#brightline

Had to do with this, of course:

That was at less than 125mph.

...and this, ladies and gentlemen, is why the California HSR is over budget doing massive grade separation. Because Brightline trains have *killed* more than 100 people since going into service (who knows how many injured?). Don't get me wrong: I think Brightline is great! But at what point does it become sensible to spend a little extra to make things safer? California HSR is being built to achieve 220mph, a whole 100 mph faster than Brightline, and even the Phase I will be 2½ times longer than Brightline but target a schedule of arriving 1 hour quicker LA to SF than Brightline's Palm Beach to Orlando...

Yay (although I really should be going to bed)

So most modern railroad Electrification is done with 25 Kilovolts 50 Hertz (or 60 Hertz in the US, Canada, Mexico, South Korea, and Japan) AC

But grid frequency Electrification at such high voltages was only feasible starting in the 1950s before then you had to use either DC Electrification at lower Voltages, or go with semi-high voltage Electrification at sub-grid frequency (25 Hertz in the US 16.7 Hertz in Europe) and most of the world went with DC usually either 1500 Volts (as used in Japan, Australia, France, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Indonesia) or 3000 Volts (as used in the Soviet Union, South Africa, Italy, Poland, Spain, Belgium, and Parts of Brazil and two railroads in the US), basically all modern Electrification is done with AC bit sone countries continued to Use DC power and 1500 Volts DC has become standard for modern subway systems

But the standardization of 25,000 Volts AC was mainly due to high speed rail, which requires high voltage AC power and has since become the dominant Electrification system and has been adopted as standard in the UK, India, China, Australia, France, New Zealand, South Africa, former Soviet countries, Mexico, South Korea, Denmark, Serbia, Portugal, Egypt, Czechia, and even for New mainline rail Electrification in the US and Canada (which right now is mainly the NJ Transit modernization of the Lackawanna electric lines, the New Haven to Boston Electrification, Denver's Suburban Rail, Caltrain Electrification, and soon Brightline West, CAHSR, and GO Transit)

You tube video on the grand opening of Orlando’s brand new station. Although Brightline’s Orlando International brand new train station has been completed it will still be a month or so before the proposed service that will join Tampa with South Florida’s cities of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. Tickets will be going on sale in May. Having this high speed rail option to travel…