Old Seaboard Air Line RR (?) Structures in Gainesville, FL

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

During my trip thru High Springs, I also drove thru Gainesville, FL, to look for the former SAL depot. I didn't find the depot (as least the one that I saw a photo of in a book). I found a square one-story wood frame building in approximately the same location that I was told the depot was located. Any idea what this existing building is? A freight station, perhaps?

A couple of blocks away, I noticed an "L" shaped commercial building that looked like it could have been a railroad freight warehouse. It still had the remnant rails of sidings on two sides of the building. Anyone know what this building was used for?

Both structures are located on the s. side of Gainesville's downtown area, along or in the vicinity of the abandoned SAL RR line.

As a P.S., I was really surprised by the make-over of the former ACL passenger station into an administrative/classroom building component of the Santa Fe Community College! The building is difficult to recognize as a former RR depot!

Thanks for the help!

Aaron Dowling

-- Aaron Dowling (aarondowling@cfl.rr.com), July 29, 2004

Answers

The 1907 SAL depot is indeed still standing (corner of Depot Avenue and SE 2nd Street. It is now city-owned and soon to be moved from the north side to the south side of the old SAL right of way as a community center.

The L shaped building nearby was the former Baird Hardware warehouse, and was once served by both SAL and ACL (which formerly ran down Main Street through downtown).

There are several discussion threads already posted re: Gainesville's depots and rail history. Here is one: http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=008IRh

-- Jeff Gerlach (jgerlach@trainsofthought.com), January 25, 2005.


I worked on that section of trk in the early to mid 70's, as a trainman out of W'wood, and to the best of my recolection the SAL depot was a wooden structure. I had a hard fight w/cancer in '97, which I won, and during that time I looked for the same building as you. Sorry to say, I couldn't find anything that I recognized from 20yrs ago.

-- Lawrence Neal "Happy" Tilton (lnhappytilton@hotmail.com), January 23, 2005.

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