The Way It Was: Juice Train 1997

hello again rail fans we are blowing the dust off another one in the distant signal vault this week while finishing up trains of the bone valley back in 1996 and 97 i learned about another train that was unique to the tampa bay area the tropicana juice train created by the seaboard coastline in 1970 the juice train was a single customer express job coming straight out of the tropicana plant at bradenton and running all the way up to their distribution plant at kearney new jersey the new york city market was always a huge consumer of florida orange juice and tropicana took advantage of that by running a refrigerated train of fresh pasteurized juice up there almost on a daily basis well here's the story of that operation as it was in 1997 and 98. once again i talked to folks at csx into letting me ride along through to the first crew change at baldwin florida near jacksonville i don't know how i did that one morning i got a call from train master dennis carroll who said if you want to ride the juice train be at yeoman yard on sunday morning at 8 00 am i hung up from dennis got on the phone immediately to some videographer friends called in some favors so that i could have some video of the train from the ground as we left tampa then so that we'd have a way to get us and our gear back home another videographer friend and i drove two cars to baldwin on saturday afternoon left one in the parking lot of the crew parking lot there and drove one back to tampa it was a busy weekend but it was sure worth it it was my first mainline cab ride and come to think of it my last one anyway i hope you enjoy streak of orange the tropicana juice train the crew office csx yeoman yard in tampa engineer terry goolsby and conductor bob reeves are going over the job briefing for today's run bob and terry have brought a train down from jacksonville the night before there's no master plan of which crew gets which train the next crew gets the next train for terry and bob the next train is k-650 a string of refrigerated box cars loaded with fresh orange juice the tropicana juice train k-650 actually began its life about six hours earlier this morning as o854 a florida business unit local to bradenton 34 miles south of tampa on a former atlantic coastline branch the crew brings tropicana empties south and returns with loads the manatee river bridge in bradenton is a popular photo spot this train and its loaded northbound sister are the primary reasons this massive span still exists a quarter mile south of the bridge is bradenton's old acl depot it saw its last passenger train years ago service was discontinued when amtrak took over operations from scl but in 1965 train 91 the west coast champion led by a black and yellow e-unit was a daily event here [Music] the 854 train is powered today by two general electric dash 840 cw engines dash 8 for the series style of the locomotive 40 denotes 4 000 horsepower c for the six axle configuration and w for wide cab csx prefers to call them cw40-8s 1.8 miles further south is bradenton yard in reality tropicana yard just look at csx's new crew office there and it's easy to see who their main customer is tropicana's facility here is huge 68 acres under roof much of it refrigerated they squeeze millions of oranges every day the juice is pasteurized and goes right to package [Music] flats are then bound in shrink wrap all automatically from there it's quickly out to the loading dock in the train yard forklift operator mike bailey can load a juice car in less than an hour seven cars in an eight hour shift he scans each flat with a barcode reader the information enables tropicana to track every case every carton of orange juice to make sure it gets to the right customer teamsters secure the load with timber as fast as they can it's a june day in florida the temperature outside is 88 degrees and that juice has got to stay chilled until it gets to some family's breakfast table in the northeast the blue csx owned cars at the head of the train are insulated but not refrigerated they're loaded with non-perishable products like tropicana twister tropicana has its own railcar department with people who inspect maintain and fuel the orange reefers each car has a diesel-powered refrigerator that must be kept running all the way to new jersey the tropicana train has long been a regular customer of the seaboard coastline and its descendant csx the unit train debuted on the line in 1970 with a fleet of sparkling white reefer cars in the mid 80s tropicana began repainting them into the current orange scheme but whatever the color the tropicana juice train is a well-known trademark of the company it's also a magnet for rail fans like mike woodruff and his son brian we come here about every sunday come down to visit my grandmother and stop off and shoot the juice train while we're at it so this is a regular thing for us runs on a regular schedule so it's predictable so if you're out for a day of shooting you can kind of plan around it know where when it's going to be in a particular place at a particular time and also everybody knows about it symbolic of the csx so i guess that's why it's popular the switching at bradenton yard continues to cut out a few cars for local customers less than a mile south of here the csx ends and a connection with the short line seminole golf this is one of their box cars the conductor lines the switch for the main line and o8 54 heads back north the way it came but now