January 8th, 2020
Traveling from Orlando to Miami, we stopped at Port Salerno to see the spot where I started watching trains (unsuccessfully) up close as a kid. This time, we did catch one northbound.
Stuart, Florida
Stuart is in Martin County on the FEC and home to a peculiar roundabout with the railway through the middle and the Stuart drawbridge on the railway, both of which I have not yet photographed but have seen.
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We couldn't find an angle to see the draw bridge on time and settled for a crossing just south of it in Stuart for what turned out to be a light power move.
Port Salerno, Florida
Port Salerno is a smaller community in Martin County and is where it all began for me. As a kid, my grandparents had a condo at Emerald Lakes on SE Cove Road where they wintered. Every Christmas, we would drive down as a family to visit them, and whenever I could I would take the bike down to the crossing and wait, hoping for a train on the FEC tracks. In all my Christmas holidays of doing that, I never once saw a train there, though did once chat with a track foreman who got off to inspect why his truck had triggered the crossing gates. All night long I would hear trains pass and so the next day I would try again...
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A Florida East Coast manifest freight crosses Cove Rd northbound in Port Salerno, Florida - my daughter's video.
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A Florida East Coast manifest freight crosses Cove Rd northbound in Port Salerno, Florida.