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Locale Central Florida
South Florida Track gauge 4 ft 8 ⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge Successor Seaboard Air Line Railroad | ||
The Florida Western and Northern Railroad was a railroad line built by the Seaboard Air Line Railroad in 1925 running from Coleman, Florida (south of Ocala) all the way to West Palm Beach via Auburndale and Sebring (near Lake Okeechobee), a distance of over 200 miles. The line was beginning of Seaboard president S. Davies Warfield's ambitious plan to connect the Seaboard network to the South Florida region, which for almost thirty years had been the exclusive domain of the Florida East Coast Railway.
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Original Route
The Florida Western and Northern Railroad began in Coleman, where it branched off the Seaboard Air Line Railroad's main line (which is today the CSX S-Line). It proceeded south through wetlands of north Central Florida in a nearly straight line down to Auburndale, where it crossed the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad's main line (the current CSX A-Line). From here, it continued south, passing just west of Winter Haven and Lake Wales before passing through Avon Park and Sebring. Its trajectory closely paralleled the Atlantic Coast Line's Haines City Branch, which at one point ran from Haines City to Everglades City.
After Sebring, the line turned into a more southeast trajectory, passing Lake Okeechobee on the northeast side. It continued in a straight line southeast from here to its terminus in West Palm Beach. The line only terminated in West Palm Beach for about a year before it was extended to Miami by the similarly organized Seaboard-All Florida Railway, and further to Homestead and Florida City.
Current operations under CSX
Today, a vast majority of the original Florida Western and Northern Railroad remains in service as part of CSX Transportation's Auburndale Subdivision. All of Amtrak's passenger service to Miami including the Silver Meteor and Silver Star service traverses the line from Auburndale to access Miami. U.S. Highway 27 today runs in a roughly parallel trajectory to the line between Avon Park and Sebring. From Okeechobee to West Palm Beach, the line directly parallels State Road 710, which in some places known as Warfield Boulevard (named after Seaboard president S. Davies Warfield).
Portions of the Atlantic Coast Line's now discontinuous Haines City Branch serve as branches to the Auburndale Subdivision. The two parallel routes were consolidated as part of the 1967 merger of the Seaboard Air Line and the Atlantic Coast Line Railroads into the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad. These branches include a short branch into Avon Park, as well as trackage now operated by the Florida Midland Railroad (through Lake Wales) and the South Central Florida Express.
The only portion that has been abandoned is the northernmost portion from Coleman and just north of Auburndale. This portion of the line was abandoned in the late 1980s. It carried Amtrak's Miami service up until its removal, which was then shifted to an adjacent route. Most of the former right-of-way is now part of the nearly 30-mile General James A. Van Fleet State Trail, as well as the adjoining Auburndale TECO Trail.