hauling about 5 000 tons of orange juice back at the manatee river bridge the tender has closed the draw and the juice train eases across at a park next to the bridge stands a 1913 baldwin steam engine nicknamed old cabbage head because of its smoke stack the locomotive spent 35 years hauling lumber products in north florida's back woods in the early 1980s it was brought to bradenton where employees of tropicana's rail car department volunteered their time to restore the old engine just across the manatee river and up the old seaboard main line about 10 miles there's more railroading history to be found but you can ride this exhibit the gulf coast railroad museum at parish is an amazing collection of vintage rail equipment and vintage enthusiasm for the history of trains on this sunday ken clark is engineer on the museum's gp9 engine but he didn't start out in that job well i worked up through the ranks really i started out here as a car host about five years ago and uh graduating the conductor fireman and now engineer but there's no paid staff on this at all everybody's a volunteer we just come out here because we like railroading operating on six miles of former seaboard airline railroad maine now leased from the nearby power company the gulf coast museum hauls excited passengers every saturday and sunday afternoon the cars mostly from the 1950s served on railroads across the nation volunteer joan shoemaker is serving snacks for today's run this is the kentucky club car this is where we sell all our concessions we have cookies and candies and pop but this was also in the days of the train this is where they mix their drinks on on the cars this car was built in 1927 renovated as you see it now in 1954 and the people partied some here and if they got noisy he could go sit in this room and play cards and do all the things that they must have done back in those days the gulf coast museum has no destination it runs through no tourist attractions or beaches but it does take passengers on a trip back in time over track that once carried great trains with great names like the new york florida limited palm land silver meteor and orange blossom special and the track runs through a florida that still looks pretty much the same as it did when those great seaboard trains were [Music] here ten miles to the west on the former atlantic coastline another great train is racing north the tropicana juice train is halfway to tampa now crossing the little manatee river on a bright sunday morning this stretch of the old coastline between bradenton and tampa is dark territory under direct traffic control from the csx bb dispatcher in jacksonville the only signals are ones protecting the bridges like this single blade semaphore at ruskin still standing watch over the little manatee river span the juice train makes four river crossings in the first 34 miles of its trip to new jersey this is the alafire river a turnkey draw that's opened and closed by hand and a lot this is a very popular waterway for tampa area boaters barely across the river now and oh 8 54 gets a slowdown signal there's another train ahead [Applause] the juice creeps along past one of florida's strangest landmarks what looks like a mountain back there is actually a man-made mound called a gypsum stack gypsum is a byproduct of the phosphate fertilizer industry a big business in central florida the job holding up the tropicana train is pulling a string of loaded phosphate cars from the mining region called the bone valley he's headed into csx's huge rockport facility where the phosphate is transloaded from train to ship dozens of phosphate trains work the area every day the fertilizer drag finally clears the line and the signal comes up [Music] the juice train is now on the tampa terminal sub and it will remain in signal territory for the rest of its trip north the fourth water crossing is at palm river another popular spot for photo buffs [Music] as we mentioned earlier when 0854 arrives at tampa's yeoman yard it becomes k-650 the number it will keep all the way north today's 67-car train rounds the curve into the south end of the yard yeoman is the former seaboard yard which joins yusita the former atlantic coastline yard it's the main rail center in central florida car inspectors go to work almost immediately vincent theismann is walking the engineer's side checking couplers brake shoes and tie wraps on hoses there's a bad shoe on the third car from the engine and it has to be replaced you'll waste no time making the swap everyone is working fast to get k-650 ready train master dennis carroll is responsible for making sure the train gets on its way promptly and that the empties get back with the same swiftness between bradenton florida and once they leave and new jersey and return those cars are moving almost constantly we're running about 210 cars a week to new jersey and about 60 cars a week to cincinnati so and they only have about 280 in their fleet so those cars returning the only csx rolling stock that sees as much mainline service are the bone valley phosphate hoppers that run back and forth in central florida this is o844 scheduled just ahead of the juice train 11 50 a.m terry goolsby and bob reeves are 10 minutes from their scheduled departure time aboard k-650 as they climb onto the front porch you can see how big these locomotives really are the brake test is done the rear end telemetry device is working k-650 k650 is ready to leave with two blasts of the whistle terry