Earlier this month, we profiled Brightline, the only private-sector railroad that operates passenger trains (not counting tourist excursions) in the United States. The story—Brightline: Something Different on the Rails, which posted online and in Railway Age’s August issue—featured an overview of Brightline and its current plans for Florida and for Brightline West, which will serve Las Vegas, Nev., with high-speed trains when it is complete. Since then, more issues have arisen concerning this unique railroad. One is a court battle with the Florida East Coast Railroad (FECR for purposes of the case and the official corporate name) over the capacity of the part of the FEC main in the Sunshine State’s three southern counties: Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach. That is the area where Brightline began service in 2018, and which comprised its entire operation until the extension to Orlando International Airport opened in September 2023 (see map below).
Railway Age has often reported on battles between Amtrak and its host railroads, including Union Pacific and CN. We covered the “Second Battle of Mobile” between Amtrak and host railroads CSX and Norfolk Southern regarding new train service between New Orleans and Mobile, with stops along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. That conflict included an 11-day trial before the Surface Transportation Board, but the parties settled their differences, and Amtrak’s Mardi Gras service is now running two daily round trips on the route.
The situation between FEC and Brightline is not the same. Things were different years ago, when All Aboard Florida, which became Brightline, proposed running passenger trains on the FEC for the first time since 1968. It started as a component of the railroad’s ownership. Part of the deal included selling yards and other real estate and infrastructure that the railroad no longer needed and developing that real estate—a plan similar to transit-oriented development, which is practiced along regional passenger rail lines that serve major cities.
FEC sued Brightline on July 11, 2025, in the Circuit Court of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in Miami, and was assigned Case No. 2025-013297-CA-01, captioned FLORIDA EAST COAST RAILWAY, L.L.C. v. BRIGHTLINE TRAINS FLORIDA, L.L.C.
Joshua Ceballos and Aaron Leibowitz first reported the litigation on Aug. 5 in the Miami Herald. They began by saying: “In a move that could derail plans for a long-awaited commuter train service, Florida East Coast Railway is suing Brightline for ‘clandestinely’ negotiating with county governments to add more trains to its rails. FECR claims the move violates a contract agreement between the two companies.” They also reported: “Plans have been in the works for Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties to run a version of Tri-Rail commuter trains through South Florida’s urban corridor east of Interstate 95 along the Florida East Coast Railway tracks that Brightline uses. The private, luxury-train company and FECR entered into a series of agreements in 2016 and 2017 giving Brightline exclusive rights to run passenger trains on the rail corridor—with specific limitations.”
FECR’s Complaint, As Reported
According to Ceballos and Leibowitz, the complaint filed by FECR said: “The cooperation and transparency between FECR and Brightline that made Brightline’s passenger service a reality has, unfortunately, long disappeared … Desperate to salvage some of its investors’ funds, Brightline has covertly engaged in a years-long campaign to stave off its own financial problems by loading FECR’s tracks with more passenger trains.”
The original FEC was founded by Henry M. Flagler, an oil magnate and real estate developer, in 1895. Today, it is owned by Grupo México, and there is no longer such commonality of interest between the passenger (Brightline) and freight (Grupo México) operators whose trains run on FEC tracks.
The dispute apparently focuses on efforts by Brightline to develop local passenger service along the line. The present service to Orlando International Airport carries local passengers between Miami Central Station in downtown Miami, West Palm Beach, and intermediate stops. In a sense, it is a luxury service, offering food and beverages on board, as well as a “Premium” class. It also runs faster than Tri-Rail, which operates a service for commuters and other riders that is typically associated with “transit railroads” that serve other cities (see map above). Brightline also charges significantly higher fares than Tri-Rail in the region.
As we have reported over the years, Brightline is also planning Coastal Link, a similar service on its own line, which is located in coastal areas (see map, right). Most of Tri-Rail operates along the historic Seaboard Railroad’s line, which is several miles inland from the FEC route for most of the length of its line. Brightline and Tri-Rail both run service from Brightline’s Miami Central Station in downtown Miami, and both railroads have stations in West Palm Beach, which are a few blocks apart. Miami-Dade County described the Coastal Link project, which would provide a full, seven-day span of service, this way: “The Northeast Corridor marks the first segment of the 85-mile Coastal Link commuter rail, designed to seamlessly connect Miami-Dade with Broward and Palm Beach counties. This 13.5-mile project will establish a new rapid transit route from Miami Central Station in downtown Miami to West Aventura Station, utilizing the existing railroad corridor shared with Brightline and freight services. The goal is to provide residents, businesses, and visitors with a reliable and efficient transportation option.” The line is not to be confused with Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, but the service pattern would be similar to Amtrak’s NEC: trains every 30 minutes at peak-commuting periods and every 60 minutes at other times, including on weekends. There would be new stations at Wynwood, Design District, Little Haiti, North Miami Beach, and FIU North Campus. There are also other plans to introduce that type of service in Broward and Palm Beach counties. That plan was revealed in 2023. FECR alleged that Brightline planned to run 54 “commuter” trains daily under the plan, the Herald reported.
