By Meredith Carey, Conde Nast Traveler; March 27, 2019
‘Innovators’ chronicles our treks behind the scenes with travel’s disruptors and free thinkers—the people who lead rather than follow, who break things, take risks, solve problems in fresh ways. Through all that, they make, for the rest of us, the future of travel.
When we first met with Brightline president Patrick Goddard in June of 2018, things were a little different. For one, the private train company, which had just launched between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, was called Brightline—as of November of the same year, his organization began transitioning into Virgin Trains USA (yes, that Virgin). But not everything has changed: the biodiesel trains still have stations and service that put Penn Station and Amtrak to shame. (So much so that Traveler contributor Paul Rubio described the stations as though they had “been beamed over from Tokyo” when he rode the route last September.) The trains, which still aren’t exactly high-speed at 79 mph, are fully wheelchair accessible, have a business class (with complimentary booze), and functioning Wi-Fi. Plus, at $15–$20 (depending on route length) each way, the Virgin Trains USA pricing undercuts what could cost $40-$65 in a Lyft or Uber on the same journey.