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The Great Train Bankruptcy

A rare, privately owned U.S. rail line between Miami and Orlando is proving popular with riders, but a $6 billion debt pile is pushing Brightline and its hedge fund owners toward a likely restructuring reckoning.

Brightline Train
Brightline, as they say in the restructuring world, seems to be a case of good company, bad balance sheet. Ridership and financial performance may be off to a better start this year, but the company also has a substantial amount of debt—approximately $6.3 billion of debt and preferred stock spread across a variety of securities, holding companies, and operating companies. Stress is already visible. Photo: Courtesy of Brightline
William D. Cohan
April 22, 2026

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For the last decade or so, Brightline, a privately owned railroad company, has been building out passenger service between Miami and Orlando, a 235-mile corridor that is both too far to drive comfortably and too short to fly—the perfect distance, in other words, for an intercity train service in Florida. The concept was the brainchild of Wes Edens, a co-founder of Fortress Investment Group, after the company acquired the Florida East Coast Railway corridor and set out to build a modern train service between the two cities, with stops along the way in Aventura, Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach. The trip takes about three and a half hours, only somewhat faster than driving. But that’s just one of the reasons Brightline is in trouble.