St. Pete, FL SCL/Amtrak station FYI

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I was in st. pete, fla today and thought id drive by the last SCL/Amtrak station at 38th ave and US 19 and was surprised that its NOT a station anymore... I know passenger trains were ceased in the mid 80's as the remainder of the ACL mainline between St. Pete and Jax was torn up (the holiday/ tarpon springs/ dunnedin/ clearwater /largo/ seminole/ st. pete segment), but they ran busses from there and the last clearwater station to Tampa union station... Anyway, it is now a hospital/walk-in clinic of some kind, the name doesnt come to mind right now however... Apparently CSX or Amtrak still owns part of the property by the tracks because the covered walkway along the tracks and boarding area are still there, its just all fenced in and weeded over... just thought id pass this on to you all... anyone know when bus service ceased?

-- troy nolen (kirkwood@gdn.net), July 09, 2000

Answers

was down there yesterday and indeed the ex-SAL line runs from the dome to cox lumber, although no cars were at the cox lumber "yard" area and the rails were so overgrown with weeds and rusted, it looks like this line has been out of service for years... got a kick out of seeing all the old lighted grade crossing signals down there, i remember being down there near where the old st. pete station was in the early 80's and boy has that area changed...

-- troy nolen (kirkwood@gdn.net), July 27, 2001.

FYI: I worked that line on the affected Amtrak trains before service was curtailed between Tampa and St. Pete. The route was Tampa to Clearwater on the ex-SAL track thru Oldsmar, Safety Harbor, Still goes thru the golf course (Trains has an article on that line), Armston, N. Clearwater and to the station with some street running just past the point where the ex-ACL line to TRilby was brought back in when still serviced by local. After the train left Clearwater, it used the connection built before the diamond crossing of the two lines. THe ex-SAL was taken up and is now a trail running the full length of the old RW. The train moved onto the ex-ACL thru PInellas Park to the st. Pete station.

As far as I know the trackage is still in use all the way down to the tail track(switchback) near the TROP. The local used to service Cox Lumber around 34th st on the SAL track, but it may be gone now.

To my knowledge the connecting bus is still in service connecting 89- 90 from TAmpa.

-- walt rogers (wjriii@gte.net), June 07, 2001.


I can certainly apprectate that it DID take longer to get to tampa from st. pete from bus than train, not just because of the ass-backwards way they got there (to clearwater station and then trhough oldsmar/town & country area)and the bus being a quick hop on the interstate from st. pete to tampa across the bay. I think youre mistaken about the trackage, the line from dunnedin through clearwater , largo, seminole and bay pines was ACL, the other line was SAL. I lived in Seminole and had that line in my backyard. The line, although cut off as a through route after the bay pines bridge burned (stuck by lightning i think) was still used for local traffic on either side of bay pines (CPC concrete and Gulf Steel on the east side of bay pines comes to mind) until abandonment. I want to say 1985 some time, but may have been '84. My father worked for a terazzo company in St. Pete that was serviced from SCL and closed BECAUSE of not being able to get freight service anymore. Also im pretty sure that Amtrak/SCL used the old SAL line from St. Pete through Pinellas Park and on to clearwater, et. al and never used the former ACL route through bay pines/seminole after the merger. If they did, i never saw a passenger train on the route...

-- troy nolen (kirkwood@gdn.net), July 12, 2000.

Can't exactly answer your question on when the bus service stopped, but the reason for Amtrak starting bus service (in the 80's) was the length of time it took for the train to get from St. Pete to Tampa which included backing into Tampa's Union Station. As fas as I know the ACL trackage from St. Pete to Tampa is still there, though they did rip up the SAL mainline from St. Pete to Clearwater (via Bay Pines)this was done also in the early 80's right after the Bay Pines bridge was damaged by fire. Hope this helps you a little, I'm sure someone else can provide more details. bob

-- bob freitag (fstop@accessunited.com), July 12, 2000.

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