The Man Getting America Back On Track

As the world grapples with how to make travel safe in the age of coronavirus, private equity billionaire Wes Edens is betting $9 billion that America’s transportation future is passenger rail.

- Alan Ohnsman & Antoine Gara

Shouting over the noise of diners at a Mexican restaurant on the floor of a casino, buyout billionaire Wes Edens has come to Las Vegas, one of the cities least friendly to mass transit, to talk about passenger rail. “It’s not like I had Lionel train sets in my basement,” he says. “I wasn’t a train nut, but I love riding on trains. It’s my favourite form of travel.”

Even a couple months ago, that was audacious talk from the casual, sandy-haired 58-year-old who made his fortune with Fortress Investment Group and who coowns the NBA’s top team, the Milwaukee Bucks. In a post-Covid world, as people settle in for a period of minimal travel, especially if it involves being squeezed among others, a bet on train service sounds downright crazy, especially since it comes with a $9 billion price tag.

Edens’s vision: Tax-exempt bonds to create high-speed train lines linking Orlando to Miami and Las Vegas to Southern California. He sees a service modelled on the Paris-to-London Eurostar and is so confident the plan will work that he’s put more than $100 million of his own money into it. If things go right, his trains could haul nearly 20 million passengers in 2026, generate annual revenue of $1.6 billion and operating profit of almost $1 billion a year.

“Great fortunes are generally made by solving the most obvious problems,” Edens says. “Drive from Miami to Orlando with your family; drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. It’s a bad experience.”