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| Textorus CC BY_SA A schematic map of Seaboard Air Line Railroad main lines, circa 1950, with major passenger routes indicated by thick lines. |
The Florida Railroad Museum documents that the SAL got to Tampa Bay in 1902 by running tracks through Ocala and Plant City. And it built "branch lines just after the turn of the century to St. Petersburg, Bradenton, Sarasota and Venice." SAL proposed to build north from Richmond to connect with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad because ACL controlled the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad. But the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) and the state of Virginia, both owners of portions of the RF&P, arranged a traffic agreement for the SAL over the RF&P and PRR to New York. (Wikipedia)
The SAL merged with the Atlantic Coast Line in 1967 to form the Seaboard Coast Line.
The named passenger trains included the Orange Blossom Special, the Selver Meteor, and the Silver Star. Unlike most railroads, they also had named freight trains because it was one of the first railroads "to champion the trailer-on-flat-car (TOFC) concept in 1950." (AmericanRails) For example, the Marketer was Miami-Richmond and Tampa-Richmond which joined in Baldwin, FL. The passenger trains joined in Wildwood, FL, and the streamliners had a very colorful paint scheme.
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| Public Domain Postcard illustrating the allure of streamliner travel to Florida, along with the "citrus" paint scheme used on SAL's EMD diesel locomotives from 1939 to 1954. |
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| Timothy Carroll posted John Arrington: Approximately what year Tim, and CHS-SAV under construction? Timothy Carroll: John Arrington early 1900s. Miami missing too. Gary Cassels: John Arrington Miami was opened up by Flagler and the FEC. Timothy Carroll: But seaboard built Miami extention in 1925-1926 Randall Hampton shared Note the through passenger service on FEC with a steamship connection from Key West to Cuba, which used to be a popular tourist destination before Castro. Bryan Russell: I think it’s neat this shows the SAL before the line between Charleston and Savannah was completed. It’s under construction according to the key for this map. Randall Hampton: Among connecting railroads, most of ACL is conveniently missing. Dc Sharp When I started working timetables were very a common thing to view and discuss and most of the Old Heads had some of their favorites available for viewing including passenger schedules to make their points about trains being on time and what the times between stations were according to them. The times between stations varied according to the different parameters as told by some of the Older Conductors and waiting in a station to give the go ahead to leave was often was hard for newer employees and some engineers who were raring to go as the term specified. Hold Back Those Hosses was one fellow's remark and I asked him if he knew the horsepower of the locomotives and how many hosses he was holding back at the time. He said Son you only have to hold back one Hoss that is that impatient engineer, he has to hold all the rest of them back while giving me a sheepish look. I said well growing up on and around farms I know that when you head the horse to the barn they go faster. He smiled and said yes that is true, I think you might make a railroad man someday. He said some of these Old Engineers get us here in more than plenty of time and the waiting is harder for them than it is for us. About that timetable reference, one of the older ACL timetables also referred to the connecting stream ship travel and my grandmother said it was a tourist destination and diversion for some travelers often the wealthier ones to go to resorts and travel the high seas for the pleasure of the trip as well as the destination. She said she often enjoyed the trip more than the destination. I showed here the 1920 s ACL timetable and she later dug out some tickets for steamship and train travel for me to examine she made with here sisters even before the date of the timetable. It unfortunately disintegrated and flaked into pieces before it could be preserved. |
So we taxpayers get to pay $1b to undo a decision that CSX made soon after it was formed.
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| Elliott Plack posted Seaboard Air Line RR is coming back! North Carolina DOT and Virginia Rail have received over $1Billion in federal grants to rebuild this section as the “S-line”, including the abandoned and torn up VA tracking. Here’s a recent post here showing that old right of way, soon to see traffic! https://www.facebook.com/share/p/2EohbDUQkyujmqwx/?mibextid=K35XfP Please share any interesting local knowledge as I’m curious. The website doesn’t mention if they’d build electric service but since some parts are active CSX, would it have to be diesel? Electrification south of DC would be great. Project website: https://www.ncdot.gov/.../raleigh.../Pages/default.aspx Christopher Love: Here's more of the technical charts and maps on the project: https://railroads.dot.gov/.../southeast-high-speed-rail... |
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