TRANSPORTATION : Florida ‘Bullet Train’ Plans Run Out of Steam : Poor economy makes private developers seek state funds. The new governor says no.

For years, Florida has been on track to build the nation’s first high-speed “bullet train,” a streamliner that would whisk riders between Miami, Orlando and Tampa at 150 m.p.h. But now those plans have lost the coupling that keeps them together: money.

The state hoped to construct the $3.5-billion project entirely with private funds, and a consortium of 35 companies--the Florida High-Speed Rail Corp.--promised to do just that. In exchange, it would receive rights to develop property along the route.

To some, this idea seemed nothing more than a “land grab,” reminiscent of exploitations by railroad “robber barons” in the 19th Century. To others, it was an enticing way to get a fast train without spending public dollars. Either way, the nation was watching.

But the recent economic slump has suddenly made the Florida real estate market a poor engine for powering the deal. When asked to suggest alternative financing, the corporation last month proposed that the public help pay the freight with surtaxes on gasoline and auto license tags.

Gov.-elect Lawton Chiles flatly opposes that. For the foreseeable future, the bullet train has been left at the station.

BACKGROUND: Both Europe and Japan have trains that routinely streak along the tracks at two and three times the speed of any in the United States. As congestion grows worse on the nation’s highways and in the air around its airports, faster rail systems have seemed an option worthy of pursuit.

Many states, including California, Texas and Ohio, have considered such projects. Plans for a bullet train between Los Angeles and San Diego were among the furthest along until community opposition sidetracked them six years ago.

That California high-speed system would have run on steel wheels. Another type of super-train relies on magnetic levitation, or “maglev,” using powerful magnets to propel the cars above its tracks on a cushion of air.

The maglev design is proposed for an Anaheim-to-Las Vegas line that may be in operation by 1999. Florida hopes to inaugurate American use of maglev trains in 1994 with a relatively short 13.5-mile route from the Orlando airport to a site near Disney World.

Florida’s main super-train project, however, has been the 300-mile Miami-Orlando-Tampa run. Optimism ran high for nearly a decade. “But now, if you’re taking the whole idea to the racetrack, I guess you’d have to bet it dead,” says Tom Slade, a member of the state commission overseeing the plans.

Proponents of high-speed rail argue that it is less polluting and more fuel-efficient than cars or planes. They insist that the public ought to help finance the trains, much the same as it pays to build highways and airports.

“But, somehow, the private sector is always supposed to play Santa Claus when it comes to trains,” said Ross Capon, executive director of the National Assn. of Railroad Passengers.

Florida no longer expects Santa Claus any time soon. It can forsake its bullet train altogether--or keep the plan alive as a public works project.

OUTLOOK: The Florida Legislature will be asked to finance the train, but the proposal will not be easy to sell. The state already faces a $1-billion budget deficit.

“Even if you could convince the Legislature that $1 spent today will be worth $10 in the future, you still have to compete for the dollars with social services, the environment, health and all the other needs,” Slade said.

The decision does not have to be all or nothing. The state could build segments of the system, Tampa to Orlando or Miami to West Palm Beach. It could also begin a program to simply improve existing roadbeds.

Or, likely as not, Florida could postpone any decision at all, leaving the train of the future to be exactly that--a light at the end of a long tunnel.