Tri-Rail (reporting mark TRCX) is a commuter rail service linking Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach in Florida, United States.

[9] Due to higher than expected ridership, FDOT made Tri-Rail a permanent service, adding more trains and stations in the process.

In the early 2000s, Tri-Rail received a budget of $84.8 million[clarification needed] for double tracking, building extensions, improving stations, establishing a headquarters, and linking to buses.

[11] In 2002, Tri-Rail began to upgrade its grade crossings to include raised medians and/or four quadrant gates to prevent cars from driving around them in an attempt to beat trains.

[12] In 2007, a project to upgrade the full length of the line from Mangonia Park to Miami Airport with double track was completed with the opening of a high-level fixed bridge over the New River near Fort Lauderdale.

[14] This was also the time during which work was being done on I-95 to add the express lanes from the Golden Glades Interchange to the Airport Expressway near Downtown Miami.

The state, which was also running a budget shortfall and did not pass a rental car tax increase to help fund Tri-Rail, would have had to cut its support as well.

[18] Schedules were decreased slightly, but service was never cut altogether, as dedicated federal funding was attained through the $2.5 million grant as part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009.

[19] However, in 2011, Tri-Rail again saw increasing ridership due to sustained high gas prices, averaging about 14,500 riders per weekday by the end of year.

[22] The crossing of Race Track Road and the Tri-Rail line near the Pompano Beach station, rough for several years, was also repaired in 2012.

[30] On January 27, 2017, the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority board voted to award Herzog Transit Services a $511 million, 10-year contract to operate Tri-Rail beginning in July 2017.

[31] The other five losing bidders all protested the contract, with Transdev, Bombardier, and First Transit jointly requesting a court injunction to prevent it from being awarded.

[31] In the first quarter of 2023, the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA) reported a 25% increase in Tri-Rail ridership, surpassing 350,000 riders for the first time in three years.

To meet the demand, the SFRTA began an overhaul process with their Brookville locomotives, which is anticipated to be completed by 2025, and received a federal grant that will allow the replacement of a third of the aging fleet of railcars with new ones, which are expected to start service in the coming years.

[35] The station, which is also a mixed-use complex, is located in Downtown Miami and includes direct access to Brightline as well as Miami-Dade Transit services.

[39] With the Brightline extension to Orlando, the company has indicated that their trains have reached capacity, especially during peak commute time along the Southeast Florida region.

As a result of this, Brightline proposed for the SFRTA to facilitate a Tri-Rail express train between the West Palm Beach station and MiamiCentral, with few stops in between.

[40] On May 31, 2024, the SFRTA announced that the new weekday rush hour express train, with stops at Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale Airport, and Metrorail Transfer, which began service on July 1, 2024.

[48] Construction of an additional track for commuter service would require the approval of Brightline, which owns trackage rights to operate passenger trains over the corridor.

[50] Before full implementation of the Coastal Link service can begin, officials have acknowledged that a new crossing over (or under) the New River in Fort Lauderdale is necessary.

CSX has had new leadership, and the company is now willing to make a deal with Miami-Dade County to potentially have passenger rail service initiated on the corridor.

The tracks northwest of Mangonia Park are currently owned by CSX Transportation, which Tri-Rail would need to have an agreement with to operate at the potential new station.

[60] In November 2023, Swerdlow Group responded to a request for proposals from Miami-Dade County for a new affordable housing development in Little River, which also includes a Tri-Rail station.

[62][63][64] Tri-Rail shares the South Florida Rail Corridor trackage with Amtrak's Silver Meteor, Floridian, and CSX Transportation's Miami Subdivision.

Under the terms of the agreement, CSX would continue to provide dispatch services and physical plant maintenance for the track and would have exclusive freight trackage rights until certain conditions were met.

[66][67][68] Due to the route's success, Amtrak's Silver Meteor and Floridian do not allow local travel between West Palm Beach and Miami.

Most stations have large parking lots, however, some, like West Palm Beach and Hollywood have a limited number of spaces, most of which are reserved for Amtrak travelers.

It transported 19,060 people, many of whom attended a "victory parade" for the Miami Heat, which won the 2013 National Basketball Association championship.

Since the beginning of operations, the system has used 26 Bombardier BiLevel Coaches purchased new from Urban Transportation Development Corporation (even though they were delivered in GO Transit colors, the Tri-Rail cars were purchased new and never used or sold secondhand by GO, only leased by GO for a short period of time), a common model among Canadian and US commuter railroads, 11 with operating cabs and 15 without.

On January 4, 2016, a passenger train collided with a garbage truck which had broken down on a grade crossing at Lake Worth Beach station and derailed.