A Brightline train at the company’s new station at Orlando International Airport.
Alan Ohnsman via Forbes
Brightline, the private passenger railway created by billionaire investor Wes Edens, has tapped Nicolas Petrovic, formerly head of high-speed Eurostar, as its new CEO, taking over from Mike Reininger, who will now focus on building the company’s Las Vegas to Southern California train.
Petrovic, who most recently led Etihad Rail Mobility, the high-speed system in the United Arab Emirates, will focus on growing Brightline’s service and passengers in Florida, which operates between Orlando and Miami. Reininger is moving to CEO of Brightline West, tasked with building and operating the $21 billion, 218-mile bullet train by 2029.
“The knowledge Nicolas brings from around the world will strengthen our company as it continues to grow and expand, while Mike refocuses his attention on delivering unprecedented infrastructure growth,” Edens said in a statement.
Nikola Petrovich
Brightline Holdings
The company also named Mauricio Anderson as its new chief financial officer.
Becoming a 21st-century US railroad baron has been a goal of Eden’s, a co-founder of Fortress Investment Group and co-owner of sports teams including the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks and European soccer teams such as the Premier League’s Aston Villa. But bringing modern 200 MPH+ rail travel across the United States is taking longer and costing more than he originally anticipated. Ridership on Brightline’s Florida trains, which operate well below 150 miles per hour, is increasing, 13% by November 2025 to 2.8 million people, but its ambitions are much bigger. Similarly, revenue from the line was $193.4 million through November, up 14% from a year earlier. Development will continue in 2026 with the addition of new railcars from Siemens, another of Petrovic’s former employers, and a possible extension of the line to Tampa in the coming years.
Bullet train cost increase
Wes Edens, center left, and U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, center right, hammer ceremonial railroad spikes to mark the start of construction on Brightline West in Las Vegas.
Brightline
Brightline West, which received a $3 billion federal grant from the Biden administration, faces challenges that are increasing its expected construction costs and time. Last fall, the company estimated that the system, which would connect Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga, California, a suburban town about an hour east of downtown Los Angeles (connected via an existing commuter rail line), would now cost as $21.5 billion. That’s nearly double the 2024 target of about $12 billion. While preparatory work has begun on the 218-mile line, which will feature Siemens electric trains that will run at speeds of more than 200 mph, heavy construction, such as cutting a line through the Mojave Desert, mostly on US Interstate 15, has not begun.
“You can’t turn around without running into another $25 billion data center and the power generation that has to go on to support it”
The jump in costs is mostly related to much higher than expected prices for steel, cement, labor and engineering and construction services, Reininger said Forbes. Steel tariffs account for some of this, but a major factor driving up costs is the rise in data center construction.
“You can’t turn around without finding another $25 billion data center and the power generation that has to go on to support it,” he said. “There’s a supply-demand imbalance, and that means if you’re a supplier, you’re in a situation where you can raise your price because you’ve become incredibly valuable. … That’s the consequence of the market that we had to reflect in our overall project budget.”
The previous estimate of $12 billion in construction costs did not include about $4 billion in reserve funds, so the true all-in price was closer to $16 billion, he said. The increase to $21 billion is actually “a $5 billion variance. And of the $5 billion variance, $4 billion of that is direct cost escalation and inflation, particularly focused on urban infrastructure, all in.”
As a result, Brightline is seeking additional funding, including a $4 billion federal infrastructure loan and more private investment, he said. Although the start of operations has now been delayed by a year, from late 2028 to late 2029, Reininger remains optimistic about the pace of development.
“Fifty million people commute from Los Angeles to Vegas every year. 80% of those people drive, and 100% of those 80% have to drive right by our station.”
“We will complete the whole and be open for business in the fall of 2029,” he said. “If you think about it, it’s high-speed trains on tracks in America [testing] in 36 months and then in business in just under 48 months.”
Brightline’s Mike Reininger at the groundbreaking ceremony for Brightline West in Las Vegas in April 2024.
Getty Images
As for critics of the show who say it’s flawed because it stops short of downtown Los Angeles, Reininger doesn’t see that as a deal breaker.
“Fifty million people commute from Los Angeles to Vegas every year. 80% of those people drive, and 100% of that 80% have to drive right by our station,” he said. “Whatever your definition of LA is, if you’re going from LA to Vegas, you have to go through our station.”