notches the engine up and slowly the train begins to move cushioned couplers on 67 juice cars means the front of k-650 will start rolling long before the rear end does this one has a lot of slack in about three car lengths of slack 150 feet or better terry keeps notching up the throttle but it's a very slow acceleration it's a very heavy train bob and terry are taking k-650 on the first leg of its long journey from tampa to baldwin yard west of jacksonville trackage called the s-line for predecessor seaboard airline seaboard's main line ran from downtown tampa up the center of the state through wildwood to jacksonville from there it hugged the coast of georgia climbed into the carolinas and into the company headquarters at richmond virginia to this day mile posts on the csx s line still indicate the distance from richmond after the merger of the seaboard and the atlantic coastline large parts of the seaboard were abandoned north of jacksonville in favor of the less maintenance intensive acl moving 30 miles per hour now we're 7.2 miles out on the yeoman subdivision northbound clearance 650. all the signals along our 250-mile sprint to baldwin have been set to go green for us one after another the order given by the csx dispatcher sitting at the double a console in jacksonville on csx only amtrak has higher priority than the tropicana juice train [Music] at plant city the s line crosses the a line the a for csx's other grandfather in florida the atlantic coastline which was actually the former plant system railroad of tycoon henry v plant namesake of plant city where the s line crosses the a-line did you get all that clan city was once a thriving railroad community with trains from both railroads crisscrossing that diamond many times a day but fortunes changed business centers moved to tampa and lakeland and train service fell off dozens of trains still pound on the plant city diamond each day but they're always bound for someplace else ours is headed to kearney new jersey via baldwin florida terry goolsby is monitoring the speed and the power to make sure the two general electric 4 000 horsepower engines don't pull the train apart on hills and has that ever happened to terry i have you know on one occasion i get to fill out a farm and uh and the road farmer gets to talk to me and tell me not to do it again clear signal at the north end of plant city siding and our 650 train is gaining speed again with throttles wide open the only thing for terry to do now is press the attenuator button crews call it the dead man switch it's a safety feature that beeps every 45 seconds unless a control is moved or the whistle is blown the device will stop the train if something happens to the crew terry bob and k-650 are all okay though speeding up the s-line this stretch between plant city and vitus is still jointed rail that is sections of track bolted together rather than continuous lengths of the new ribbon rail the train wheels passing over the joints gives riders that classic clickety-clack sound but even so the line is well maintained and track speed along here is 50 miles per hour that means it's only a few minutes until we hit the next major point on the s line residents know this little crossroads as richland but railroaders and rail fans alike call it by the timetable name vitus this is the junction of csx's s-line to tampa and a branch of its a-line to lakeland which connects with orlando and miami the convergence makes vitus a hot spot for train watching most of the true train traffic in the region passes right here technically vitus isn't on the s line at all following the merger of the seaboard and the coastline a 16 plus mile stretch of the s-line was removed connections were built at zephyr hills and owensboro and so for 16 miles the s-line actually swings onto the more favorable ar line of the former acl medium cleared passing through the signals we find it's a typical sunday at vitus that's well-known rail photographer fred clark jr down there on the left [Music] its bright orange color makes the juice train a favorite subject of train buffs up and down the csx this terrain gets a lot of attention i would say it's one of the most talked about one of the most high profile one of the most photographed trains it will leave here and get up into carolina sometime tomorrow morning and there are a lot of fans to be out by the river track there are a lot of people up on the north end yeah they look for this juice train there's a lot of shots taken on the north end of our railroad as well as the other railroads of the juice train people aren't always on the lookout for it and there are a lot of fans that chase the juice train definitely it's a popular train the 650 train begins climbing into the hills of dade city a lot of people from out of state have the impression that there are no hills or steep grades on florida railroads well that's not that's not safe there are hills humps in florida some of them kind of hard to pull with the power we have but it's not flat it's flattering georgia in today's city now we passed the old acl station built in 1912 and restored in 1996 dade city station is a beautiful passenger facility but almost immediately after restoration funding cutbacks at amtrak left date city with only two trains a day both passing in the middle of the night rail fans still watch a lot of trains here it's a favorite spot for dispatchers to schedule meets and passes dade city has csx's longest passing sighting in florida 15 