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109-622: Trumbo Point is inaccessible to non-DoD affiliated or non-USCG affiliated civilians without U.S. Navy clearance. Trumbo Point was a man-made addition to the island of Key West. It was built around 1912 to accommodate a shipping port for the Florida East Coast Railway and was the terminus of the Overseas Railroad . Construction was done by the Trumbo American Dredging Company, with Howard Trumbo serving as

218-482: A 3 ft ( 914 mm ) narrow gauge railway that began service in 1883 between South Jacksonville and St. Augustine. While the JStA&;HR was used to transport building materials for the hotel's construction, Flagler found it was poorly constructed and its passenger services would be inadequate for patrons to reach his hotel. Flagler joined the board of the JStA&HR on December 10, 1885, before fully purchasing

327-427: A bay window caboose, the crew monitoring the train sits in the middle of the car in a section of wall that projects from the side of the caboose. The windows set into these extended walls resemble architectural bay windows , so the caboose type is called a bay window caboose. This type afforded a better view of the side of the train and eliminated the falling hazard of the cupola. It is thought to have first been used on

436-494: A bright red, though on many lines it eventually became the practice to paint them in the same corporate colors as locomotives. The Kansas City Southern Railway was unique in that it bought cabooses with a stainless steel car body, and so was not obliged to paint them. Until the 1980s, laws in the United States and Canada required all freight trains to have a caboose and a full crew for safety. Technology eventually advanced to

545-464: A channel, built streets and The Royal Palm Hotel , instituted the first water and power systems, and financed the town's first newspaper, the Metropolis . In 1903, Flagler extended the main line an additional 12 miles from Downtown Miami southwest to access much of the unsettled lowlands near Cutler Ridge which he felt could generate agricultural traffic. This proved successful and the following year,

654-439: A crew not obeying signaling. . FEC has what is called by some a "prime" railroad right-of-way. The heavy weight of the rock trains required very good trackage and bridges. The railroad has mostly 136 pound-per-yard (66 kg/m) continuous-welded rail attached to concrete ties, which sits on a high quality granite roadbed. The entire railroad is controlled by centralized traffic control with constant radio communication. Because

763-479: A drover's caboose was much more like a combine, as well. On longer livestock trains in the American West, the drover's caboose is where the livestock's handlers would ride between the ranch and processing plant. The train crew rode in the caboose section while the livestock handlers rode in the coach section. Drover's cabooses used either cupolas or bay windows in the caboose section for the train crew to monitor

872-530: A future rail expansion to Tampa is currently in the planning stages. A lifeblood of the FEC is its transportation of high-grade limestone , which is used in the formulation for concrete and other construction purposes. The limestone is quarried near Miami in the "Lake Belt" area of Dade County and Broward County just west of Hialeah . The rock trains come out of the FEC yard at Medley in Miami-Dade County and

981-458: A line from Central Florida to West Palm Beach (built by the Seaboard's Florida Western and Northern Railroad subsidiary) in 1925. This line was extended by their Seaboard-All Florida Railway subsidiary to Miami and Homestead on a route nearly parallel to the FEC two years later. The Stock Market Crash of 1929 and Great Depression were harsh on the FEC. The railroad declared bankruptcy and

1090-425: A move surprising to many employees and railroad industry observers alike, the FEC was purchased for over US$ 3 billion (including non-rail assets) by Fortress Investment Group , the principal investors who also control short line railroad operator RailAmerica . John Giles was named chairman, and David Rohal was named president. Both men were also principals with major responsibilities at RailAmerica as well, although

1199-559: A new station was planned at NE 36th Street and NE 2nd Avenue, it was never built. Further, while freight trains were operated with non-union and supervisory crews, passenger runs were not reinstated until August 2, 1965, after the City of Miami sued and the Florida courts ruled that the FEC corporate charter required both coach and first class passenger services to be offered. In response, FEC sold "parlor car seating" for first class accommodations in

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1308-601: A point where the railroads, in an effort to save money by reducing crew members, stated that cabooses were unnecessary. New diesel locomotives had large cabs that could house entire crews. Distant dispatchers controlled switches, eliminating the need to manually throw switches after trains had passed. Improved signaling eliminated the need to protect the rear of a stopped train. Bearings were improved and lineside detectors were used to detect hot boxes, which themselves were becoming rarer with more and more freight cars gaining roller bearings. Better-designed cars avoided problems with

1417-428: A privately owned and operated service between Miami and Orlando along its route, to be named All Aboard Florida. New high speed trackage would be built between Brevard County (the oceanside county east of Orlando) and Orlando International Airport . In addition to the new track, the main line is once again being expanded to double track from Brevard County to Miami (some of the bridges still have adequate width from

1526-434: A prolonged work stoppage by non-operating unions, beginning January 23, 1963, and whose picket lines were honored by the operating unions (the train crews). Because the strike was by the non-operating unions, a federal judge ordered the railroad to continue observing their work rules, while the railroad was free to change the work rules for the operating unions, who were technically not on strike and thus had no standing in

