The Big Seaboard S Line Run July 2023

foreign fans we have had a hot summer here in Central Florida but I've managed to get out there a couple of times to see what's happening out there on the high iron now I got a new addition back there to the fence collection this one is from Elven Holland out of Jacksonville Florida it's a bridge plate reportedly off the old CNO in Michigan that's a nice piece and it's much appreciated Elvin I only hope my old fence can hold it up it's cast iron they don't make them like that anymore all right now let's get to the business at hand last Saturday I took a ride out along the S line I got a lot farther north than I expected to get but I wanted to see if there was anything new out there what I saw was a lot of new activity in a place that many had written off just a few years ago in July of 2023 the bulk of csx's freight traffic into Central and South Florida rides on the XC board Airline main from Jacksonville down through the middle of the state it's been over a year since I've checked things out here so I'm up early on this July Saturday morning to see how CSX is using this vital route into Florida in Tampa the only radio chatter I'm picking up is out of the bone Valley for the first 45 minutes of this drive up I-75 the s-line road Channel AAR 66 is quiet I get all the way to Wildwood before hearing anything so I pull into the depot area next to the yard a peek out onto the main line and I see a yellow signal on track one that's an indication for approach be ready to stop at the next signal ahead this is good news something's coming south and apparently is going to stop here I hang around about 30 minutes when finally tally ho it's m441-22 daily Freight traffic out of Waycross Georgia for Baldwin Wildwood and Tampa 441 is not a giant this morning and only has four cars to drop off here in Wildwood after getting word from the Wildwood train Master they cut off the four cars at the head of their train pull down south of the yard switch and then start shoving back northward it's a long shove into the tracks of East yard the engineer on m441 is following procedure exactly while adding his own personal style on that eight nine eight is it all right whoa now Wildwood is growing busier every day as it's now handling traffic for not only Wildwood area customers but Ocala lacuchi Dade City and even Zephyr Hills after dropping his four cars m441 has pulled down and out of the yard and is now returning to his train on the main line on that ground cliff walking with the shove here oh moving give me that hand signal eight nine eight in looking out the window m441 is backing out a couple up with his train guided only by the hand signals from his conductor the engineer walks those giant machines toward the contest until the two couplers shake hands and lock on that radio 67 engine 890. the main protection is now provided eight nine eight if m441 were a passenger train not one full cup of coffee would have spilled a drop on that couple up to go down meanwhile hot rail on track two train l-743 is pulling into Wildwood he's also stopping to do some work in the yard l-743 is daily traffic originating out of brown sand Georgia that's near Junction City he works Waycross Baldwin and here at Wildwood l-743 terminates at Winston yard at Lakeland SX m441 Southbound on the move again lead motor CSX 8988 root medium signal wow we need number one railout four and a half minutes goes by an m441 over there on track one along with its entertaining engineer is departing for Tampa the third player at Wildwood today arrives l-729 traffic coming out of Winston for brown sand Georgia he and L 743 are a daily pair that 743's conductor Ronnie Sally he's on the ground inspecting all 12 000 feet of 729 as it rolls past all right when the Northbound clears 743 goes to work today they're dropping off one load and picking up one empty that empty must go on the bottom half of the train below the loads and since today's 743 is all loads that lone pickup has to go on the very tail end this is a basic train building rule loaded cars go up front because they're heavier the empty cars go on the bottom because they're lighter if you were to put a light empty car in line ahead of heavy loads you could have a problem when applying brakes especially in a downhill or emergency situation loaded cars could force the lighter empty car to literally jump out of the train not good so what's happening here is Ronnie and his engineer are first setting off the inbound loaded car into one of the yard tracks then they're pulling their whole train South past the switch and then shoving that whole train back into a yard track not too big of a chore today as they're only 43 cars I'm up and riding 20. next they'll grab the pickup empty pull it out and set it out on the main line and afterward pull the balance of their original train back out of the yard and shove it on the main line back onto the loan empty connect up the air brakes and head south to Lakeland but I opted not to wait for those last Parts it was almost 11 30. temperature was heading up into the 90s so I hit the road again rolling north on U.S 301 I can still hear switching by the time I got through the villages Quagmire near Oxford it was getting to be lunchtime the combination of timing and geography made the choice easy at U.S 441 301 and State Road 326 is a shopping plaza with a Winn-Dixie a Chinese restaurant and a great seafood place Sam's St John's Seafood I ordered a head by phone so I could copy the mail on the radio and have lunch in the truck this is the two item lunch combo fried shrimp fried oysters and one of my absolute favorite side dishes cheese grits you just don't find this very often anywhere except for diners and I