Some stuff about JAX and Florida service

[Mario_v]

Hello all ;

Here's some stuff I found about florida service (it's not new) and the possible return of trains to Jacksonville Union Terminal.

First, the link about florida service, using FEC (judiging by some other data I saw, it was supposed to be in operation by now) ; http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2010-mar-jacksonville-miami-rail-project-still-moving-forward

And 'the stuff' about JAX Terminal. Some of it seems very detailed  ; http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/27530-jacksonville-terminal/page-2

Any chance or possibilty of it becoming real ?

[Deggesty]

Mario, thanks for the links. I could wish that the plans had borne fruit--but it seems that the high cost of fertilization and watering turned everyone who could have cultivated the plans off.

I do have some fond memories of the terminal, though my first time there is not in my memory (I was only two years old then; my mother, in later years, told me that somehow my voice was picked up by the PA system).

I do marvel at the thoughts of having multiple trains each day on some of the routes; Jacksonville-Pensacola supported, at best, only two trains a day; there was only one train to Charlotte (which did connect with a northbound train there), which was a section of the overnight Skyland Special, and it died several years before the Asheville section died. At one time, the Charlotte section carried a Greensboro-Jacksonville sleeper which traveled through Salisbury northbound and through Winston-Salem southbound.

As to revitalizing the location of the Jacksonville station, I see far, far greater hope of moving the location of the Charlotte station back to near the location of the former Southern station on Tradd Street, which is almost downtown. Back then, that station was the bane of traffic on Tradd, for almost every passenger train had cars added or taken off and much of the switching involved crossing Tradd.

[matthewsaggie]

Trade Street, in Charlotte.

[Deggesty]

matthewsaggie

Trade Street, in Charlotte.

 

Yes, as many times that I have walked on that street (between the bus station and the Southern station, between the Southern station and Tryon, and between the bus station and Tryon), I should never have called it by the name of one of the streets in Charleston, S.C. (where I have been only twice in my life). Mea culpa.

[BaltACD]

Jacksonville Union Terminal, now known as the Prime Osborne Convention Center, when it was operating as a train station required all trains to back into it.  It's geographical location would contiue to require such a time robbing action were it to be considered for a oprating station today.

In the heydays of passenger trains, Jacksonville was the confluence and Northern Gateway to the Florida penisula, with routes radiating from it to the North, South and West.  Today, with Amtrak there are no routes to radiate, just North-South.  From a CSX perspective, the likelyhood of the Sunset Limited operating East of New Orleans is DOA.  With the business the FEC is currently handling, I suspect they are having second and third thoughts about having passenger service up and down the coast outside of what they are doing with All Aboard Florida service between Miami and Orlando.

[Deggesty]

The ACL-FEC trains did not have to reverse their direction in Jacksonville, but ran through, for the FEC bridged the St. Johns just south of the station. The SAL trains and the ACL trains that ran south of Jacksonville did have to back in.