Writer: Joshua Andino
2 min read April 2023 — With Brightline having recently revealed its new Orlando maintenance facility, the organization has also announced that it is teaming up with Valencia College to develop a workforce pipeline in anticipation of its 2023 Orlando station opening.
The intercity rail company has been hard at work over the course of the last year. With the majority its construction complete, having renovated large parts of the existing FEC rail corridor and laying new track to Orlando, the passenger rail company recently unveiled its new $100 million Orlando-based maintenance facility and announced a new partnership with locally-based Valencia College to train the engineers and technicians tasked with maintaining the trains at the new facility.
“As we ramp up for service to Orlando we need teammates with highly technical skills to work on our trains and our facilities,” said Tom Rutkowski, chief mechanical officer for Brightline in a press release. He added, “Once Orlando service begins, it will remain an ongoing team effort to maintain our 10 trainsets, hundreds of miles of track and our full service vehicle maintenance facility, Basecamp, and we are eager to work with Central Florida colleges to find candidates for these positions.”
The new facility and maintenance operations will create 175 new jobs in the Central Florida region, with Valencia College providing the workforce through its 22-week long Industrial Automation Technician program available at both its Orange and Osceola county campuses. At the time of the announcement, 10 graduates from the program had already been hired and were preparing to begin their new careers with Brightline. The course includes five modules centered around maintenance operation, mechanical, electrical, hydraulics and pneumatics.
Tiffaney Barnes, senior director of the Accelerated Skills Training Programs for Valencia College said in the release, “With Brightline coming to Orlando we know that there is going to be a need for technicians, so our career placement teams made contact with Brightline and Siemens to find out exactly what skills they needed.” She added, “Our Industrial Automation Technician program is a perfect fit and we are now actively training students for careers at Brightline’s Basecamp.”
Since Brightline began its project of linking South Florida in 2014 and now Orlando via passenger rail, over 10,000 jobs have been created by the company. Contractor positions are also available on the Siemens and Herzog websites.
While Brightline has yet to offer a concrete date for when its Orlando service will open, stated plans anticipate service from South Florida to Orlando beginning later this year. Its passenger service has long-since rebounded and exceeded pre-pandemic demand, having hit a record 1.23 million passengers in 2022. The more recent openings of new stations in Boca Raton and Aventura have further bolstered passenger numbers, with the two stations contributing 42,391 of the total 157,137 passengers the rail service saw in January, reported Miami Today.
Those numbers will only increase once Orlando service begins, and most likely, so will the need for additional engineers and technicians once the initial 175 positions are filled. “This is not just a job, this is a career path for anyone that comes in,” said Rutkowski in an interview with local WESH2. “We need lots of positions. We’re looking at 175 just to start up Orlando,” he added.
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