What type of facilities (yards, engine, etc.) does CSX have in the Tampa area?
CSX has the Yeoman Yard complex, which used to be 2 separate yards, the Uceta yard, which was the ACL's yard, and Yeoman yard, which was the SAL's yard.
In recent years the complex has been reconfigured somewhat.
Uceta yard now ONLY handles intermodal (stack, container loading and piggyback/tofc loading) and some of the excess yard trackage is now used as excess or bad order car storage.
Uceta shops, which was the ACL's heavy repair shop is also active, it was the SCL's and CSX's main shop in florida after west jacksonville closed and is still used extensively. The SAL's old shop was closed shortly after the merger in 1967 and was bulldoxed. It was near where TN tower is.
Yeoman yard is the freight classification yard for most all freight in central florida. It is pretty busy. Daily freights include a couple mainfest freights a day, a loaded and empty autorack train each day, the juice train, a rock train every 3 or so days, plus a lot of locals.
Also to the south is rockport yard which handles classification and stationing of all the export phosphate trains. The phosphate trains go through yeoman yard on the "bypass" and can be seen several times a day, mostly empties run at night and loads during the day, but that is not always the case.
To the east is Winston Yard, which was the ACL's main phosphate classification yard and freight yard after lakeland yard closed in the early 80's. They handle mainly phosphate trains, but some local freight is handled out of winston as well.
There are "winston turns" from yeoman to winston and "taft turns" which run from yeoman to taft yard in orlando. Occasionally power transfers and empty flatcar trains from yeoman to taft which run as "X" series trains
Yeoman yard is not very accessible, but you can view trains from the east side of the yard off of 78th street and SR60. uceta inbound and outbound trains can be viewed from a grade crossing off of orient road, but its not the best area
Winston yard is mostly inaccessible as is rockport, but you can see trains leaving rockport from the grade crossing at us 41
The busiest time for the yard is early morning and evening.
Afternoons are dead (1-5pm) unless something is running late or you may see a stray phosphate train
The juice train leaves tampa between 10am and 1PM, usually around 11:30, its train number is O823 south of yeoman and K650 once it leaves Yeoman, they change crews at 78th street. Occasionally also the Juice train will leave on the ACL, but not very often.
Unit empty autorack train O702 comes into the yard from the west side around 8-9PM and O700 loaded autorack leaves about 7-9AM
Q652 is an outbound long manifest which leaves in the late evening, Q441 is its inbound counterpart, arrives around 11PM, although lately it has been arriving much later
Q188 and Q189 are outbound/inbound intermodal from tampa to jacksonville, Q188 leaves in early evening, Q189 arrives aroun 10-11PM
Q237 and Q258 are loaded/empty autorack trains from yeomand to Badwin yard in jacksonville Q237 arrives evenings (not daily) and Q258 leaves sometime in the morning
Looking back at the map it seems we were between Wautchula and Arcadia. I remember picking up some lines at a fence post mill, that was ajacent to the track.I saw what looked like an old F-9 on a siding in Parrish. It was green and white and had two letters in the name on the front. The second letter was O I think. I took a picture but it was dark and it didnt take. Any guess on who ouned this engine. Thanks