FANTASTIC! It´s about time, IF I ever get out of Colombia (Today I got good news and bad news. The good? "The Inspector General of the Railways want´s to see you!" The bad? Our Ferrocarril de Antioquia restoration project just got shot in the butt from Bogota... more meetings, more foot dragging, and the beat goes on and on) and WE complain about JACKSONVILLE!
Someone mentioned the Beaches, well this might be a stretch at this point in the game BUT, if you walk the track south through San Marco, you will pass two interesting points (I confess seeing them from the window of an FEC passenger train) ONE is the old South Jacksonville Station site and the other is a sharp spur that turns east (or did a few years back) into some industrial yard and gate and ends butted up aginst an elevated section of I-95. THIS little spur is part of the old railroad "wye" and the Start of what was once a line along Beach Blvd, all the way to Jacksonville Beach, Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach and Mayport! IF WE´RE TALKING MILLIONS, how hard would it be to put it back?
Also, check out the proposed on again-off again Florida DOT plan to restore Amtrak to the Florida East Coast. St. Augustine and St. Johns County ALREADY HA VE a plan with design in hand for a multi-modal / over US 1 Station at their airport! Plus at last check the old (very tropical modern circa 1960) FEC station was still standing just to the west of Where the highways split as you enter St. Augustine proper. The railroad removed the track by the station and relaid it behind it´s old MILLER SHOPS in St. Augustine in order to use the Miller property fronting on US 1 as development land. But with only a hundred yard move the cool Station from the past COULD be put back into use. You might also note a slight lump in US 1, as you approach the FEC tripple office buildings (Sold to Flagler College) . That´s because the old mainline went over the road and into a classic St. Augustine Station in that little park just North of the Offices. THAT would make a nice, ez walking distance setting for a stub terminal for Commuter Rail, right at the College´s new doorstep... But then there´s St. Johns Mall, Palm Coast, Bunnell, Oh what the heck, bring back the "Havanna Special", "Flamingo", "Dixie Flyer", "H.M. Flagler" and all the rest al lthe way to Miami!
Ocklawaha
Frustrated in a deserted, Andean Cloud Forest, railroad yard office!