A CASE WORTHY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Before he got into politics, he was a pretty good railway lawyer, successfully arguing that the Rock Island Lines could bridge the Mississippi River.  Back in the day, that case involved the commercial interests of the steam packet boats that were the fastest transportation in the area.

These days, the rent-seekers are pleasure boaters, and they seek to slow down the fastest rail transportation in Florida.

The U.S. Coast Guard has issued an order changing rules for opening Florida East Coast Railway’s single-track drawbridge over the Okeechobee Waterway of the St. Lucie River that could seriously disrupt Brightline’s plan to begin hourly service between Miami and Orlando this summer.

The change could also result in miles-long FEC freight trains blocking six highway crossings in downtown Stuart for an extended period.

The “temporary deviation” order, which the Coast Guard says is to test the new drawbridge operating plan, will be in effect June 21 through Dec. 17. It dictates that the bridge must open at 15 and 45 minutes past every hour and stay open for up to 15 minutes to allow all boats to pass. An approaching train in the track circuit at the designated opening time could delay the opening no more than 5 minutes.

If that approaching train is a freight train, it might not cross that bridge in the five minutes provided.  The bridge is still a single track bridge, and its location is at just the place where Brightline's proposed memory pattern schedules put trains in conflict with the planned bridge openings.

The hourly schedules Brightline issued in May have been devised so trains avoid conflicts on the mostly single-track, 125-mph segment between Cocoa and Orlando International Airport [see “Brightline tickets now on sale …,” News Wire, May 17, 2023] Based on those schedules, News Wire estimates most Brightline trains would pass through Stuart at 22 and 42 minutes past the hour. Though most freight trains operate at night through the area, any northbound train waiting for a Brightline train to clear could conceivably block downtown Stuart’s six highway crossings through two bridge opening cycles.

News Wire attempted to reach the Coast Guard’s Florida bridge management specialist to ascertain whether any of these factors were considered. That call was not returned.

The policy dispute, not surprisingly, involves Florida representative Brian Mast, who has a history of going after Amtrak expenditures and now considers a privately operated passenger train some sort of affront.

Presumably Florida East Coast could hold northbound freight trains elsewhere if a conflict of nearly an hour with the passenger trains and the boaters loomed, although that militates against the kind of expedited delivery the railroad likes to provide.  A latter-day Abraham Lincoln might be helpful.

The Palm Beach Post reports Brightline and Florida East Coast said in a joint statement that they are prepared to take whatever steps are necessary to reverse the decision and cannot comply with the Coast Guard directive. Brightline, which said the decision “will also impact freight and commerce throughout the entire state of Florida,” said it expected to lose more than 50% of its customers, which would threaten its ability to pay off private activity bond stockholders.

The Orlando service will commence sometime this summer. Perhaps the Coast Guard will rethink its regulatory taking by then.