732 feet up the line about a mile train buffs can peer into the past at the florida pioneer museum there's an amazing collection of artifacts from florida's early days including a complete railroad depot it was rescued from the nearby town of trilby on the atlantic coastline's west coast sub to high springs and points in the midwest part of the former plant system trilby was an important junction for passenger and freight traffic traveling to and from florida's growing coastal region by the late 70s changing traffic patterns left the station and the whole west coast sub in a state of disrepair the building was moved the line abandoned and the track pulled up all that remains is this little display at the pioneer museum and an overgrown right-of-way that leads back here to a spot on the s line just north of dade city this is the former crossing point called owensboro but the crossing and the timetable name are long gone the trains are still there this is q258 patiently waiting on a hot july morning for the southbound q409 tropicana empties bound home for bradenton the meat is set for lucocci siding and the southbound juice train goes into the hole 258 slides by on the main with its pair of general electric locomotives a 4-axle b-36 and a 6-axle c-30 still in its old family lines colors the tropicana empties that 409 is hauling have come south in regular freight service and since it originates in conrail's new jersey territory their engines are an increasingly common site on this train as we move up the timetable northbound we find q603 just above lucocci this former seaboard mainline has a colorful history with quite a few predecessors chartered as the florida railroad in 1853 a series of failures restarts reorganizations and auctions followed by 1900 it was called the florida central and peninsula that company as well as future owner seaboard were responsible for the growth of little towns all across florida this is bushnell at milepost s775.1 in the early days you know that rail transportation was just about the only transportation and the roads what few there were were very bad shape there was not a lot of trucks on the roads the little towns did spring up because of the railroad and only because of the railroad unfortunately in later years things have kind of turned around now the railroads in the small towns unfortunately have parted ways but the small towns would have never been there without the railroad [Music] north of tampa there are no large water crossings on florida's s line but there are dozens of small bridges like this one over jumper creek at the north end of bushnell siding it's a peaceful summertime spot until a train like q258 blasts across in the cab of the tropicana juice train engineer terry goolsby is stretching his train out as it rolls into wildwood from coleman to wildwood the line is double tracked it's a leftover from another piece of seaboard history the second rails were laid when wildwood was a center of congestion from the early 1900s all seaboard trains to and from south florida pass through here the art deco design of the station reflects the purpose for which seaboard built it as an exchange point for excited tourists headed to either sunny miami beach or the warm peaceful shores of saint petersburg it's a division point when the seaboard was running passenger trains that was the location they either separated or picked up the east and west coast size of the passenger trains it was also a location of an icing ice platform ice house south florida at that time had a tremendous amount of agriculture and they had a lot of perishables moving out of florida train loads of reefer blocks would run north to new york in particular in that area there was never a slack time while at all it was around the clock 365 days a year if this were 1945 the juice train would have surely had to stop to take on ice for the refrigerated cars but those diesel-powered coolers can run all the way to new jersey so the ice plants as well as most everything else at wildwood is gone by the time the s in seaboard became the s in csx the sun had set on the station's glory days the train action is still here but now it's always just passing through [Music] k-650 conductor bob reeves is just passing through on his way home to jacksonville today but most of his assignments are out of wildwood so he keeps a home here as well the station remains a busy crew change point and at two and a half hours from jacksonville it's just too far to commute some days he goes home to jacksonville others he goes home to wildwood for a rail fan waiting patiently on a hot humid florida afternoon there is no more welcome sight than a green light this is the northbound absolute signal at the north end of the siding at summerfield florida the green light means that a train is coming in this case the train is the tropicana juice train k-652 sprinting out of wildwood this shorter version of the juice train was added in 1997 to serve tropicana's plant near cincinnati nicknamed juice2 it's due in ohio 29 hours after leaving tampa judging by the speed of those new lightning bolt ac current engines it looks like they're going to make it our train k-650 is due in new jersey about a day from now out the front porch of our big ge locomotive the wildwood subdivision is sliding under us at 55 miles an hour and a summer afternoon thunder shower is sliding toward us at about the same speed just south of ocala at santos siding we pass a q train hauling new