Arizona Eastern 2170 does duty on the First Coast Railroad (FCRD) in Fernandina Beach

 Looking north toward the port of Fernandina.

 Looking south into the First Coast Railroad's Fernandina yard.

I went to a lecture in Fernandina a couple Fridays ago and caught a blue Arizona Eastern (AZER) engine pulling duty at the First Coast Railroad's Fernandina yard. AZER 2170 was pulling a manifest train from the Rock Tenn and Fernandina port that is north of the yard into the Fernandina yard.  The slow-moving southbound train disappears in the yard between graffitied box cars which once was the northern terminus of the Florida Railroad.

Work on Amelia Island Trail progressing

 The AIT will parallel the Northbound lanes of SR A1A from the Grady Bridge to Fletcher Ave.

 The bike trail through Big and Little Talbot Island State Parks just recently opened.

The New Grady Bridge (left) mirrors the old bridge over the Nassau Sound between Duval and Nassau Counties. One will provide the link between the AIT and the Talbot Island trails, vital parts of the East Coast Greenway.

 

Work on the Amelia Island Trail (AIT) is progressing from the Grady Bridge at the southernmost point of Amelia Island northward to the Fletcher Avenue intersection. When finished in 2013, the off road bike trail will look much like the Talbot Island bike trail in Northeast Duval County that will south from the Grady Bridge through Little and Big Talbot Island State Parks to Ft. George and the Mayport Ferry.  Together the two will form an important link in the East Coast Greenway, a national bike trail that when completed will link South Florida with New England. Funds for the AIT came from grants from the Florida Department of Transportation and the North Florida Transportation Planning Organization.

Alternate rail links to Jacksonvile's ports other than the exising Gross line to be studied

North Florida Transportation Planning Organization will perform a study in 2013 to determine if running a railroad through Northern Duval County to connect CSX's main line to the new Jax ports on the St. Johns River is a better alternative that the abandoned Gross Line. The Gross line was built in the mid-1920s from Gross (at the I 95-US 17 interchange just south of the GA-FL line) to Callahan. This allowed Seaboard Air Line to divert their passenger trains heading for Central and South Florida on their main line that paralleled US 17 in Georgia to bypass the congested Jacksonville Terminal. The 14-mile segment has been abandoned since 1985. As it is now, once the port is opened, trains will have to use their track that runs south along US 17 into the urban core of Jacksonville than curves west to join the main line in Grand Crossing just south of Edgewood Ave.  The speed limit along this track is very low because it crossings many grade crossings and an old swing span bridge across Trout River.  (Thankfully, FDOT has just built an overpass over this 15-mile sub and eliminated the US 1/23 grade crossing south of Edgewood Avenue.)  These other options will have to cross US 1/23 and SR 115 (Lem Turner Road), the two main highways that connect Jacksonville to Callahan, at grade. Plus, a costly overpass will have to be added on I 95 to allow this track to pass underneath. I, for one, hope they decide to use the Gross line as  the port link because the bed is already there.  Link to the story as reported in the Florida Times-union is provided below.
http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2012-09-15/story/prospect-railroad-line-being-built-through-northside-has-residents-edge

New prefab track arrives in Callahan bound for Callahan-Baldwin Sub

Semi tractors with stretch flatbeds escorted by beacon-mounted escort cars arrived in Callahan today. Their cargo was prefab railroad track measuring about 60 feet. I am assuming they are for the new rural grade crossings that dot the first 4 miles (MM 16-MM 20) of the Calahan-Baldwin sub. Work as kicked into high gear on upgrading the 20- mile line and turnout on CSX's main line into Florida. A new darth-vader signal has been added about 1/2 mile north of Sandy Ford Road grade crossing (about MM 18) which will replace the older, south-facing signal at MM 19.9 near the turnout onto the main line.  With cooler weather coming, I will be able to better monitor the construction. The upgrade follows CSX decision to sell their track in the Orlando area to the State of Florida for their Sunrail commuter line.  Since they will not be able to send trains through Orlando during the day,  CSX will funnel more train traffic coming into Florida onto their secondary line that parallels US 301 from Callahan to Zephyrhills near Tampa, thus bypassing the A-line that runs beside US 17 from Jacksonville and Orlando.

Track Upgrade kicks in high gear on callahan-baldwin sub

While i was on my way to work today, i saw this unusual train today heading south on the CSX main line. It slowly exited onto the Baldwin-Callahan sub (MP 20).  I drove down to Sandy Ford Road grade crossing (MP 18) and noticed a lot of CSX workers removing the old track. They also installed new train signals with Darth Vader shields several hundred yards north of Sandy Ford. I then drove to the Crawford Road grade crossing at MP 16 and took some pictures of this unusual work train spraying some kind of liquid on the tracks. (upon further research it was a LORAM rail grinder train) Rumor has it that CSX is getting ready to double track some of this 20-mile stretch of important stretch of track. (If you look close enough in the bottom picture, there is a NB manifest waiting in the distance on the Crawford siding for this LORAM to pass)

CSX works on upgrading main line in Callahan north of Baldwin turnout as two trains race by