1635-464: A rebuild program for their cabooses in which the cars were painted bright red, with an eight-foot-diameter Santa Fe cross herald emblazoned on each side in yellow. Some railroads, chiefly the Wabash Railway , Pennsylvania Railroad , Norfolk and Western and Illinois Central Gulf , also built or upgraded cabooses with streamlined cupolas for better aerodynamics and to project a more modern image. In

1744-422: A settlement. According to historian Burton Altman: After the settlement, workers were earning at least one dollar an hour less than their counterparts on other railroads. Wages were well below the industry's scale and the work force had been cut in half. When the strike began, 1,600 walked out. In time, 900 went back to work on the company's terms; others found employment elsewhere. Only about 100 stayed out until

1853-604: A ship's storeroom and to the North-American railcar. Camboose as a cook shack was in use in English at least by 1805, when it was used in a New York Chronicle article cited in the New English Dictionary describing a New England shipwreck, which reported that "[Survivor] William Duncan drifted aboard the canboose [ sic ]." As the first railroad cabooses were wooden shanties erected on flat cars as early as

1962-519: A small windowed projection on the roof, called the cupola . The crew sat in elevated seats to inspect the train from this perch. The invention of the cupola caboose is generally attributed to T. B. Watson, a freight conductor on the Chicago and North Western Railway . In 1898, he wrote: During the '60s I was a conductor on the C&;NW. One day late in the summer of 1863 I received orders to give my caboose to

2071-597: A supplementary braking system, and they helped keep chain couplings taut. Cabooses were used on every freight train in the United States and Canada until the 1980s, when safety laws requiring the presence of cabooses and full crews were relaxed. A major purpose of the caboose was for observing problems at the rear of the train before they caused trouble. Lineside defect detectors and end-of-train devices eliminated much of this need. Older freight cars had plain bearings with hot boxes for crews to spot overheating – as freight cars replaced these with roller bearings , there

2180-432: A transfer caboose are left open, with safety railings surrounding the area between the crew compartment and the end of the car. A recent variation on the transfer caboose is the "pushing" or "shoving" platform. It can be any railcar where a brakeman can safely ride for some distance to help the engineer with visibility at the other end of the train. Flatcars and covered hoppers have been used for this purpose, but often

2289-594: A unique change to the extended-vision cabooses. They added a miniature bay to the sides of the cupola to enhance the views further. This created a unique look for their small fleet. Seven of the eight Monon-built cabooses have been saved. One was scrapped after an accident in Kentucky. The surviving cars are at the Indiana Transportation Museum (operational), the Indiana Railway Museum (operational),

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2398-560: A week until it was finally discontinued on July 31, 1968. The Florida East Coast Railway has operated from its relocated headquarters in Jacksonville since it sold the original General Office Building in St. Augustine to Flagler College in late 2006. Its trains run over nearly the same route developed by Henry Flagler, with the addition of the Moultrie Cutoff (St. Augustine to Bunnell ), which

2507-498: A winter resort for the wealthy members of America's Gilded Age . Palm Beach was to be the terminus of the Flagler railroad, but during 1894 and 1895, severe freezes hit all of Central Florida , whereas the Miami area remained unaffected, causing Flagler to rethink his original decision not to move the railroad south of Palm Beach. The fable that Julia Tuttle , one of two main landowners in

2616-456: Is a Class II railroad operating in the U.S. state of Florida , currently owned by Grupo México . Built primarily in the last quarter of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, the FEC was a project of Standard Oil principal Henry Flagler . He originally visited Florida with his first wife, Mary; they sought assistance with the health issues she faced. A key strategist who worked closely with John D. Rockefeller building

2725-531: Is convenient to have a brakeman at the end of the train to operate switches, on long reverse movements, and are also used on trains carrying hazardous materials. CSX Transportation is one of the few Class 1 railroads that still maintains a fleet of modified cabooses for regular use. Employed as "shoving platforms" at the rear of local freight trains which must perform long reverse moves or heavy switching, these are generally rebuilt bay-window cabooses with their cabin doors welded shut (leaving their crews to work from

2834-475: Is it that you propose?" To convince Flagler to continue the railroad to Miami, both Tuttle and William Brickell offered half of their holdings north and south of the Miami River to him. Tuttle added 50 acres (200,000 m ) for shops and yards if Flagler would extend his railroad to the shores of Biscayne Bay and build one of his great hotels. An agreement was made and contracts were signed. On September 7, 1895,

2943-439: Is the site of the former Bachelor Officers Quarters (BOQ), now known as Navy Gateway Inns & Suites. NGIS is the tallest building on the island of Key West, a three-wing highrise. Trumbo Point also contains a restaurant, bar & lounge, vacation rental villas for active and retired military personnel, a pool and water park. The base can be entered through Trumbo Gate off the intersection of Palm Avenue and Peary Court Road in

3052-770: The Akron, Canton and Youngstown Railroad in 1923, but is particularly associated with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad , which built all of its cabooses in this design starting from an experimental model in 1930. The bay window gained favor with many railroads because it eliminated the need for additional clearances in tunnels and overpasses. On the West Coast, the Milwaukee Road and the Northern Pacific Railway used these cars, converting over 900 roof top cabooses to bay windows in

