Eastern Railroad Discussion > FEC blasting through West Palm Beach

While hanging out and photographing some Brightline moves in West Palm Beach, Florida a Florida East Coast southbound blasted through the station. I'm guessing this was train 109. It was doing every bit of 50mph. Note the nose of BL 104 can be seen off to the left on track 3.

Roger Durfee
Akron, OH



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/25/20 12:07 by EL833.

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Beautiful image. This looks more like it was photographed on the set of a futuristic movie.
Bob

Yes, that was train 109, per posting to an FEC-related Facebook page.
 

The first class lounge is directly above the locomotive.

Posted from Android

Nice pic.  I never understood why Brightline spent all that money for long freight train bypasses at their stations and also gap fillers on their passenger cars just so freights could bypass its stations but they really don't have to and obviously don't.  A gauntlet track would have been fine for any rare wide stuff.

You can add to that why they went with high-level platforms since low level would have been much cheaper and would have been more compatible with existing Tri-Rail practices especially since there are plans to move some Tri-Rail trains to FEC tracks.
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/25/20 13:08 by FloridaTrainGuy.

Nice shot!

FloridaTrainGuy Wrote:
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> You can add to that why they went with high-level
> platforms since low level would have been much
> cheaper and would have been more compatible with
> existing Tri-Rail practices especially since there
> are plans to move some Tri-Rail trains to FEC
> tracks.

The high-level platforms are state-of-the-art for wheelchair accessibility and serve also to dissuade anyone from entering the stations via the platforms, rather than coming through the main entrance and passing through their security checkpoint.

It'll be interesting to see how all that works for TriRail if they really do start sharing stations.

I flew into West Palm Beach for work last week. Are the tracks that essentially parallel I-95 the tracks used by Brightline?

It was a quick in and out trip this time, but I suspect I will need to visit Boynton Beach again in the future and will try to plan some time to watch a train or two.

Thanks!
Dan

Posted from iPhone

BrightLine FEC tracks are to the east, for the most part. Often along US 1 and 811

Amtrak, Tri Rail tracks run alongside I 95 in this area.

Posted from Android

EL833 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> While hanging out and photographing some
> Brightline moves in West Palm Beach, Florida a
> Florida East Coast southbound blasted through the
> station. I'm guessing this was train 109. It was
> doing every bit of 50mph. Note the nose of BL 104
> can be seen off to the left on track 3.

Nicely done Roger!