Eastern Railroad Discussion > Orlando to Tampa

I will be traveling to the Orlando to Tampa area next week and will only have a day(thursday) or so to look around. Any suggestions for frt action would be helpful. Please include location and radio frequency. Thank You, TTS

Ride the light rail in Tampa if you have the opportunity. Nice ride.

Probably the safest and most convenient location is Plant City. It has a very good mix of freight traffic: manifest, autorack, intermodal, Tropicana, phosphate, coal, ethanol, and rock. There are also daily Amtrak and local freights. Plant City is currently building a bi-level train watching platform next to the old station.

Andrew

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/31/13 15:41 by florida581.

What light rail Lackawanna? Do you mean the Teco Trolley? If so, it's a tourist trolley and a joke. Goes from nowhere to nowhere and you could walk faster.

No offense, but I live in the area and that's the way it is.

moltensulphur Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What light rail Lackawanna? Do you mean the Teco
> Trolley? If so, it's a tourist trolley and a
> joke. Goes from nowhere to nowhere and you could
> walk faster.
>
> No offense, but I live in the area and that's the
> way it is.

I enjoyed a ride on it two years ago. As a visitor, I found it pleasant, clean, and passed through several interesting neighborhoods.

Others will differ, which is great.

Here are some radio frequencies that you'll want.
Regards,
Danny Harmon
Tampa

Central Florida Rail Corridor (Sunrail)

ROAD AAR41 - 160.725
DS AAR97 - 161.565

CSXT

Main Line/Road

32 160.590
66 161.100
84 161.370

Dispatcher

8 160.230 JF/BB Desk Tampa area
54 160.920 JA/AA Desk A & S Line Florida
94 161.520 JG/BA Desk for Auburndale to Miami
14 160.320 JC/AC Desk for Folkston, GA area

Yards

12 160.290 Yeoman Yard, Tampa
82 161.340 Rockport Yard, Tampa
86 161.400 Winston Yard, Lakeland

Plant City Depot at Reynolds and Palmer streets is best if you want to light down and watch 'em roll by. It's a city-owned property so no one will hassle you. Plant City is the only spot in Florida where the CSX S-Line and A-Line cross on a diamond.
4 miles to the east in Lakeland is another good spot. Here is where the Busy Vitis sub join the A-Line. Lakeland Junction is about a quarter miles east of Sloan Ave on W. Main St.

Early mornings and late afternoons are best in both these spots.

The TECO Line Streetcar in Tampa is surely worth your time. It's a very nice ride on a bona fide Trolley system.
Our Streetcar line, while a great tourist attraction, is not very valuable as a transportation mode.
The buses are faster and easier to use. And it cost us 50 million bucks back in 2003 and is still hemorrhaging money. I don't know if other cities are experiencing the same issues, but If I were an official in a major city faced with a faction wanting to build one of these things, I would discourage it with great vigor.

Danny Harmon
Tampa

Narr8rdanny Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Plant City Depot at Reynolds and Palmer streets is
> best if you want to light down and watch 'em roll
> by. It's a city-owned property so no one will
> hassle you. Plant City is the only spot in Florida
> where the CSX S-Line and A-Line cross on a
> diamond.
> 4 miles to the east in Lakeland is another good
> spot. Here is where the Busy Vitis sub join the
> A-Line. Lakeland Junction is about a quarter miles
> east of Sloan Ave on W. Main St.
>
> Early mornings and late afternoons are best in
> both these spots.
>
> The TECO Line Streetcar in Tampa is surely worth
> your time. It's a very nice ride on a bona fide
> Trolley system.
> Our Streetcar line, while a great tourist
> attraction, is not very valuable as a
> transportation mode.
> The buses are faster and easier to use. And it
> cost us 50 million bucks back in 2003 and is still
> hemorrhaging money. I don't know if other cities
> are experiencing the same issues, but If I were an
> official in a major city faced with a faction
> wanting to build one of these things, I would
> discourage it with great vigor.
>
> Danny Harmon
> Tampa

The Wall Street Journal had an article a few years ago about the fascination of city planners with street cars / light rail. Tampa was mentioned as a well constructed system that doesn't link residential areas with core business areas or a university, etc and thus lacks any critical mass.

This post is the best of the replies: the two best spots between Tampa and Orlando are Plant City and Lakeland. In both cases, their lines from the north (which diverge from a common line at Vitis Junction, just south of Dade City) are being heavily upgraded with additional/lengthened sidings and new signaling. Traffic patterns have not yet changed - but they will change in a few months when CSX starts rerouting traffic from the former ACL main line through Orlando onto the line via Baldwin and the central part of the state.

Lakeland has (had?) several fertilizer plants. At least one (Mosaic) has/d its own switchers, as I recall from a visit a few years ago. Back then some operations were visible from the parking lot outside the security gate.