3161-520: The Atlantic Coast Line which had proposed an alternate plan of reorganization. That same year, a labor contract negotiation turned sour. Ball was determined to save the railroad from the bankruptcy that had continued for more than a decade. Ball was certain that if the company didn't become profitable, the equipment and track would deteriorate to the point where some lines would become unsafe or unusable and require partial abandonment. Later, in 1962,

3270-569: The Atlantic Coast Line Railroad . The Key West extension was heavily damaged and partially destroyed in the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 . An FEC rescue train, with the exception of steam locomotive 447, was overturned by the storm surge at Islamorada . 42 miles (68 km) of track were washed away by the hurricane, two miles of which ended up washing ashore on the mainland at Cape Sable . The FEC's Long Key Fishing Camp

3379-662: The Casa Monica Hotel , which he renamed Cordova. He then built a third hotel, the Hotel Alcazar , which opened in 1898. With the success of his three St. Augustine hotels, Flagler incorporated the Jacksonville Bridge Company to build a bridge across the St. Johns River and connect the JStA&HR to the rest of Jacksonville's railroads. Passengers needed to be ferried across the St. Johns River in Jacksonville to access

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3488-575: The Florida land boom of the 1920s , which led to increased traffic. By 1923, the FEC was running five daily passenger trains roundtrip between Jacksonville and Miami. Two of these trains, the Havana Special and the Key West Express continued to Key West. The following year, the number of passenger trains between Jacksonville and Miami increased to eight with two continuing to Key West. In response to

3597-617: The Illinois Railway Museum with 19 examples and the Western Pacific Railroad Museum at Portola, California , with 17. Many shortline railroads still use cabooses today. Large railroads also use cabooses as "shoving platforms" or in switching service where it is convenient to have crew at the rear of the train. Cabooses have been reused as vacation cottages, garden offices in private residences, and as portions of restaurants. Also, caboose motels have appeared, with

3706-560: The Kentucky Railway Museum (fire damaged), and the Bluegrass Railroad Museum (unrestored but serviceable). The remaining three are in private collections. A transfer caboose looks more like a flat car with a shed bolted to the middle of it than like a standard caboose. It is used in transfer service between rail yards or short switching runs, and as such, lacks sleeping, cooking or restroom facilities. The ends of

3815-743: The Ormond Hotel in Ormond Beach . Flagler created the Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Indian River Railway Company in 1892 as a holding company for his railroad network. Beginning in 1892, when landowners south of Daytona petitioned him to extend the railroad 80 miles (130 km) south, Flagler began laying new railroad tracks; no longer did he follow his traditional practice of purchasing existing railroads and merging them into his growing rail system. Under Florida's generous land-grant laws passed in 1893, 8,000 acres (3,237 ha) could be claimed from

3924-564: The Overseas Highway to Key West, using much of the remaining railway infrastructure. A rebuilt Overseas Highway ( U.S. Route 1 ), taking an alignment that closely follows the Overseas Railroad's original routing, continues to provide the only highway link to Key West, ending near the southernmost point in the continental United States. The remaining Long Key Viaduct , Seven Mile Bridge , and Bahia Honda Rail Bridge that once carried

4033-688: The Panama Canal was announced by the United States in 1905. As the closest deep-water port in the United States to the canal, Key West was positioned to take advantage of significant new trade with the west that would be enabled by the opening of the canal – this, in addition to the city's existing involvement with Cuban and Latin American trade. Key West was a major coaling station for ship traffic between South America and New York. Flagler thought it would be profitable for coal to be brought by railroad to Key West for coaling those ships. Though, by

4142-752: The Southern Pacific Railroad , St. Louis – San Francisco Railway , Katy Railroad , Kansas City Southern Railway , the Southern Railway , and the New York Central Railroad . In the UK, brake vans are usually of this basic design: the bay window is known as a lookout or ducket. In the extended-vision or wide-vision caboose, the sides of the cupola project beyond the side of the car body. Rock Island created some of these by rebuilding some standard cupola cabooses with windowed extensions applied to

4251-484: The St. Joe Company prior to 1983. The Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) was developed by Henry Morrison Flagler , an American tycoon , real estate promoter, railroad developer and John D. Rockefeller 's partner in Standard Oil . Formed at Cleveland, Ohio , as Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler in 1867, Standard Oil moved its headquarters in 1877 to New York City . Flagler and his family relocated there as well. He

4360-421: The St. Johns River at Tocoi Landing. The St. Johns Railway first opened in 1858 and Flagler purchased the line from New York millionaire William Astor. Flagler also acquired another railroad from Astor, the St. Augustine and Palatka Railway which ran from Tocoi Junction (about halfway between St. Augustine and Tocoi Landing) on the St. Johns Railway and ran southwest to East Palatka. Finally, Flagler acquired

