Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

Originally recorded: August 18th 2018.

Signal on the left, a pair of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, a Federal Signal mechanical bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.

Signal on the right, a pair of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, a WCH gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.

I headed up to Ybor City after i missed Amtraks previous silver star around 6 hours earlier, after waiting for around an hour the Silver Star backed through the crossing, through the TECO/Amtrak interchange diamond and into Tampa Union Station, CSX also uses this line if you read the DOT tag in the video, CSX go through the area to get to the Port of Tampa, notable for its streetrunning line.

This crossing is also an Atlantic Coast Line installation! It has gone under some modernization in the years, such as the replacement of the lights, WRRS gate mechanisms? and most likely the WRRS bell.

AFAIK, i believe this is one of the two crossings in the Ybor City area to only have one pair of lights facing one side of each road respectively.

For some unknown reason, Google Maps lists this as 14th Street, while a crossing report from the FRA lists the street name as Republica De Cuba, most likely to reference Ybor City as a Cuban area.

Please excuse the conversation you can hear in the video, that was my parents.

I also have photos of this crossing too, i plan to submit then sometime soon.

NathanFromEngland wrote:For some unknown reason, Google Maps lists this as 14th Street, while a crossing report from the FRA lists the street name as Republica De Cuba, most likely to reference Ybor City as a Cuban area.

It's 14th Street/Avenida Republica De Cuba

See the roadsigns
https://www.google.com/maps/@27.9595723 ... 312!8i6656

I don’t remember that crossing on my trip in Florida last July. But nice crossing!

Great crossing!

Ethan the Railfanner wrote:I don’t remember that crossing on my trip in Florida last July. But nice crossing!

Were you in Tampa? What area?

ZachL wrote:

Ethan the Railfanner wrote:I don’t remember that crossing on my trip in Florida last July. But nice crossing!

Were you in Tampa? What area?

I actually wasn't in Tampa, I was in St. Petersburg, but then on one of my vacation days I went to Plant City.

Ethan the Railfanner wrote:

ZachL wrote:

Ethan the Railfanner wrote:I don’t remember that crossing on my trip in Florida last July. But nice crossing!

Were you in Tampa? What area?

I actually wasn't in Tampa, I was in St. Petersburg, but then on one of my vacation days I went to Plant City.

St Petersburg is home to the mothballed Clearwater Subdivision, and when i went to Clearwater it appeared that they had barred the use of train horns. There is a planning application to bring back commuter service to the line, Pinellas County hasn't seen commuter service since February 1984. This is why the tracks around downtown St Petersburg were pulled up in 2008. In 2015, CSX sold the line off to FDOT, although DOT tags still show CSX's name on it.

AFAIK, i know that there is the Pinellas subdivision, CSX will send a switcher down every day of the week.

NathanFromEngland wrote:In 2015, CSX sold the line off to FDOT

No they did not.

ZachL wrote:

NathanFromEngland wrote:In 2015, CSX sold the line off to FDOT

No they did not.

I should've mean't they proposed to sell the line. I was tired when i wrote the post.

In 2015, CSX proposed to sell both the Clearwater and Brooksville subdivisions to the Florida Department of Transportation for potential use as commuter rail. FDOT is currently studying this possibility. Similar transactions between FDOT and CSX have taken place in the Miami and Orlando areas for tracks that today run the Tri-Rail and SunRail commuter lines respectively.

NathanFromEngland wrote:

ZachL wrote:

NathanFromEngland wrote:In 2015, CSX sold the line off to FDOT

No they did not.

I should've mean't they proposed to sell the line. I was tired when i wrote the post.

In 2015, CSX proposed to sell both the Clearwater and Brooksville subdivisions to the Florida Department of Transportation for potential use as commuter rail. FDOT is currently studying this possibility. Similar transactions between FDOT and CSX have taken place in the Miami and Orlando areas for tracks that today run the Tri-Rail and SunRail commuter lines respectively.

Yeah, that they did do. It was big news at the time, because transportation is an issue in this city, and anything to improve transportation is worth the story here.