According to the Herald, FECR’s complaint says: “Brightline kept [FECR] in the dark because it knew full well that its expansion plan not only threatened to significantly disrupt FECR’s freight service, but was also impossible without substantial new investment in track and facility infrastructure, which Brightline certainly could not afford.” The Herald also reported: “FECR contends that it only found out about these talks ‘by chance’ and that when it approached Brightline with its concerns, Brightline accelerated its negotiations without bringing FECR to the table.”
According to Caballos and Leibowitz: “FECR alleges those plans were made without its approval, which is required through its agreement with Brightline, and that the plans threaten to create a logistical nightmare for South Florida.” While the line is double-tracked in the area at issue, Brightline already runs essentially hourly service on it to a place beyond the northern boundary of Palm Beach County. There is also FECR’s freight operation. As well, Brightline trains run faster than the proposed local passenger trains would. The Herald report noted: “The Florida Legislature removed funding for the commuter rail from this year’s budget cycle, prompting worries about the project’s future”—an event that could render the case moot, if no further progress is made on the Coastal Link proposal.
What We Don’t Know About the Complaint—Yet
Railway Age has not obtained the entire complaint or contracts that FECR submitted as exhibits, despite efforts to contact both parties to obtain them. In a paper filed with the complaint on July 11, the railroad claimed that 12 paragraphs of it (out of at least 145), along with two documents submitted as exhibits, contain confidential information, and requested that they be shielded from public view. If there is a redacted version of the complaint (presumably there is, because the Herald reported on it), we have not yet seen it, despite a diligent effort so far.
In effect, the Herald reported that FECR alleged that Brightline did not follow the rules of the parties’ Joint Use Agreement (JUA) for the railroad, which requires either party to present proposals for changes to a joint committee, that Brightline negotiated with the counties about Coastal Link starting in 2020, that FECR found out about these talks “by chance,” and that Brightline kept negotiating “without bringing FECR to the table.” Ceballos and Leibowitz also reported that FECR alleged: “Brightline kept [FECR] in the dark because it knew full well that its expansion plan not only threatened to significantly disrupt FECR’s freight service, but was also impossible without substantial new investment in track and facility infrastructure, which Brightline certainly could not afford.” In addition, there have been questions raised about Brightine’s finances, which we will cover in a separate report. The JUA and other contracts between the parties are also part of the court papers. If and when we obtain them, we will review them and report on their relevant provisions.
Brightline Moves to Dismiss Case, Calls for Arbitration
Brightline on July 29 filed a motion to dismiss and to compel arbitration of the dispute with FECR. We obtained those motion papers. If a defendant does not believe that the plaintiff has stated a cause of action in the complaint and exhibits submitted with it that would justify relief, the defendant can move to dismiss the case before filing an answer, which the defendant would only need to file if the judge denies the motion. Brightline on July 31 filed its motion papers, acknowledging the JUA and passenger service easements, which Brightline alleged “are integrally related, independent and constitute … a single, unitary, and indivisible agreement.”
Brightline also alleged: “Under that agreement, Brightline has an express contractual right [emphasis in original] to operate passenger rail service along the FEC Corridor, either itself or through one or more ‘designees’ … This includes both higher-speed ‘intercity’ passenger service and ‘commuter’ service.” Also alleged: “Nevertheless, FECR’s Complaint asserts that Brightline ‘violat[ed]’ the JUA by working with Miami-Dade County and others to develop a badly-needed commuter rail service in South Florida. The Complaint seeks a series of declarations which are supposedly necessary to set at rest the rights, duties, and obligations of the parties as they pertain to the JUA and the continued shared use of the FEC Corridor.”
FECR’s primary argument is that the judge should dismiss the action because the contracts between FECR and Brightline require a binding arbitration proceeding to resolve disputes of this sort, rather than a court decision. FECR described a three-step procedure that (first) would present the dispute to a Service Standards Committee comprising representatives from both parties for investigation, (second) referring the dispute to the Presidents of FECR and Brightline for them to attempt to resolve the matter (the original agreement named All Aboard Florida, but Brightline is its successor), and (third) either party can submit the dispute to binding arbitration.
In the “Argument” section of its motion, FECR argued that arbitration is the only proper forum for resolving the dispute under both the Federal Arbitration Act and the Florida Arbitration Code, and that the court should submit it to arbitration.