4469-623: The St. Johns and Halifax River Railroad which opened in the early 1880s from East Palatka southeast to Ormond Beach and Daytona . It was extended west into Palatka after the completion of a bridge over the St. Johns River in 1888. In addition to expanding the network, the acquired railroads gave Flagler two additional accesses to the St. Johns River at Tocoi Landing and East Palatka, as well as additional connections to other railroads in Palatka. Continuing to develop hotel facilities to entice northern tourists to visit Florida, Flagler bought and expanded

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4578-606: The United States Supreme Court . The FEC continued operation with heavily reduced non-union crews (often former strikers), at the cost of a high turnover rate, low morale, and deteriorating infrastructure. Most of the unions struck an agreement with the FEC in 1971; the United Transportation Union and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers remained on strike until March 1, 1974, until the courts forced

4687-507: The 1830s, they would have resembled the cook shack on a ship's deck. The earliest known printed record of "caboose" used to describe the railcar appeared in 1859 in court records in conjunction with a lawsuit filed against the New York and Harlem Railway . The most common pluralization of caboose is "cabooses". Use of cabooses began in the 1830s, when railroads housed trainmen in shanties built onto boxcars or flatcars. The caboose provided

4796-548: The Board of Directors of Standard Oil, he gave up his day-to-day involvement in the firm in order to pursue his Florida interests. 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. At the time, St. Augustine was served by the Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Halifax River Railway (JStA&HR),

4905-683: The FEC line might be used for a commuter rail service to complement the existing Tri-Rail line (which follows former CSX tracks to the west). There has also been some discussion about Amtrak or the State of Florida using FEC lines for a more direct route between Jacksonville and Miami. The company has more recently indicated that it is open to allowing commuter rail services along its lines, with potential service areas in Miami-Dade County, Broward County, and Jacksonville's First Coast Commuter Rail . In March 2012 FEC Industries (not FEC Railway) proposed

5014-406: The FEC. Passenger service became a political issue in Florida during the early years of the labor strike, which essentially lasted 14 years, from 1963 to 1977. At the insistence of the City of Miami—which had long fought to get rid of the tracks in the downtown section just north of the county courthouse—Miami's wooden-constructed downtown passenger terminal was demolished by November 1963. Although

5123-488: The Florida East Coast Railway in 1893 to 1909. Flager and his lawyers defeated all legal challenges and neither the company or its employees were ever convicted in court. However, there were many reports of harsh working conditions and forced indebtedness to the company, and malfeasance by labor agents who hired men for the railway. Knetsch concludes that "Flagler in fact provided health care for his employees and

5232-580: The Key West extension still stand and are on the National Register of Historic Places. In the early 1960s, Edward Ball , who controlled the Alfred I. duPont Testamentary Trust , bought a majority ownership of FEC, buying its bonds on the open market, allowing the FEC to emerge from bankruptcy following protracted litigation with a group of the company's other bondholders, led by S.A. Lynch and associated with

5341-585: The Miami area along with the Brickell family, sent orange blossoms to Flagler to prove to him that Miami, unlike the rest of the state, was unaffected by the frost , is untrue. The truth is that she wired him to advise him that "the region around the shores of Biscayne Bay is untouched by the freezes." He sent his two lieutenants, James E. Ingraham and Joseph R. Parrott —now famous in Florida history—to investigate; they brought boxes of truck (produce) and citrus back to Flagler, who then wired Tuttle, asking, "Madam, what

5450-421: The Moultrie Cutoff was built to shorten the distance between St. Augustine and Bunnell (just north of Ormond Beach ) on the main line by bypassing its turn towards Palatka. The main line was also expanded to double track from Jacksonville to Miami in 1926, along with the installation of automatic block signaling . Many of the bridges were rebuilt when the main line was expanded to double track, including

5559-516: The Standard Oil Trust, Flagler noted both great potential and a lack of services during his stay at St. Augustine . He subsequently began what amounted to his second career, developing resorts, industries, and communities all along Florida's shores abutting the Atlantic Ocean . The FEC is possibly best known for building the railroad to Key West , completed in 1912. When the FEC's line from

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5668-489: The advice of his physician, he traveled to Jacksonville, Florida , for the winter with his first wife, Mary, who was quite ill. Two years after she died in 1881, he married Mary's former caregiver, Ida Alice Shourds. After their wedding, the couple traveled to St. Augustine, Florida , in 1883. Flagler found the city charming, but the hotel facilities and transportation systems inadequate. He recognized Florida's potential to attract out-of-state visitors. Though Flagler remained on

5777-405: The axles, which charged a lead-acid storage battery when the train was in motion. The addition of the cupola , a lookout post atop the car, was introduced in 1863. Coal or wood was originally used to fire a cast-iron stove for heat and cooking, later giving way to a kerosene heater. Now rare, the old stoves can be identified by several essential features. They were without legs, bolted directly to

