With big plans, Tri-Rail paints its face for ads

As Tri-Rail prepares for its eventual entry into MiamiCentral Station downtown, it’s also changing its look for the first time since 2001.
The three-county public transportation system plans to re-wrap the exteriors of 12 locomotives and 49 passenger cars with a new design that operators feel will be conducive to selling ads on train exteriors to increase revenues.

“The design was chosen to make it easy to overlay advertising opportunities that can help garner additional revenue for the agency,” said Miami-Dade County Commissioner Raquel Regalado, who is board chair of the governing South Florida Regional Transportation Authority. “We expect it to be a hot commodity for vendors wanting to advertise in South Florida, as much as the service will be for the public when Tri-Rail trains are running in downtown Miami.”

The date for that long-awaited downtown service is still to be determined, though David Dech, regional transportation authority executive director, projected a fall start in late January during a presentation to the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust (CITT) board.
The $70 million tax-funded project, which was to be completed in 2017, faced multiple hurdles.

Mr. Dech, hired last July, in October advised the CITT board of nine obstacles delaying completion of the service to bring Tri-Rail into downtown Miami. They ranged from exposed rebar to platform issues to negotiations with Brightline and the Florida East Coast Railway.

The new look will be the third for Tri-Rail, which started out in 1989 with a fleet of coaches matching the green-and-white specifications of cars used by GO Transit in Canada. In 2001 Tri-Rail unveiled its current tropical designs featuring blue skies, white clouds and palm trees.

The re-wrapping comes as work is to be done on the Tri-Rail fleet anyway. Twelve of the system’s locomotives are to have new engines installed in the next two years and passenger cars are to be refreshed to include restroom rehabilitations, seat repairs and floor replacements.

Said Ms. Regalado, “We as a board felt collectively that this was the perfect time to revitalize Tri-Rail’s look with a fresh new wrap as we embark upon a new era with the system.”