The Issue of Following the Rules
FECR complained that Brightline was negotiating with the affected counties about local trains but did not follow the rule that required arbitration of such disputes. In response, Brightline alleged: “FECR is well aware of those contractual requirements, as it is currently pursuing claims against Brightline unrelated to commuter service in a separate arbitration under the JUA and associated agreements … In this instance, however, FECR chose to flout [emphasis in original] those contractual requirements and file its claims in court. It knew that one of Brightline’s parent entities was preparing to issue a bond offering to help finance the commuter rail project, and it sought to thwart that effort by asserting specious claims in a public forum” and “FECR publicly sought to harm Brightline by making gratuitous factual allegations it knew not to be true and pursuing baseless causes of action which can only be pursued, if at all, through ‘binding arbitration.’” FECR also called on the judge to submit the case to arbitration.
Setting the arguments about Brightline’s financial interests aside for the moment, it appears that FECR was aware of Brightline’s efforts to establish local service, so the question arises of why this issue has become so hotly disputed at this time. We have reported on the Coastal Link proposal before (most recently in March 2025), and a report from Miami-Dade County indicated that the project is in design stages and is not scheduled to begin service until 2032. With the State pulling funding, though, it will probably take longer, if service runs at all.
A bill before the Florida Legislature, CS/SB 916, is concerned with indemnifying victims of accidents involving “commuter” trains in the State. The Bill Analysis and Fiscal Impact Statement from March 20, 2025, said: “CS/SB 916 provides for the indemnification of commuter rail transportation providers on the Coastal Link Corridor. The bill creates the Coastal Link Commuter Rail Service Act and establishes parameters related to the indemnification of and insurance related to an agency providing commuter rail service on the corridor. The bill … Names Brightline, Florida East Coast Railway (FECR), South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA), and an agency as parties operating rail service the coast link corridor.” SFRTA operates Tri-Rail. The provisions of the bill relate to a fund for compensating accident victims with a cap on liability, a self-insurance retention, allocation of liability, and other aspects of insurance law. We mention it here to clarify how much FECR would have known about Brightline’s efforts to establish local train service along the line. Without having the complaint and exhibits to review, we cannot speculate any further on that issue at this time.
A Dispute Over a Process Leading to Arbitration
In its motion to dismiss, Brightline called on FECR to follow a three-step process for resolving disputes, using a Service Standards Committee, the presidents of the two railroads, and, finally, to arbitration if the other steps do not provide a resolution that is satisfactory to both parties.
Courts usually favor sending disputes to arbitration, because the process is simpler than litigation and referrals to arbitration get cases off the court calendar. Arbitration is usually faster, less formal, and less expensive than litigating a case in court. The American Arbitration Association sets rules for arbitrating cases, and arbitrators act as “professional neutrals” in deciding cases, but the process of selecting them is far less formal than that for selecting judges, who are chosen by a political process and assigned to cases. Typically, the parties select a single arbitrator or a panel of three. In the latter situation, each party chooses one member of the panel, and those two select the third. In all likelihood, these processes are set out in the JUA between the parties, but only a review of that agreement would confirm this.
Why are FEC, Brightline Fighting?
We don’t know all the details, but it appears that the parties have a dispute concerning how many passenger trains can fit onto the affected segment of the line, along with FEC’s anticipated freight use. For almost 50 years, there were no passenger trains at all running anywhere on FEC. Then Brightline came along, and now there is a train essentially every hour between Miami and Orlando International Airport, with intermediate stops in South Florida and more planned further north along the coast.
With local service coming, which would act as if it were “Tri-Rail East” as a parallel railroad for local service in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties, it would require at least relatively careful scheduling to be sure the line could accommodate all that freight and passenger service. While the line is double-tracked in the region at issue, there are limits to the capacity of any rail line. We don’t know precisely what those limits might be in the present case.
This is the sort of case that often lends itself to arbitration, especially if the arbitrator (or panel of arbitrators) have enough familiarity with the railroad to assess capacity intelligently and make a decision with which both parties can live.
Whether that happens is now up to a judge in Miami. We will keep an eye on the case as it proceeds, because capacity issues can arise whenever a new service is introduced on a railroad line. We remember the “Second Battle of Mobile” over Amtrak trains between that city and New Orleans, and we are also aware that trains are running there today, despite that battle. If and when we obtain the original complaint, we will report on it more thoroughly. We are also prepared to report the result of the present case. At this juncture, it appears reasonably likely that the judge will refer it to arbitration, especially if the JUA specifically calls for that. Still, in a litigation, nobody can be sure about a result.