5886-920: The caboose include "special" trains, where the train is involved in some sort of railway maintenance; as part of survey trains that inspect remote rail lines after natural disasters to check for damage; or in protecting the movement of nuclear material within the United States. Others have been modified for use in research roles to investigate complaints from residents or business owners regarding trains in certain locations. Finally, some are coupled to trains for special events, including historical tours. The Chihuahua al Pacífico Railroad in Mexico still uses cabooses to accompany their motorail trains between Chihuahua and Los Mochis . Cabooses have also become popular for collection by railroad museums and for city parks and other civic uses, such as visitor centers. Several railroad museums roster large numbers of cabooses, including

5995-422: The caboose. For longer trips, the caboose provided minimal living quarters, and was frequently personalized and decorated with pictures and posters. Early cabooses were nothing more than flat cars with small cabins erected on them, or modified box cars. The standard form of the American caboose had a platform at either end with curved grab rails to facilitate train crew members' ascent onto a moving train. A caboose

6104-479: The central interior of the peninsula south from Jacksonville to Auburndale , and the Seaboard Air Line Railroad route south from Auburndale completed the trip to West Palm Beach and Miami. The strike and the resulting interior rerouting marked the end of long-distance coastal service between Jacksonville and West Palm Beach. Any resumed service later, in 1965, was strictly intrastate trains operated by

6213-578: The civilian sector. The northernmost portion of Fleming Key (accessible only from Trumbo) is home to the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School's Underwater Warfare Center, the US Army Special Operations Scuba School. 24°33′49″N 81°47′34″W  /  24.563542°N 81.792794°W  / 24.563542; -81.792794 Florida East Coast Railway The Florida East Coast Railway ( reporting mark FEC )

6322-679: The company effective December 31, 2017, and was replaced by Nathan Asplund as the railway was purchased by Grupo México and now manages it along with its other transport interests. The FEC operations today are dominated by "intermodal" trains and unit rock (limestone) trains. Passenger service was discontinued in 1968 after labor unrest but later resumed (under a different operator) with the introduction of Brightline in 2018. The company's major income-earning sources are its rock trains, transporting primarily limestone, and intermodal trains. FEC freight trains operate on precise schedules. Trains are not held for missed connections or late loadings. Most of

6431-413: The conductor of a construction train and take an empty boxcar to use as a caboose. This car happened to have a hole in the roof about two feet square. I stacked the lamp and tool boxes under the perforation end and sat with my head and shoulders above the roof ... (Later) I suggested putting a box around the hole with glass in, so I could have a pilot house to sit in and watch the train. The position of

6540-411: The cupola varied. In most eastern railroad cabooses, the cupola was in the center of the car, but most western railroads preferred to put it toward the end of the car. Some conductors preferred to have the cupola toward the front, others liked it toward the rear of the train, and some just did not care. ATSF conductors could refuse to be assigned to a train if they did not have their cabooses turned to face

6649-466: The end, and many of them could not return to work because they could no longer pass the required physical examinations or were too old to work. The end of the strike also ended their meager benefits that had enabled members to survive. After Ball's death in 1981, Raymond Wyckoff took the helm of the company on May 30, 1984. From the beginning of the strike, the long-distance named passenger trains rerouted over an Atlantic Coast Line Railroad route through

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6758-563: The engineer. A 1982 Presidential Emergency Board convened under the Railway Labor Act directed United States railroads to begin eliminating caboose cars where possible to do so. A legal exception was the state of Virginia, which had a 1911 law mandating cabooses on the ends of trains, until the law's final repeal in 1988. With this exception aside, year by year, cabooses started to fade away. Very few cabooses remain in operation today, though they are still used for some local trains where it

6867-432: The expanded Cuban embargo added to the woes. Having gained total control of the FEC by 1960, Ball sought to make the railroad profitable again by holding down wages. Despite the recommendation of a National Mediation Board convened by President Kennedy in 1962, Ball refused to grant FEC workers a 10-cents-an-hour raise, accepted by 192 other railroads, claiming that the FEC could not afford to raise wages. This led to

6976-399: The federal court regarding the strike. Ball's use of replacement workers to keep the railroad running during the strike led to violence by strikers that included shootings and bombings; a number of freight trains were derailed or blown up. Eventually, federal intervention helped quell the violence, and the railroad's right to operate during the strike with replacement workers was affirmed by

7085-623: The first day of service on the new route, a proud Henry Flagler rode the first passenger train into Key West, marking the completion of the railroad's oversea connection to Key West and the linkage by railway of the entire east coast of Florida. The completed extension was widely known as the "Eighth Wonder of the World". Upon his arrival in Key West, Flagler stated "Now I can die in peace" with pride in his achievement. Flagler died 16 months later in May 1913. The Florida East Coast Railway benefitted greatly from

7194-412: The floor, and featured a lip on the top surface to keep pans and coffee pots from sliding off. They also had a double-latching door, to prevent accidental discharge of hot coals caused by the rocking motion of the caboose. Cabooses are non-revenue equipment and were often improvised or retained well beyond the normal lifetime of a freight car. Tradition on many lines held that the caboose should be painted

7303-548: The food preparation cabin on a ship's main deck and its stove . Camboose may have entered English through American sailors who had come into contact with their French allies during the American Revolution . It was already in use in U.S. naval terminology by the 1797 construction of the USS Constitution , whose wood-burning food preparation stove is known as the camboose. In modern French, cambuse can refer both to

