ORLANDO, Fla. — SunRail service is expanding into the late night hours. Starting December 1, the northbound and southbound trains will run even later and add new trains to give you more options at night during the week.
What You Need To Know
Starting December 1, there will be later trains and more options to ride at night
The price tag for the changes was minimal since these trains were already running at night without people on them to get ready for morning routes
The changes are just for Monday-Friday service
Ridership at night will help guide leaders about possibly adding weekend service in the future
“When I ride the train, it takes me back to those good ole happy times,” said Ken Smith, who lives in Kissimmee. Smith said the sights and sounds of SunRail makes him think of happy memories.
“It reminds me of when I used to ride the train when I was in Europe,” Smith said. Here in Florida, he rides the rails it for fun. “Just, it just to get out of the house or go to the Sanford to go to the German restaurant stuff like that,” Smith said.
He is excited to hear, there are more train options coming at night. “Just to go karaoke and go do all kind of fun things like I used to,” Smith said.
For northbound trains, there are new options from 8:45 p.m.to 10:30 p.m. and the other updates to the routes. When it comes to southbound trains, there are new options from 9:55 p.m.to 11:30 p.m. other minor adjustments.
“If you have a specific train that you ride all the time, just double check and make sure, it may have changed by a few minutes or more,” said Amy Lockhart, the chair of the Central Florida Commuter Rail Commission.
Lockhart said the cost was minimal to make the changes, all they had to do was pay for security staff, since the trains were already running late at night to get back to where they needed to be for the morning routes. “So with some minor tweaks and a little bit of additional funding, thanks to our local government funding partners, we were able to make those trains carry individuals back and forth,” Lockhart said.
Leaders will watch the ridership nighttime numbers closely as they push for weekend service in the future. “The first request was the later hours, now you have got them, let’s use them, so show us that you are using it, show us that is what you want and what you needed and that will help us make the argument for the next step of adding weekends,” Lockhart said.