The Passenger Service is Gone, but the Railroad Still Exists

The two trains pictured on the front of this post card are the passenger

service ancestors of a railroad that still exists today. The Florida East Coast Railroad does not carry passengers any more. The following information is taken directly from their website: https://fecrwy.com/ The Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) is a Class II regional railroad that owns all of the 351-mile mainline track from Jacksonville, FL, down to Miami. It is the exclusive rail provider for PortMiami, Port Everglades and Port of Palm Beach. FEC Railway connects to the national railway system in Jacksonville, allowing it to provide rail service in and out of Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, and North Carolina, into and out of Florida’s east coast. Based in Jacksonville, FEC provides end-to-end intermodal and carload solutions to customers who demand cost-effective and premium quality transportation solutions. This is the history of the railroad that I found in Wikipedia: When Flagler returned to Florida, in 1885 he began building a grand St. Augustine hotel, the Ponce de Leon Hotel. Flagler realized that the key to developing Florida was a solid transportation system, and consequently purchased the 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Halifax River Railway (JStA&HR) on December 31, 1885. He also discovered that a major problem facing the existing Florida railway systems was that each operated on different gauge systems, making interconnection impossible. He converted the line to 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge in 1890 and the small operation was incorporated in 1892. Flagler next purchased three additional existing railroads: the St. John's Railway, the St. Augustine and Palatka Railway, and the St. Johns and Halifax River Railway so that he could provide extended rail service on standard gauge tracks. By 1894, Flagler's railroad system reached what is today known as West Palm Beach. On September 7, 1895, the name of Flagler's system was changed from the Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Indian River Railway Company to the Florida East Coast Railway Company and incorporated. On April 15, 1896, track reached Biscayne Bay, the site of present-day downtown Miami. At the time, it was a small settlement of less than 50 inhabitants. When the town incorporated, on July 28, 1896, its citizens wanted to honor the man responsible for the city's development by naming it Flagler. He declined the honor, persuading them to retain its old Indian name, Miami. I have posted about the Florida East Coast Railroad in the past. But, that was back in 2015. Next week I will re-post that episode of this blog's history.

The post card was printed by the Colorpicture Company based in Boston, Mass. It was a major publisher and printer of linen view-cards of the United States based in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts between 1938 and 1969. They later went on to publish photochromes and small spiral bound picture booklets under the name trade name Plastichrome in the 1950's.