automobiles for the tampa area since autos keep longer than orange juice we have the priority the q train goes in the siding and we stay on the main it's a ritual and a rule that crews check each other's trains at a meet eight miles north of santos we round the bend into ocala ocala is an indian word that means heavily clouded and that's the way we find it today rolling past the amtrak station the juice train crosses yet another diamond and since we're on the former seaboard the intersecting line is of course the former atlantic coastline both roads serve the city ocala union station is a scene repeated over and over in southern towns everywhere in decades past it was a hub of local activity several passenger trains called on ocala each day this is the seaboard coastline silver meteor making one of its last northbound runs before being taken over by amtrak in 1971 note the old station as it was then and as it is today ocala union station like many other rail depots has seen better days in 1997 amtrak only called on ocala in the wee hours of the morning these days there are no trains here at all the intersecting atlantic coastline rails saw their last passenger train long ago the tracks are now owned by the short line florida northern railroad here is csx q251 crossing the ocala diamond southbound drawn by a general motors sd-40-2 and a general electric cw-40-a the mixed rate is headed for a point near west palm beach with a loaded train the two locomotives of k-650 are hauling a loaded train too 67 cars of tropicana juice products the job is no problem for engineer terry goolsby and why should it be he's been at this job for 15 years i started out as a laborer working in the car in the car department and i transferred to trainmen for a couple years and then i went into engine service like other csx train crews terry and bob have worked together off and on since they hired on he's a cool service and i am and we just we just catch up each other every once in a while but you know we worked that that much together off and on over the years uh 15 years probably 15 years of running on this line has taught terry that there's some straight flat track coming up 25 miles north of ocala is lake lockloosa this undisturbed and undeveloped place was immortalized by author marjorie cannon rawlings in her books the yearling and cross creek loch luza is a sizable florida lake almost six thousand acres it's a perfect place to see big alligators and majestic bald eagles or to catch some big bass it's also a great spot to catch the tropicana juice train flying by the two locomotives are hauling orange juice nearly as fast as the track allows here speed limit is 60 miles per hour it seems especially fast when you stand out on the engine's front porch terry drives k-650 as fast as allowable in between towns because many communities have low speed limits on trains hawthorne is the next slow zone 25 miles per hour in part due to this sharp curve train q258 passed here earlier and even though he was hauling mostly empty auto carriers with 8 000 horsepower worth of locomotive it was still 25 miles per hour for him aboard the juice train we're still moving slowly out of the town because we're set to meet another train at hawthorne siding and like before we'll stay on the main he'll go in the hole in the railroad vernacular the load is from up north because there's a red zoo line engine in the lead it's still a csx train though it's another k train the k means it's a unit train like ours carrying one product today it's tank cars containing sulfur bound for the bone valley phosphate region sulfur is a necessary component in the making of fertilizer good k train marker in place rule number 34a and the csx manual requires that when passing track signals crew members communicate the indications to one another and to other trains by radio a650 has a clear in the south end of walmart at mile post s690 is the town of waldo the tracks in the foreground leading off to the right once marked an important junction on the seaboard the branch line was a secondary route to tampa through gainesville well there's not much left of waldo junction other than this old caboose exhibit stenciled with the sal trademark but off in the woods about a hundred yards to the west of the caboose there is something from an earlier age an eerie and forgotten monument to waldo's busier days a turntable pit positioned right in the middle of what was the secondary line and what still is the main line to tampa it was possibly built by the seaboard but large trees growing in the middle and the three-foot drop-off of the perimeter indicates it may have even been part of one of seaboard's predecessors the florida railroad or the florida transit and navigation company at least one thing is sure about this place csx never used it there are plenty of trains on the nearby csx tracks though southbound q604 is a prime example as k-650 speeds northbound out of waldo we move into the last miles of this first leg of the trip to new jersey through big towns and small the tropicana juice train has its own kind of fan club all the way up the eastern seaboard the train has even made its way into model railroading fame jim langston is an equipment manager with csx in florida but he is also an avid modeler and the tropicana train is one of his favorite projects it's kind of rare to see a whole unit train of box cars in the latter part of the 20th century in railroading it's a colorful train and it's kind of