Florida FEC vacation

[Toppysager]

Alright everyone Im going to be in Florida this week- Daytona Beach to be exact, and I was wondering how busy traffic is now on the FEC. I'm only going to have a very limited time to go railfanning to if anyone can tell be what days and/or what times are best for catching an FEC that would be great. Last year I didn't see anything in 2hrs. So to anyone who can give me some detailed lists of busier times on that line, I give you my thanks,

[JSOH]

I live in Seminole County, but I'm afraid I rarely make it out to the beach, much less follow the FEC . However, if you have time to drive into the Orlando area, they are double tracking the CSX all the way through the metropolitan area to allow for the Sun Rail project to begin next year. Also, there is a pretty nice short line that connects with CSX just south of downtown called the Florida Central Railroad.

Hope you and your family enjoy the vacation!
John

[Toppysager]

I live in Seminole County, but I'm afraid I rarely make it out to the beach, much less follow the FEC . However, if you have time to drive into the Orlando area, they are double tracking the CSX all the way through the metropolitan area to allow for the Sun Rail project to begin next year. Also, there is a pretty nice short line that connects with CSX just south of downtown called the Florida Central Railroad.

Hope you and your family enjoy the vacation!
John

Thanks sometime I'll have to check it out. Unfortunately I don't think it's in the cards for this trip but thanks anyway

[railohio]

For what its worth, I saw an FEC northbound in Fort Lauderdale about 3 p.m. when I was there in January. I also sat by the tracks another day and saw nothing for three hours in the evening. Your mileage may vary.

[AARR]

According to the schedule posted in Train Mag a while back there are around 10-12 trains in each direction every 24 hours. I'll see if I can dig it up and post at least part of it here.

Or maybe railohio can post it here

[chriiis]

There are two daytime southbounds out of Jacksonville, the 101 at 12:30pm and the 107 at 6pm. Figure 2-3-ish and 7:30-8:30ish for Daytona. There are more overnight.

The tail end of the northbound fleet should be rolling through in the morning: i'd guess the 224 will come through Daytona at 6am, 226 at 8am (not Sunday) and the 210 at noon or so. They have a bit further to go so these numbers ought to be loosely interpreted.

i'd guess the busiest time for trains through Daytona Beach would be after midnight...


About Orlando: While the A Line is getting ready for SunRail, CSX is moving most of its traffic away from Orlando to the S Line (through Ocala) which is receiving a fair bit of double track itself. In November the Q178 started departing Taft southbound to Auburndale and flipping north at Lakeland to go to Baldwin and Jacksonville. CSX is building a new intermodal yard in Winter Haven to replace both Taft in Orlando and Uceta in Tampa, slated to be open in 2014.

[Toppysager]

It's kind of a crap chute because they travel really fast and there's not lots of straight-of-ways. So there is really no way of telling if ones coming at a glance, Hence why I've never seen one on my many trips...

[Ypsi]

Signals and scanner would defiantly be your friend then. Find a spot with a signal, and bring a scanner. I had some layover down in Florida last January and we were a block away from the CSX/ Tri Rail. Ended up just going and waiting and got one tri rail train, sometimes that's the best like others have said.

[JStryker722]

FEC max track speed is 60mph it's whole length and with less intermediate traffic than CSX,is the preferred railroad for express freight and TOFC/Intermodal between Jacksonville and Miami.Heck even with their own route into Miami,CSX still hands off Intermodal to FEC cuz it's so much faster.

[legostudios34]

Signals and scanner would defiantly be your friend then. Find a spot with a signal, and bring a scanner. I had some layover down in Florida last January and we were a block away from the CSX/ Tri Rail. Ended up just going and waiting and got one tri rail train, sometimes that's the best like others have said.

Scanners are illegal in Florida, and FEC doesn't even call signals. But the signals do go dark when there is not a train around, so if the signal is lit up, it means a train will be there shortly.

[Toppysager]

Thanks guys I got really lucky and saw one in Daytona Beach Shores. It had the green and was there within 10minutes of our arrival. It was a 169-car SB intermodal with a heritage unit on it. It was quite a sight!