I had a couple of spare hours today before the weather got hot so I walked to the US 301 viaduct in Callahan.  CSX is doing some major work on the main line between the Old Dixie Highway and CR 108 grade crossings in Callahan. Countless dump trucks have been hauling dirt down the west bank of the double track in order to level the rail bank for a construction road.  Rumor has it that they are preparing to improving the Baldwin turn out in Callahan to meet the demands of more train traffic using the Callahan-Baldwin line. They are going to straightening out that sharp curve that trains have to negotiate at such a low speed by moving it further north toward Old Dixie Highway. This will allow them to double curve the turn out as well, although I haven't hear any confirmation of this.
Luckily, while I was on top of the viaduct, 2 speeding southbound trains raced by at the same time. First a coal train appeared around the sharp curve north of the Old Dixie Hwy. grade crossing followed by a speeding Intermodal bound for the Jax Intermodal yard in Dinsmore. I will update further if I see or hear more on the CSX construction project in Callahan.

Workers build a construction road on the western bank of CSX's main line just south of the Old Dixie Highway (CR 115) grade crossing in Callahan.

 A southbound coal train rounds the bend and speeds across the Old Dixie Highway headed for one of Florida's numerous coal-hungry power plants.

 Just as the coal train crosses the Alligator Creek Trestle and approaches the signals for the Baldwin turnout, an Intermodal train rounds the curve.

 CSX engine 928 heads leads a trio of locomotives and its heavy load of coal cars through the CR 108 grade crossing with the Intermodal in hot pursuit.

Not to be out done, A duo of CSX engines lead by #314 races past the Baldwin turnout and one by one passes the coal-laden cars.

The US 301 viaduct shakes as both southbound trains thunder on the CSX main line below.  Soon more freight trains will opt for the Baldwin turnout as the Orlando commuter trains come online in the near future.

As both trains disappear underneath the viaduct, I step across the roadway to the south side of the bridge. I caught the rear end of both trains disappear into the fog of the late summer morning. The FRED of the Intermodal finally passed the FRED of the coal train as they crossed the Pickett Road grade crossing south of Callahan.

Railfanning in Yulee, Nassau County, FL

When one thinks of rail fanning in Nassau County, FL, one usually does not think of Yulee as a hot spot, but the junction of the CSX branch line with the Gennessee and Wyoming's First Coast Railroad (FCRD) has its moments.  The CSX S-line use to the Seaboard Air Line's main line into Florida, roughly paralleling US 17 from Savannah, GA,  to Jacksonville, FL.  Since the merger of the SAL and ACL, the tracks have been taken up from Riceboro, GA to just north of Kingsland, GA (parts have become a rails-to-trails portion of the East Coast Greenway). The branch line that remains services a huge swathe of area that includes Northern Jacksonville and everything east of I 95 in Duval, Nassau, and Camden Counties. Their biggest customers are the ports of Jacksonville and Fernandina (serviced by FCRD), Talleyrand Terminal (serviced by Gennesse and Wyoming's Tallyrand Terminal Railroad, TTR), the Blount Island Commercial and Military Port; Rayonier, Rock Tenn Mills in Fernandina and Nassau County Tradeplex (serviced by FCRD); the Busch Beer Plant; Imeson Industrial Park; and Kings Bay Naval Base and various customers in Candem County (serviced by the St. Marys Railroad via FCD). The traffic is funnelled south on the S-line across the Trout River swing span bridge into urban North Jacksonville then switched on the old ACL's Jacksonville and Southwestern Line westward to the CSX main line in Grand Crossing. (Due west of the US 1 (Kings Road)  and 45th Street intersection in Northwest Jacksonville)
I am not sure of the timetable of when CSX goes to Yulee to interchange with the FCRD but it has to be before 10 AM because that is the time FCRD opens the Amelia Island Swing Truss bridge to let their train onto Amelia Island and into Fernandina Beach.  I was recently on my way to Yulee when I was stopped by one such CSX train around 9 AM.  It had stopped across SR A1A/200 grade crossing (as it often does, much to the frustration of many motorists) to allow the proper switches to be thrown inside the yard several 100 yards north of the crossing.  It finally cleared the crossing and I pulled to the left in front of the old Flood Store (one of a few buildings left of the small, yet historic Yulee district that sprang up along the junctions of Hart's Road and the Florida Railroad {1856} and later the Fernandina and Jacksonvillle RR {1882}, the latter becoming the S-Line when it was extended north to Savannah in the 1890s.)  In 1925, Seaboard built the Gross Bypass (named after a small turpentine town on the S-Line just north of the I 95 and US 17 junction north of Yulee) that funneled its passengers trains Southwestward through Callahan and onto its main line in Baldwin and away from the congestion of Jacksonville.  By the 1950s, SAL pulled up its tracks from Yulee westward to Callahan and most of the businesses moved eastward to the US 17/SR A1A intersection.
I wasnt able to wait to see the FCRD train pull out of the yard and head to Fernandina but I was able to see the CSX train while it was inside the yard. Yulee's SAL depot, now covered with abestos shingles and looking nothing like its former self, still sits vacant along the track where the two SAL lines once crossed.