Eastern Railroad Discussion > Pensacola, FL operations

Headed to FL soon and was checking out some aerials of the area.  Suprised to see a very large yard in Pensacola, active street running and a somewhat decent traffic base.    Can anyone provide any insight into current ops in the area?  i.e. train counts, etc?

How many trains are running east towards Tallahasee currently?

TIA

Hard to say now since today is the last day of CSX operations down there. The new short line owner takes over tomorrow.

Wonder what tjhe new railroad will look like?  A 'going concern' or a bunch of rust buckets? 

What timing!

For what it is worth (does not say much), here is the new railroad's website:

https://www.railusa.net/florida-gulf-atlantic-railroad/

If you have time, the Navy Blue Angels often practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The Naval Air Station Pensecola had times on its website.

Posted from Android

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> If you have time, the Navy Blue Angels often
> practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
>
> The Naval Air Station Pensecola had times on its
> website.
>
> Posted from Android

When I ws in the Navy oh so many years ago, I was stationed at NAS Fallon Nv. The Navy shut the runways down at Fallon for awhile each winter. When this happened we took the training ops down to NAS El Centro Ca. This was where the Navy had their Blue Angels do the training in the winter months. Over the period of time I was down there got to see and watch the entire Blue Angel Program in bits and pieces and then finally the entire show. Always a neat thing to watch.   Ben

Note that G&W's AGR (Alabama and Gulf Coast Railway) also serves Pensacola over an ex-BNSF/BN/SLSF line that enters from the north. Also, CSX still enters Pensacola from the north. I would guess that 80% of the freight into Pensacola comes over those two lines. 

Street running is mainly to reach the port, which is not that active. The industries in Cantonment generate more traffic.

RIP old Pensacola and Atlantic Subdivision of the L&N. Use to run this line in Engine Service. 10 regular trains which included four pigs, 4 run through freights, two locals plus the Baychem turn, Sunset Limited plus extras. This was in the 90's. Active railroad with a bright future.

Steve Panzik
Chiloquin, Or

ln844south Wrote:
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> RIP old Pensacola and Atlantic Subdivision of the
> L&N. Use to run this line in Engine Service. 10
> regular trains which included four pigs, 4 run
> through freights, two locals plus the Baychem
> turn, Sunset Limited plus extras. This was in the
> 90's. Active railroad with a bright future.
>
> Steve Panzik
> Chiloquin, Or

The hurricanes, collapse of the timber business, and an interstate gasoline pipeline had an huge impact on the area.  The whole area, with Katrina, Michael, and others.

The rebuilding of the  Panhandle Riviera should bring lots of sheet rock, building materials, roofing, etc into the area, but that seems to be taking forever.

Most of the tonnage across the Panhandle came off the connecting roads at NOLA and was a lot of haz mat, autos, and FAK (Freight of all kinds) Most of it was rerouted away from the Panhandle through Montgomery and Waycross to get around installing PTC.You can forget the Sunset coming back. Meet with some of my old fella railroaders in Pensacola and they advise the track has been neglected with most of it 25mph. reduced from the 59mph for passenger and 49 mph for freight.
Lot of the local business was timber related and it was pretty well run off after Staggers in 1980'

Steve Panzik
Chilqion, OR

ts1457 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What timing!
>
> For what it is worth (does not say much), here is
> the new railroad's website:
>
> https://www.railusa.net/florida-gulf-atlantic-rail
> road/

What's with all of the foreign pictures on their website? With their only two railroads being in the USA, couldn't they find anyone that has taken more relevant photos?