don't know why the shrimp are fried to a delicate golden brown hush puppies are always hot and crispy fried oysters tender and sweet it was just as good as it looks nothing's as cheap as it used to be these days though 1750 including iced tea oh well that's the price of deliciousness afterward I keep rolling north 10 miles more is Citra home of Waldron's produce always a Harmon stop in the summertime a quarter bushel of green peanuts is now 15 so I got two of them I think this is a new type of peanut though and they are incredible I've heard the variety is from Virginia I don't care though I've already boiled two batches and they're fantastic pushing on northward ahead for start to see the new overpass that flies State Road 100 Madison Street over the Florida s line a huge Improvement in this age of precision scheduled railroading and the giant trains it produces I set up off the road but near the crossing and had time to notice that old building that had a loading dock that surely had a house track below it at one time and check this out and old like at least 56 years old piggyback trailer with remnants of its Atlantic Coastline Heralds on both the front and the back I'd love to know how it landed here in enemy territory though Stark until July 1st 1967 was all Seaboard all the time I wanted to get some Aerials of this new bridge but nothing doing some restriction would not let my drone take off so this is what I got [Music] m453 daily Waycross to Winston and Miami dark is squarely in the middle of what I call the big Seaboard this was the railroad's main line from Richmond Virginia to Tampa Florida I'm glad this piece of the big road has not been abandoned or even downgraded over the years it was 1455 in the afternoon and though you can't tell it from this shot it was July hot out here so I loaded up and headed back south I did manage to jump ahead of 453 and luckily got the Drone in the air for this shot at Island Grove I know of no other place north of Lakeland on the S line that you can get a wide open shot like this it's basically a Causeway built out over the sometimes wet sometimes dry portion of Orange Lake I had gotten worried that this would be the last train until the evening northbounder started so there was nothing left now but to chase m453 back home I made it through the Ocala and Bellevue traffic light Garden relatively easily but not enough to get ahead of the train finally getting next to him through Santos things were looking pretty good I even made it through the villages with no problem I didn't hit a single light but this is the big Seaboard we're out of the silver meteor the Silver Star the Sunland the Palm land and the Orange Blossom Special keeping up with 453 on this track would not be easy breezing through Wildwood and then sumterville I definitely thought I had him now except for this let's go under the speed limit fellow ahead of me when it looked like things were falling apart at Panasoffkee but the chase wasn't lost right across that track was County Road 475 which thanks to I-75 running parallel right next to it does not have a single stop sign or traffic light on it I was behind a Dodge Ram pickup and neither of us was letting that road get any older underneath us in a couple of Miles I'd caught up with the DP engine I could hear it through the trees down into Bushnell a red signal did get me but it was a short one and I was back in the chase this was once a perfect shot on the curve and Bushnell but they planted those trees to beautify the place so not so great now and then there was this now I view all graffiti as vandalism but I also admire hard work which someone did a lot of on this refrigerated boxcar 453 was finally in the rear view mirror just north of Saint Catherine rolling up on the Dade City Depot I'd put about five minutes between me and 453. at 1800 in mid-july the light is very good on the western side of the tracks here again was the train I saw at Stark Island Grove and Bushnell 674 axles were foreign the Dade City Depot is one of the few old stations on the S line that's been preserved and is still used for community activities it houses a museum and events all year long outside the old house track is still in the ground though it's now severed on both ends house tracks and station tracks are steadily disappearing with each new upgrade or overhaul on the main line waiting out a train isn't easy in this summer heat still above 90 degrees in the late afternoon but finally at 1900 I was there for io44 nightly piggyback traffic out of Tampa for Duvall ramp in Jacksonville he's a short one tonight possibly reflecting the current slump in Intermodal business or maybe just reflecting that it's a Saturday now that was only five trains in 12 hours but it just goes to show what you can do and how much of a day you can make out of it if you know your territory and you use your radio scanner so thank you for coming along with me now send me any questions you may have to the comment section down below I had more than a thousand questions on the diamonds video last week and I'm just getting around to reading them so give me some time on that thanks to everyone for all your kind words and all of the uh the questions and comments hit that hit that subscribe button to join us here on the channel every time we post a new video and please make sure to join us again somewhere out there on the high iron until we do this is Danny Harmon out

Channel: Distant Signal

Views: 99,980

Keywords: Railroad, Trains, Danny Harmon, Railfan, Railfanning, CSX, Distant Signal, High Iron., Wildwood, Waldron Farms, Sam's St. Johns seafood, Starke, S-Line

Id: h2hdfEBpkow

Length: 16min 38sec (998 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 31 2023