special and it's one of the hotter trains out there on the freight business these days that's got a little mystique about it and certainly lots of color that's for sure the orange colored cars are a definite eye catcher when jim runs his train at the suncoast model railroaders club in largo florida it's really a show stopper for open houses a lot of kids love to see it and a lot of people of course here in the tampa bay area are familiar with the tropicana juice train i've seen it or heard about it somehow it's always a crowd pleaser just a unique train and it was uh unique to csx and unique to our company and after seeing it a couple times it just becomes a fascinating sight onboard the real tropicana juice train we're now in double track territory as we move ever closer to baldwin yard k-650 is on the number one track the left-hand side the double track extends from noonan 26 miles north into baldwin the second main line eases the strain between true trains and locals working industries in the area it is one of the few stretches of the old seaboard that is double tracked k-650 now approaches a signal showing a yellow over a flashing green light approach to the limited turnout at 45 miles an hour limited speed the dispatcher is sending us through a crossover to track two keeping k-650 on the outer main line to bypass the yard tracks for four and a half hours terry has been working hard to keep the juice train moving now he works just as hard to bring it to a safe stop 4 40 p.m the tropicana juice train arrives at baldwin florida the first crew change point on its way to new jersey it's the end of the shift for terry and bob and it's been a good trip very good excellent trip today outside the train a crew begins fueling operations immediately the 2-8 locomotives burned a lot of diesel pulling this orange juice out of central florida each unit holds five thousand gallons of fuel the day ends for crew number one of k-650 as conductor bob reeves and engineer terry goolsby put selves and gear into the crew bus and head off to the yard office they'll be headed back to tampa tomorrow pulling a train loaded with who knows what the men in this tower probably know the yard master and train master overseeing the massive baldwin yard built by the seaboard as a bypass around busy jacksonville baldwin is a busy place in its own right as much so as it was in seaboard's heyday rail fans are attracted to baldwin for not only its action but the diversity of power found here [Music] positioned at the intersection of csx's wildwood tallahassee and callahan subdivisions baldwin handles most of the traffic bound for tampa miami and lakeland that's a lot of switching and a lot of cars we switched about 1800 cars with approximately 40 trains flowing through here in a 24-hour period our biggest challenge right now is running trains on time come to baldwin pick up a couple bad order lights we're a high performance organization now which means we have commitments to our customers to run these trains on time tropicana is such a customer and has been since 1970. we keep that on the main line all we have to do with that train is fuel it and re-crew it 35 minutes and our 67 cars of tropicana orange juice and other products are moving north again with full tanks and a new crew slamming over the diamond k-650 moves on to the callahan sub exactly 20 miles up the tracks is callahan junction this is another hot spot for csx watching here the callahan sub of the old seaboard route joins with the nahunta sub of the a line it's double tracked former atlantic coastline built for 79 mile an hour trains and you don't have to be patient to see a lot of them [Music] this is q455 a mixed freight southbound into mon creek yard at jacksonville here comes n171 string of empty hoppers northbound back to coal country the double tracks allow a steady flow of trains through callahan here's q213 crossing over to number one and then on to the line to baldwin the long mixed consists left cincinnati yesterday at noon and will arrive in tampa early tomorrow morning so and finally our train the tropicana juice express now six hours into its journey it's due in baltimore at 7 30 tomorrow evening where csx will hand the train off to conrail for handling into kearney new jersey that was our last shot of k650 as it passed callahan it was our last minute of beta cam tape and all of our batteries were nearly dead so that's where we broke it off i'm really glad i did this project because even though tropicana still ships out of bradenton their cars are mixed into regular freight service so there is no tropicana juice train anymore plus the cars are all white now and covered in graffiti ick so heed the lesson document the unique as well as the ordinary because someday it could all be gone please hit the like button if you like this video hit the little bell down there to be notified when i post a new video write your comments down below in the comments section i try to read all of them and uh you can email me at railfandanny gmail.com i try to respond to all of those so until we meet up again somewhere out there on the high iron this is danny harmon out

Channel: Distant Signal

Views: 836,408

Keywords: railroad, railfan, Juice Train, Tropicana, Bradenton, Tampa, Wildwood, Baldwin, Callahan, Dade City, Trilby, Owensboro, K650, trains, train, tracks, danny harmon, distant signal, Joe Oates

Id: -j9jbUSRUPQ

Length: 46min 4sec (2764 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 16 2020