7412-629: The land boom, the FEC made investments to their network to increase capacity. Within the decade, FEC built Bowden Yard in Jacksonville and the Miller Shops in St. Augustine. In 1923, the FEC built the Miami Belt Line, a freight route that ran from Little River through Hialeah that reconnected with the main line in Larkin (near Kendall ), bypassing downtown Miami. A yard was also built in Hialeah. In 1925,

7521-476: The late 1930s. Milwaukee Road rib-side bay window cabooses are preserved at New Lisbon, Wisconsin , the Illinois Railway Museum , the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad and Cedarburg, Wisconsin , among other places. The Western Pacific Railroad was an early adopter of the type, building their own bay window cars starting in 1942 and acquiring this style exclusively from then on. Many other roads operated this type, including

7630-492: The letter of the law, the passenger service was bare bones. The trains carried no baggage , remains, mail or express and honored no inter-line tickets or passes. The only food service was a box lunch (at Cocoa-Rockledge in 1966). On-board beverage service was limited to soft drinks and coffee. Without a station in Miami, the 1950s-era station in North Miami became the southern terminus. This stripped-down service operated six days

7739-453: The line at the time, which was a time-consuming process. Construction began in 1889 and the bridge opened on January 5, 1890, allowing a direct connection for private railcars and Pullman coaches to reach St. Augustine. By 1888, Flagler was interested in expanding his network beyond St. Augustine. He acquired three additional railroads that year to expand further south. He acquired the St. Johns Railway , which ran from St. Augustine west to

7848-429: The line three weeks later. Flagler then rehabilitated the line to his standards, purchased new rolling stock, and converting the track to standard gauge. He built a modern depot facility as well as schools, hospitals and churches, systematically revitalizing the largely abandoned historic city. The Ponce de Leon Hotel opened on January 10, 1888. By April of that year, Flagler acquired a second hotel in St. Augustine,

7957-516: The line was extended to Homestead . Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, the fledgling rail empire extensively employed convict labor from largely African-American convicts. While most Southern states employed a form of convict lease at the time, renting prisoners' labor to various businesses, Florida's version of convict lease was considered "especially violent" compared to the others. According to historian Joe Knetsch, reformers and muckrakers exaggerated charges of peonage regarding construction of

8066-433: The loads which helped as well. The railroads also claimed a caboose was a dangerous place, as slack run-ins could hurl the crew from their places and even dislodge weighty equipment. Railroads proposed the end-of-train device (EOT or ETD), commonly called a FRED (flashing rear-end device), as an alternative. An ETD could be attached to the rear of the train to detect the train's air brake pressure and report any problems to

8175-451: The locomotive by telemetry . The ETD also detects movement of the train upon start-up and radios this information to the engineers so they know all of the slack is out of the couplings and additional power could be applied. The machines also have blinking red lights to warn following trains that a train is ahead. With the introduction of the ETD, the conductor moved up to the front of the train with

8284-435: The longest and more violent labor conflicts of the 20th century. Ultimately, federal authorities had to intervene to stop the violence, which included bombings, shootings and vandalism. However, the courts ruled in the FEC's favor with regard to the right to employ strikebreakers . During this time Ball invested heavily in numerous steps to improve the railroad's physical plant, and installed various forms of automation. The FEC

8393-405: The main engineer of the project. The U.S. Navy acquired Trumbo Point from the Florida East Coast Railway in 1917. The base was originally a Navy seaplane base and was later used by helicopters. The taxi ramps can still be seen descending into the water on the north side of the large, pink concrete pad where hangars were once located. Today, Trumbo Point is primarily used for military housing and

8502-476: The mainland to Key West was heavily damaged by the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 , the State of Florida purchased the remaining right-of-way and bridges south of Dade County , and they were rebuilt into road bridges for vehicle traffic and became known as the Overseas Highway . However, a greater and lasting Flagler legacy was the developments along Florida's eastern coast. During the Great Depression, control

8611-498: The name of Flagler's system was officially changed from the Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Indian River Railway Company to the Florida East Coast Railway Company and incorporated. The Florida East Coast Railway reached Fort Lauderdale on March 3, 1896. 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

8720-487: The obsolete Middle Low German word Kabuse , a small cabin erected on a sailing ship's main deck. This was absorbed into Middle Dutch and entered the Dutch language circa 1747 as kabhuis , the compartment on a ship's main deck in which meals were prepared. In modern Dutch, kombuis is equivalent to galley . Eighteenth century French naval records also make reference to a cambose or camboose, which described both

8829-407: The original bridge over the St. Johns River in Jacksonville which was replaced by the current Strauss Trunnion Bascule Bridge . By the end of 1926, the number of passenger trains from Jacksonville to Miami increased to 12, with some continuing to Key West. Due to the prosperity of South Florida during the land boom, the Seaboard Air Line Railroad brought competition to the region by building

