Richard Branson, the British billionaire who wants to transform air travel with supersonic jets, has put his sights on something decidedly more down to earth: a passenger railroad.
Branson has agreed to make a small investment and lend the Virgin brand to Fortress Investment Group’s Florida railroad, the first privately funded intercity passenger train to be built in the US in more than a century.
The private-equity company’s Brightline, which operates high-speed service between Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, would rename itself Virgin Trains USA this month and use the brand and Virgin’s “marketing expertise” for existing and future developments, the company said in a statement on Friday.
Branson met with Brightline chairman and Fortress cofounder Wes Edens at the company’s new station in Miami late last year to discuss Edens’ vision for a nationwide expansion, people familiar with the deal said.
The Fortress project marks a major bet that train travel could be profitably revived in the US, where the federally subsidized Amtrak service has long held a nationwide monopoly.
Brightline plans to expand to Orlando and Tampa, and would begin construction next year on a line linking Las Vegas to southern California once it closes the planned acquisition of XpressWest and receives needed federal approval.
The Virgin Group would make a small investment in Brightline, which would continue to be managed and operated by the company’s executive team and affiliates of Fortress, and the investment would give Virgin a few percent stake in the company and would be similar to other deals it has struck in the US, the people familiar with the deal said.
“We transformed domestic air travel with Virgin America,” Branson said. “Tens of millions of Americans travel on the railways every day, and we have tried for more than a decade to find an opportunity to provide them with that same excellent service experience.”
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