If any of you have ever noticed, there seems to be an abandoned railroad track, running from the port of miami past the triple AAA, under the metromover freedom tower station, through park west, overtown, the design district, and further north. Nver Have i ever seen any train or system run on this track in 8 years. However, while working yesterday, (my office is across the street from the abandoned tracks), I noticed a huge train with coal going by and then stopping right across the street. There was a tractor attatched to the top of one car and it picked up gravel, dumping it on the side of the track just north of the juliet tuttle causeway. It was so weird and bizarre to see something running on these tracks that i thought were inoperable. Does anyone know whats going on and if so, don't you guys think that potentialy utilizing these tracks for something along the lines of the proposed miami streetcar could be beneficial. I mean, if you look on google maps, these tracks run right through central miami and they are already built, with a little renovation, its totally possible to put some troleys or something on the track. your thoughts?

FEC corridor...There is a plan to have a train running through the corridor from Palm Beach to Downtown Miami. The tracks are only used on occasion now by the FEC and the port of Miami for special transports from the port....

When I'm over by the FEC railway, about 50% of the time I see freight trains running on it, are these from the Port of Miami? If trains only run from Port of Miami occasionally, where are these very frequent freight trains coming from? MIA/Port Everglades/FLL?

The track splits just South of 79th St. and heads toward the airport. This is where most of the trains go. Probably a big portion of the material originates from the quarries in west Dade. Also I believe (I may be wrong) there are points up the Miami River near the airport where shipping to train transfers take place. Though I don't think those trains end up running on the FEC lines that run close to US-1.

Reading this reminded me of another seemingly out of commission track at about 70th avenue from Flagler south to Sunset or Kendall almost. I remember they were tearing it out a few months ago and havent seen anything done with that land around there. If your on Bird road(sw 40th street) you can see it directly to the east of Doug Barnes Park.

That's the CSX track. There are 1 or 2 trains that run up from homestead each day full of limestone. It's the line they want to run the commuter rail/light diesel on.

no... theres two lines that run almost adjacent to each other... on bird road youll notice that there on train lines on both the west and east side of a.d barnes park (where i used to be on the swim team!)... the one to the east that runs south and was recently torn up is going to become a trail for running/biking that sort of thing... so ive heard...

here's my two cents

if you're on bird, and you're heading east, you'll cross over the first set of train tracks, then you'll cross over what used to be train tracks, but have now been removed and paved over smooth. yes, bike path.

quick little note, i used to work/ will work again at Braman Honda, where the tracks they tore up for the bike path lies adjacent to the property. i remember seeing the work crews pass by each day on this huge truck that would go down the track... tear up tracks... haul'em back to god knows where... and do this over and over. it was fun watching the truck blow its horn when it tried to cross coral way.

Ah, my fault. The Ludlam Trail that never will be. Sad.

Railroad tracks leave an amazingly durable imprint on the terrain that remains visible (thanks to Google Earth) long after the tracks themselves are gone. Even where the original foundation is covered by a new road, you can still tell exactly where there used to be sidings due to streets and warehouses following curves and angles radiating away from it for (today) no apparent reason. Take a look at Opa-Locka airport from above. I'll bet you can tell within 15 seconds where the tracks and railyard used to be, even though they were probably ripped up 50 years ago. Now, find 138th Street and Red Road, and look about 20 feet south. Zoom out a little, and you can probably conclude that they probably used to run all the way west alongside 138th Street to the tracks running along South River Drive out by the Turnpike. Take a peek just northwest of Gratigny Parkway and Milander Boulevard... you can still see the ghostly remains of a former railyard. Even along I-75 and the Palmetto interchange, you can see where FDOT dug up the former trackbed and dumped the differently-colored material alongside the new expressways during construction.

There's another set of ghost tracks clearly visible with google Earth that used to run from the point where Metrorail goes under I-95 towards Culmer. The school obliterated any trace of them, but if you look north along the western edge of I-95, you can still see the former railyard that used to be just south of NW 22nd Street. I think the tracks themselves still run from near that point all the way to what's now the Airport Tri-Rail station. Just from the appearance of the roads and buildings near 22nd street between the airport and I-95, you can tell that almost the entire area used to be a MAJOR industrial area tied to the railroad tracks.

lolol, i have some more news to add, i dunno when the bike path is gonna get done or inaugurated, but for now, they're gonna have to deal with a road block. i went by braman yesterday, and i saw that they took up pretty much the adjacent land that used to be rail tracks, and are now using it for employee parking. from my understanding, they are currently leasing it, with it being the land.

i noticed that too it looks abandonded but its not its still in use i guess its not used alot because of the traffic it will cause i don't know

i also noticed that the FEC route of the 79 street has two tracks and recently with the okecobee trench that has two tracks thru out??

why did they built it double is there alot of traffic because i don't see alot of trains passing every two hours or something over there i might be wrong

correct me here?? i may be wrong