8938-471: The ownership of FEC and RailAmerica were not linked corporately, and the spinoff of RailAmerica as a publicly traded company did not include FEC. In May 2010, James Hertwig was named as president and chief executive officer of the company effective July 1, 2010. Hertwig had recently retired from CSX , most recently having served as president of CSX Intermodal, one of CSX's major operating units. James Hertwig retired as president and chief executive officer of

9047-748: The previous double track). In 2014 the very first beginnings of All Aboard Florida commenced with studies and actual construction of the first phase, and construction began in November 2014. In 2015, AAF announced they would operate the service under the name Brightline. Since 2018, Brightline has had service on an initial stretch between West Palm Beach and Miami , with a station in Fort Lauderdale in between. In 2022, two additional stations in Boca Raton and Aventura were added. A new railway extension to Orlando International Airport started service in 2023, and

9156-456: The pushing platform is a caboose that has had its windows covered and welded shut and permanently locked doors. CSX uses former Louisville & Nashville short bay window cabooses and former Conrail waycars as pushing platforms. Transfer cabooses are not to be confused with Missouri Pacific Railroad (MoPac) cabooses, as their cabooses were fully functional. Drover's cabooses looked more like combine cars than standard cabooses. The purpose of

9265-407: The railroad has only minor grades, it takes very little horsepower to pull very long trains at speed. 60 mph (97 km/h) trains are a normal FEC operating standard. The FEC was already in the freight-only business when Amtrak was created and assumed passenger operations of nearly all U.S. railroads' passenger services in 1971. Periodically, there has been speculation that the southern end of

9374-523: The rear lounge section of a tavern-lounge-observation car. Train service operated daily, except Sunday. This new state-mandated passenger service consisted of a single diesel locomotive and two streamlined passenger cars, which, in addition to the operating crew, were staffed by a passenger service agent and a coach attendant, who were "non-operating". The mini-streamliner operated all of the way across three previously observed crew districts (Jacksonville to New Smyrna Beach to Fort Pierce to Miami). Following

9483-434: The rear platform). BNSF also maintains a fleet of former wide-vision cabooses for a similar purpose, and in 2013 began repainting some of them in heritage paint schemes of BNSF's predecessor railroads. The form of cabooses varied over the years, with changes made both to reflect differences in service and improvements in design. The most commonly seen types are: The most common caboose form in American railroad practice has

9592-598: The seven years of construction, three hurricanes threatened to halt the project. This included the 1906 Florida Keys hurricane , which killed 135 of Flagler's workers. The Key West extension cost $ 50 million and the lives of hundreds of workmen. Workers toiled under conditions sufficiently cruel and harsh that the US Justice Department prosecuted the FECR under a federal slave-kidnapping law. Journalists also chronicled conditions of debt peonage wherein immigrant labor

9701-484: The sides of the car to allow crew to observe the train. The caboose also served as the conductor's office, and on long routes, included sleeping accommodations and cooking facilities. A similar railroad car, the brake van , was used on British and Commonwealth railways outside North America (the role has since been replaced by the crew car in Australia). On trains not fitted with continuous brakes , brake vans provided

9810-485: The sides of the cupola itself, but by far, the greatest number have the entire cupola compartment enlarged. This model was introduced by the International Car Company and saw service on most U.S. railroads. The expanded cupola allowed the crew to see past the top of the taller cars that began to appear after World War II , and also increased the roominess of the cupola area. Additionally, Monon Railroad had

9919-590: The southern end of the FEC service area. Shipments currently are principally for materials dealers Titan and Rinker . Caboose A caboose is a crewed North American railroad car coupled at the end of a freight train . Cabooses provide shelter for crew at the end of a train, who were formerly required in switching and shunting ; as well as in keeping a lookout for load shifting , damage to equipment and cargo, and overheating axles . Originally flatcars fitted with cabins or modified box cars , they later became purpose-built, with bay windows above or to

10028-543: The state for every mile (1.6 km) built. Flagler would eventually claim in excess of two million acres (809,371 ha; 8,094 km ) for building his railroad, and land development and trading would become one of his most profitable endeavors. Flagler obtained a charter from the state of Florida authorizing him to build a railroad along the Indian River to Miami , and as the railroad progressed southward, cities such as New Smyrna and Titusville began to develop along

10137-492: The time the extension was finished, the range of ships had been extended to such a degree that they no longer stopped in Key West for coal. The construction of the Overseas Railroad required many engineering innovations as well as vast amounts of labor and monetary resources. Many considered the Key West extension a folly as it was one of the most daring infrastructure ever built exclusively with private funds. At one time during construction, four thousand men were employed. During

10246-487: 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." The area was actually previously known as Fort Dallas after the fort built there in 1836 during the Second Seminole War . To further develop the area surrounding the Miami railroad station, Flagler dredged

10355-762: The tracks. The railroad reached Fort Pierce January 29, 1894. By March 22 of the same year, the railroad system reached what is today known as West Palm Beach . Flagler constructed the Royal Poinciana Hotel in Palm Beach overlooking the Lake Worth Lagoon . He also built the Breakers Hotel on the ocean side of Palm Beach, and Whitehall , his private 55-room, 60,000 square foot (5,600 m ) winter home. The development of these three structures, coupled with railroad access to them, established Palm Beach as

