SAL St. Petersburg, FL

greenspun.com : LUSENET : ACL and SAL Railroads Historical Society : One Thread

CSX, on Feb. 27, 2004, advised the Surface Transportation Board (STB) of their intent to abandon 1.85 miles of the former SAL line between milepost SY 893.80 and milepost SY 895.65 in downtown St. Petersburg, Pinellas County, Florida. This trackage, now part of the Clearwater Subdivision, Jacksonville Division, is a section of the SAL main line that reached its St. Pete passenger station by running down the west side of St. Petersburg through Bay Pines, Pasadena and Gulfport. A 130-foot timber pile trestle at milepost SY 895.30, constructed in 1931, would be included in the abandonment. The affected section begins at 34th Street South (SY 893.80) and ends at 1st Avenue South (SY 895.65), the current end (MP 898.4) of the former ACL line that served the original ACL St. Pete station at 1st Avenue South and 2nd Street.

Does anyone know the address of the "old" SAL St. Pete station featured on the April 2002 calendar and the "new" SAL station on the January 2003 calendar, or where they both at the same location?

-- Russ Black (black2@widomaker.com), March 13, 2004

Answers

Troy, you are right in your thought that the Cox Lumber Co. building is the former SAL depot. The depot was converted into the Lumber Co's. building.

Aaron Dowling (aarondowling@cfl.rr.com)

-- Aaron Dowling (aarondowling@cfl.rr.com), August 26, 2004.


This track has really seen no activity in years. The only real customer was cox lumber, and they quit taking carloads sometime in the late 90's. There was also a warehouse which is bisected by track just east of 16th st N. The line has dead-ended into the cox lumber "yard". Also, IIRC, the location of cox lumber, perhaps the building itself WAS the old (last) SAL st. petersburg passenger station. The trestle in question is right next to tropicana field. You can see it from 1st ave. S. The rest of the line from 34th street to the east side of the Bay Pines trestle was abandoned in 1984 and removed sometime in the '86/'87 timeframe. The track from the west end of the bay pines trestle to clearwater was abandoned and removed earlier. Reason for this was that there were a couple customers still on the line (CPC concrete and a few others around tyrone mall) and really nothing on the other side of bay pines up to clearwater... Of note, there are a couple distinctive crossing signals left on this line, very indicitave of what used to be on the rest of this line, all will be missed...

-- troy nolen (tnolen12@tampabay.rr.com), August 19, 2004.

Comrades,

The milespost markers were provided directly by CSX. You can view their filing (complete with a map and pictures of the trestle) with the STB by going to the STB site at www.stb.dot.gov/filings/. Search for STB Docket No. AB-55 (Sub-No.646X). Almost of the same information was identified by CSX in a Legal Notice ('Notice of Petition for Exemption to Abandon')in the classified section of the St. Petersburg Times on February 26, 2004. It is also noted that the STB filings site is an excellent "heads up" on all forthcoming railroad abandonements. This is the site that TRAINS Magazine peruses for their "Abandonments/Acquisitions" column.

-- Russ Black (black2@widomaker.com), March 20, 2004.


Here is a link to a 1919 map of downtown St. Pete, showing ACL and SAL (Tampa and Gulf Coast) station locations, from the University of Texas online map library.

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/st_petersburg_fl_1919.jpg

-- Jeff Gerlach (jgerlach@trainsofthought.com), March 15, 2004.


I don't know the mile post designations, but I have copies of the January 20, 1959 editions of the St. Petersburg newspapers covering the story of the SAL's relocation to its new station. In those articles, the newspaper gives these addresses for the St. Petersburg stations: The old SAL St. Petersburg station was located at 2nd Avenue South and 9th Street. The new SAL St. Petersburg station was located at 34th Street South and 7th Avenue. I'm not sure of the address for the old ACL St. Petersburg station. By the end of 1959, the ACL also relocated passenger operations to a new station at 34th Street and 38th Avenue.

-- William E. Griffin, Jr. (Griffinwejr@aol.com), March 14, 2004.


Boy,this has my head spinning.Some of your statement dosen't make sense.My 12/18/59 SAL employee TT lists MP Y892.5 as Gulfport and MP Y 894.0 as St.Petersburg.So,with this in mind SY 893.80 could be 34th Street south,but where is SY 895.65? The SAL was abandonded between Clearwater and St.Petersburg years ago and most of it is now a bike trail.I knew the track was gone west of 34th but did not know it was still in between there and the exACL "end of line". Don't know the addresses. Hope someone will jump in here and clear my head.

-- Uncle Joe (uj67@mindspring.com), March 13, 2004.

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