The A&ECT was jointly owned by the ACL and FEC (thus the Atlantic & East Coast) and operated a large freight house that filled the area between Jefferson, Forsyth, Stuart and Bay streets. There was a large concrete ramp for automobile loading on the west end between Stuart and Lee. Stuart did not go through, but an elevated stairway allowed pedestrians to cross the tracks. The building was U-shaped, with a three story office building facing Jefferson, and a multi-bayed extension on each side of four tracks in the middle. The FEC's wing was on the south facing Bay; the ACL used the north side facing Forsyth. Arched doorways allowed truck access to the street side and railroad access to the tracks. The Gateway Model Railroad Club was housed in the two westernmost bays on the Forsyth wing for several years in the mid-Seventies, after moving from our original space in the old Pullman offices on the second floor of the Jacksonville Terminal building- on the north side, adjacent to Bay Street.
There was a fire in the office end of the freighthouse several years after we moved in. I was downtown and saw the smoke, and, with my heart in my throat, drove as close as I could to see if it involved our space. After the fire, the south wing was torn down, as was the office section, and the SCL closed off the east end with a blank wall. By then the building was being used mostly for storage and damaged freight. On Friday nights when we met to work on the layout, we would open both freight doors for ventilation in warm weather, and on a few occasions a switching locomotive would stop at our door. The crew would come in to look at our trains, and we would go out and look at theirs!
We learned that the building was to be razed, and the Club moved on to the West Bay Post Office Annex.
