Passenger Trains > Train time at Tupperware

Flew to Florida earlier this week for a symposium in Kissimmee and had a few hours to kill after it wrapped up on Friday.  The SunRail service from DeBary (north of Sanford) through Orlando and Kissimmee to a spot called Poinciana was the closest available rail action, but the afternoon light angles (and station security) at Kissimmee were not conducive to railroad photography.  I browsed the train schedule for other possibilities and came across the next station to the north called...Tupperware???  Turns out Tupperware world headquarters is just a reusable plastic container's throw away from the station, as is the Osceola Parkway overpass, which allowed for a bit of an elevated perspective.  https://maps.app.goo.gl/TFo7UDdbEKPQuoUC8

1) The station sign along Orange Ave., just to prove I'm not lying.

2) As I arrived at the station, southbound train P327 was arriving, so I banged off a going-away shot as it departed with the Osceola Parkway overpass in the background (from which the rest of the photos in this thread were taken).  SunRail trains run push-pull with the locomotive on the north end.  All of the trains I saw consisted of two Bombardier "lozenge" cars and one of Sunrail's unique MotivePower MP32PH-Q's. 

3) The end of the line at Poinciana is just two stations away, so 52 minutes after the previous shot, here comes the same trainset northbound as P332.  The MP32PH-Q, with its streamlined MotivePower cab grafted onto a roadswitcher carbody, reminds me of nothing so much as the locomotive equivalent of a fish skeleton.  The model is what you get when you take a regular old freight GP40 and run it through the works at Boise, ID twice to turn it into a passenger unit.  The first pass in 1994 (when the shop was still run by Morrison-Knudsen) resulted in a small fleet of MARC GP40WH-2's with flared radiators and salvaged BN F45 noses and cabs grafted on.  The conversion into MP32PH-Q's for SunRail came ten years later. 

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4) Southbound Train P331 comes out of Tupperware as fresh as it went in.  The red-colored car wears advertising for Orlando Health.

5) The afternoon's regularly scheduled thunderstorms were building in the west and blotting out the sun, but I hung around a while longer to catch one each of the Amtrak trains that share this line, the Silver Star and Silver Meteor.  They don't stop at Tupperware, calling instead at the station in downtown Kissimmee.  Here's an hours-late westbound Silver Meteor, Tr.97...

6) ...and a nearly on-time eastbound Silver Star, Tr.92.

With the light getting worse and the rain getting closer, it was time to put a lid on the day's Tupperware foaming and go find some supper...preferrably not leftovers...

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Nice economical sun rail train.  will prob hold 200 pax if needed.

I always liked those SunRail engines. Old GP40H-2's (ex MARC?) with new crush resistant MPI cabs. Cool!

Nice bunch, at the symposium were they debating about being called KISS-immee or Kis-SIM-mee, lol?

JG

jgilmore Wrote:

> Nice bunch, at the symposium were they debating about being called KISS-immee or Kis-SIM-mee, lol?

I scrupulously avoided saying the town's name for fear of getting slapped.

I understand  as you enter into the Tupperware museum, when they open the door the tupperware falls out onto the floor.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/23 05:57 by amtrakbill.

And the Kississimmee baseball team is the Astros!

Those are some nice shots, Evan!   My favorites are the amtrak shots.

texchief1