Note that the original bond sales for the Orlando extension flopped. And they flopped in the most capital rich, easy-credit market ever known to man kind.
If they can't raise the $2 - 3.5 billion needed to reach Orlando, how is Brightline going to come up with $8 billion to build the HSR line from bum-fart-nowhere, Victorville, to the Las Vegas strip?
How does Brightline raise $10 billion in capital in the next 5 years ( and note that would put them way behind the timelines' theyve created for both projects ) ? The question isn't is there a chance it can be done. It's a matter of how it'll be done and how likely that is to happen.
XpressWest has been around for a decade, announcing and re-announcing plans to build a HSR from LA to Vegas. First it was going to be Cali that would help them pull it off. Then it was going to be Federal loans. Then it was the Chinese. And then it was the Raiders.
None of it ever panned out for them. Their view of their likely future outcome is that they found that whatever it was that Brightline offered them was a better deal than whatever future $ they may get from the project.
Brightline has yet to find anything certain and big enough in funding to build to Orlando. Xpress West couldn't do the same for their line. And now Brightline's not only going to find the money, $10 billion, to start building not one but now 2 HSR lines next year.
There aren't many universes where that ever happens, let alone is likely to happen. Sure, it could. But if I were a better person, I'd put money on Obama getting a 3rd term before Brightline finds the capital for both of those.