10464-400: The train crew with a shelter at the rear of the train. The crew could exit the train for switching or to protect the rear of the train when stopped. They also inspected the train for problems such as shifting loads, broken or dragging equipment, and hot boxes (overheated axle bearings, a serious fire and derailment threat). The conductor kept records and handled business from a table or desk in

10573-518: The train. The use of drover's cars on the Northern Pacific Railway , for example, lasted until the Burlington Northern Railroad merger of 1970. They were often found on stock trains originating in Montana . Although the caboose has largely fallen out of use, some are still retained by railroads in a reserve capacity. These cabooses are typically used in and around railyards. Other uses for

10682-406: The trains are paired so that they leave simultaneously from their starting points and meet halfway through the run and swap crews, so they are back home at the end of their runs. The FEC pioneered operation with 2 man crews with no crew districts, which they were able to start doing after the 1963 strike. The entire railroad adopted automatic train control (ATC) after a fatal 1987 collision caused by

10791-462: The way they preferred. This would be a rare union agreement clause that could be used however it was not a regular issue. The classic idea of the "little red caboose" at the end of every train came about when cabooses were painted a reddish brown; however, some railroads (UP, and NKP, for example) painted their cabooses yellow or red and white. The most notable was the Santa Fe which in the 1960s started

10900-418: Was a far better employer than the press alleged." Once the railroad reached Homestead in 1904, Flagler then sought perhaps his greatest challenge: the extension of the Florida East Coast Railway to Key West, a city of almost 20,000 inhabitants located 128 miles (206 km) beyond the end of the Florida peninsula . He became particularly interested in linking Key West to the mainland after the construction of

11009-418: Was also destroyed in the storm. Traffic was immediately embargoed south of Florida City after the storm while the Florida East Coast Railway decided whether or not to restore the line. The Florida East Coast Railway quickly determined that it was financially unable to rebuild the destroyed sections. The roadbed and remaining bridges south of Florida City were then sold to the state of Florida, which built

11118-412: Was also less need for cabooses to monitor them. Nowadays, they are generally only used on rail maintenance or hazardous materials trains, as a platform for crew on industrial spur lines when it is required to make long reverse movements, or on heritage and tourist railroads . Railroad historian David L. Joslyn (a retired Southern Pacific Railroad draftsman) has traced the possible root of "caboose" to

11227-416: Was built in 1925 to shorten the main line south of St. Augustine. In March 2005, Robert Anestis stepped down as CEO of Florida East Coast Industries after a four-year stint, allowing Adolfo Henriquez to assume that position, with John D. McPherson, a long-time railroad man, continuing as president of the railway itself. By this time, the railroad had long since made peace with its workers. In late 2007, in

11336-413: Was fitted with red lights called markers to enable the rear of the train to be seen at night. This has led to the phrase "bringing up the markers" to describe the last car on a train. These lights were officially what made a train a "train", and were originally lit with oil lamps . With the advent of electricity, later caboose versions incorporated an electrical generator driven by belts coupled to one of

11445-432: Was in receivership by September 1931, 18 years after Flagler's death. Bus service began to be substituted for trains on the branches in 1932. Streamliners plied the rails between 1939 and 1963, including The East Coast Champion (from New York), The Florida Special (from New York), City of Miami (from Chicago), Dixie Flagler (from Chicago) and South Wind (from Chicago), all of which were jointly operated with

11554-544: Was joined by Henry H. Rogers , another leader of Standard Oil who also became involved in the development of America's railroads, including those on nearby Staten Island , the Union Pacific , and later in West Virginia , where he eventually built the remarkable Virginian Railway to transport coal to Hampton Roads , Virginia . Flagler's non-Standard Oil interests went in a different direction, however, when in 1878, on

11663-480: Was purchased by heirs of the du Pont family . After 30 years of fragile financial condition, the FEC, under leadership of a new president, Ed Ball , took on the labor unions . Ball claimed the company could not afford the same costs as larger Class 1 railroads and needed to invest saved funds in its infrastructure, the condition of which was fast becoming a safety issue. The company—using replacement workers—and some of its employees engaged from 1963 until 1977 in one of

11772-484: Was the first US railroad to operate two-man train crews, eliminate cabooses , and end all of its passenger services (which were unprofitable) by 1968. Today, the company's primary rail revenues come from its intermodal and rock trains. Brightline , an inter-city rail route, uses FEC tracks between Cocoa and Miami . The FEC was historically a Class I railroad owned by Florida East Coast Industries (FECI) from 2000 to 2016, FOXX Holdings between 1983 and 2000, and

11881-412: Was threatened with prohibitive transportation fees to leave Key West after seeing the unsafe and disease-ridden conditions, essentially forcing them to stay. Despite the hardships, the final link of the Florida East Coast Railway to Trumbo Point in Key West was completed in 1912. The first train, a construction engineers' train, arrived in Key West on January 21, 1912. The next day, which is considered

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