Seminole Gulf Railway

Seminole Gulf Railway

300px An EMD GP9 of the Seminole Gulf Railway — Fort Myers, Florida.
Reporting mark	SGLR
Locale	Southwest Florida
Dates of operation	1987–
Track gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Headquarters	Fort Myers, FL

The Seminole Gulf Railway (reporting mark SGLR) is a short line railroad headquartered in Fort Myers, Florida that operates two former CSX railroad lines in Southwest Florida.

Seminole Gulf Railway's main line (CSX's former Fort Myers Subdivision) runs from Arcadia south through Punta Gorda, Fort Myers, and Bonita Springs before terminating just a mile south of crossing into Collier County in North Naples; a distance of nearly 80 miles.

The company also runs a separate nearly 20 mile line from just south of Bradenton in Oneco south through Sarasota. The line (CSX's former Sarasota Subdivision) went as far south as Venice when Seminole Gulf acquired it, but was truncated to Palmer Ranch (just south of Sarasota) in the mid 2000s. The Sarasota line also includes a short 5-mile branch from downtown Sarasota back north to Matoaka.

Seminole Gulf began operating the lines in late 1987. The main line connects with CSX's Brewster Subdivision in Arcadia and Sarasota line connects with CSX's Palmetto Subdivision in Oneco. The Seminole Gulf Railway has a commonly owned affiliated company, the Bay Colony Railroad Corp. (reporting mark BCLR), which is based in southeastern Massachusetts.

Current Operations

Seminole Gulf is the primary freight railroad operating through Southwest Florida along with CSX and South Central Florida Express, who operates tracks farther inland near Clewiston. Freight transported by Seminole Gulf Railway includes lumber, newsprint, propane, stone, steel, scrap metal, and other commodities.

Murder Mystery Dinner Train & Excursions

In addition to carrying freight, Seminole Gulf Railway also operates a popular Murder Mystery Dinner Train from Fort Myers. The dinner train runs five nights a week, year-round from a station at Colonial Boulevard. It generally goes north to a point just south of Punta Gorda before returning utilizing a fleet of 1930s-era vintage rail cars named "Sanibel", "Captiva", "Gasparilla", and "Marco" (named after nearby barrier islands). The train includes a five-course dinner and has featured over 80 different murder mystery productions throughout its history.

Seminole Gulf has also operated general excursion trains in the past. The Murder Mystery Dinner Train and excursion trains began in 1991 and were initially based from a small platform in North Naples near Railhead Park, but moved to the current station at Colonial Boulevard shortly after.

History

Seminole Gulf's drawbridge over the Caloosahatchee River just east of Fort Myers near mile marker AX 960

Arcadia to North Naples Line

The first segment of the main line was completed in 1886 between Arcadia and Punta Gorda by the Florida Southern Railroad (a subsidiary of Henry Plant's system of railroads). It was the final segment of the Florida Southern's Charlotte Harbor Division, which originated in Lakeland and terminated at Punta Gorda's Long Dock in Charlotte Harbor (located just west of where Fisherman's Village stands today). Punta Gorda became the southernmost point the Plant System ever reached, and the railroad's arrival is largely responsible for Punta Gorda's development as a city, which was incorporated four years later.

Henry Plant was reluctant to have the line continue south to Fort Myers, which had already been established as a city at that time unlike Punta Gorda. Upon Plant's death in 1899, his heirs sold his entire system of railroads to the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. An extension to Fort Myers became a top priority for Atlantic Coast Line president Henry Walters which was completed on May 10, 1904, making it the Coast Line's first expansion of the former Plant System. The extension included a wharf at the end of Monroe Street along the Caloosahatchee River (which existed until 1944). Fort Myers also experienced major growth after the arrival of the railroad and would remain the southernmost point of the entire Atlantic Coast Line Railroad system until the Florida land boom of the 1920s.

