Virgin Trains USA is clearing land for a Vehicle Maintenance Facility on a 62-acre site south of Orlando International Airport.
The $70 million project will be used as part of a service being built between Orlando and West Palm Beach.
The maintenance facility at the airport will be two football fields long. Inside, technicians will store and fuel up trains and engineers will perform maintenance on cars on six miles of nearby track.
Virgin Trains USA President and CEO Patrick Goddard says construction will begin on Valentine's Day 2020.
“We’ve got a whole operation here that will employ about 160 people once we become operational here in Central Florida.”
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Goddard says the entire 170-mile rail expansion project is expected to create some 10,000 construction jobs and another 2,000 permanent jobs when the line is up and running in 2022.
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He says currently the line offers riders stops in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach with more stops to be announced in Central Florida.
“Obviously, our goal is maximize mobility for the central and south Florida communities. We’re looking at stations. We’re in a dialogue with the Treasure Coast. We’re in a dialogue with the Space Coast. We would like to see stations every fifty, sixty miles.”
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Goddard says the company is still in talks withDisney about a potential station while Cape Canaveral has been ruled out.
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