CSX Operations South Of Jacksonville

Can anyone give me a run down of what CSX's traffic is like south of Jacksonville on each line that heads south out of there?


Lakeshore Dave

In and out of Hialeah the CSX runs one or two round trip through freights
most days. They also have a local out of Fort Lauderdale which may
have a day and a night crew but I am not positive about that. They have
a number of yard and local jobs out of Hialeah including one that works
the Homestead Subdivision.
The Florida East Coast handles all of the automobiles, containers and
trailers etc for Hialeah, Fort Lauderdale (Port Everglades) and West Palm
Beach. The FEC is the big operator in this part of Florida.
Noel Weaver

Don't forget the nightly 2 rock trains northbound a mtys Southbound to/from either Sanford or Tampa, Taft and Miami's Hialeah. There's also an auto rack train to Palm Center. I remember a couple vans from J'ville to tampa and back 188/187? Most of the CSX traffic runs from Tampa/lakeland north through Ocala and then over to J'ville. Damn, I think I miss the place.

Lots of freight action through Ocala over the "S" line, and don't forget the Tropicana Train(s) out of Bradenton.

Am far from an expert on this topic, but as you can imagine, traffic North of Jax is busiest between Folkston and Callahan. Between Callahan and Jax there's still probably 20-25 trains per day. Once you get past Jax, the traffic thins out more as some business terminates right in the Jax area, while other traffic goes to the FEC (most notably Intermodal traffic). The rest goes down towards Orlando, where I think they run a few Intermodal trains, maybe a Multi-level and a couple manifests, plus Coal trains. As the other poster pointed out, the S line which runs toward Tampa is probably a bit busier than the A line which runs towards Orlando.

The ocala line sees upward of 25 trains a day. Sometimes 30+. During busy times it is not unlike Folkston. One night we saw 5 trains inside an hour. Another we had a triple meet at Ocala siding.
The Orlando line gets a good bit of coal traffic, locals a couple of auto racks and intermodals. Maybe 10 freights a day. Keep in mind Amtrak runs 6 trains north of Sanford.
Also, bone valley, the phosphate mining region east of Tampa, has many trains daily. My scanner picked up 10 trains at once while I was parked next to Mulberry yard.

That amazes me that the S line is that busy! What kind of freight do they haul down that way? I was thinking more along the lines of 15-20 freights per day tops. Thanks.

The Wildwood sub from Baldwin to Wildwood has 2-3 auto rack trains each way (Q251, Q214, Q237) sometimes with second sections. One sb intermodal (Q189), and several mixed freights( about 5 each way). One Tropicana juice train each way (Q740 Q741), Both the LAKX (Lakeland) and ICXX (?) coal trains( also the Red Level coal trains north of Starke). A few rock trains ( some run throughs plus Conrad Yelvingtons Ocala and Wildwood trains and one for FNOR in Ocala for delivery to Anderson Columbia. ) And the locals( Starke switcher, Newberry turn, Wildwood-Hawthorne, and Wildwood-Dade City. ) Add to this some extras, and it makes for a pretty busy line. Traffic has increased quite a bit in the last 2 years, and it will increase further as CSX will switch the remaining through trains on the Orlando line to the s line due to the commuter operation due to start in Orlando in 2009. Read the latest Trains magazine for an article on CSX's plan to upgrade the whole Washington -Miami line to a grade crossing free triple and double track corridor. Under the plan , the Jax- Miami portion would be double tracked.