Once the land boom was underway, the Coast Line partnered with a number of local businessmen including advertising entrepreneur Barron Collier, who owned large amounts of land in Collier County (which was named for him). Through this partnership, the line was extended south beyond Fort Myers, reaching Bonita Springs by late 1925, and Naples (in the eastern part of town) by December 1926. The line ultimately reached Collier City on Marco Island in mid 1927. Simultaneously, the Coast Line's competitor, the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, built their parallel Seaboard-All Florida Railway from Fort Ogden to Fort Myers and Naples. Seaboard's service to Naples commenced eleven days after the Coast Line, although they managed to quietly secure a more centrally located route (present-day Goodlette-Frank Road) closer to downtown Naples.

After Seaboard discontinued service to Naples in 1942, the Atlantic Coast Line managed to acquire the southernmost 7 miles of their former right-of-way. The Seaboard's route was connected to the Coast Line's track at a point near Vanderbilt Beach, and by 1944 they relocated all Naples passenger service to the Seaboard's former passenger depot on Fifth Avenue South from their original depot (which was located at the northeast corner of Radio Road and Airport-Pulling Road near Naples Municipal Airport). Once the main route was shifted into downtown Naples, service to Marco Island was discontinued, and the original route through East Naples to Marco Island was removed.

Intercity passenger service to Southwest Florida was discontinued in 1971 upon the creation of Amtrak. CSX truncated the line to its current terminus in North Naples in the mid 1980s, shortly before Seminole Gulf's acquisition of it.

While no significant branches exist along Seminole Gulf's main line, there are a couple of notable short spurs. One spur that runs from the line near downtown Fort Myers that serves The News-Press is all that remains of tracks that historically served the Coast Line's downtown Fort Myers passenger depot and the docks on Monroe Street. Another notable spur runs along Alico Road just north of San Carlos Park. This spur, known as the Baker Spur, was built in 1973 and it originally extended beyond Interstate 75 to serve rock mines in eastern Lee County on land owned by the Atlantic Land and Improvement Company (known today as Alico, Inc.), which was once a subsidiary of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and was the holding company for its real estate division. Seminole Gulf abandoned the easternmost three miles of the Baker Spur in 1994.

The John Yarbrough Linear Park trail runs beside some the line's right-of-way just south of Fort Myers.

Sarasota Line

The Sarasota line mostly operates on tracks built by the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, although the mainline between downtown Sarasota to just south of Fruitville Road and the branch to Matoaka were built by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad.

The Seaboard first built their line, which extended from Durant (just east of Tampa), to Sarasota via Parrish, Palmetto and Bradenton in 1903. Some of the line ran along the former route of the Arcadia, Gulf Coast and Lakeland Railroad, an earlier unsuccessful railroad between Bradenton and Sarasota. In 1905, Seaboard extended the line a short distance southeast into Fruitville. At this time, the tracks ran through downtown Sarasota along Lemon Avenue and Pineapple Avenue and turned east along what is now Alderman Street and Brother Geenen Way. The tracks also served a dock facility into Sarasota Bay. In 1911, at the request of socialite Bertha Honoré Palmer, the line was extended south to Venice.

The Atlantic Coast Line came to the area later in 1924 as part of the land boom when they built the Tampa Southern Railroad, which up until 1949 continued southeast as far as Southfort (along the Peace River), where it merged with the Coast Line's route to Fort Myers (coincidentally Seminole Gulf's Arcadia to North Naples line). The Seaboard and the Coast Line tracks originally ran directly beside each other through Fruitville.

In 1967, the Seaboard Air Line and the Atlantic Coast Line merged to form the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad (who later merged with the Chessie System in 1980 to form CSX). The mergers led to consolidation of the two routes and abandonment of redundant trackage including the Seaboard's original route through downtown Sarasota and the Coast Line's tracks between Bradenton and Matoaka.

In the early 2000s, Seminole Gulf and CSX abandoned the little-used southern portion of the line between Palmer Ranch and Venice, which most notably carried the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus up until 1992. The line's former right of way is now part of the Legacy Trail.

See also

• Punta Gorda Atlantic Coast Line Depot

External links

• Official website