Colorful stories abound when you get railroaders talking about the regions known as East Rail, West Rail, Miami International Depot and the Downtown Spur. Listed below are but a few of them. If you have one you'd like to add please contact me! mailto:lmindheim@shelflayouts.com
Prior to modeling the East Rail district a retired railroader brought me up to speed on the Voodoo situation. Within the Voodoo culture there are those that believe evil can be warded off or positive things will come through the successful sacrifice of a chicken - a sacrifice that must be particularly violent in nature. A live chicken is placed in a pillow case along with a paper bag of money. The pillow case is then deposited in a location where a violent death can be assured. For this reason railroad tracks are a favorite platform for the 'event'. When I first heard this story I was a little incredulous, particularly given the reputations railroaders have for being exceptionally skilled story tellers. Several months later I had the opportunity to visit Miami and photograph the areas I wanted to model. I stepped out of my rental car, walked up to my first photo site and what do I see laying between the rails ----- a pureed mix of pillow case, disintegrated chicken, and paper bag. In an instant I realized what I was looking at.
The 'prototype' (left) and the model (right)
On to the stories.......................
"Last time I high railed from Hialeah to the end of the Homestead line, we must have encountered fifty spent sacrifices--the smell was terrible! The locals tell you not to touch anything including the money. Quite often a freshly deposited sacrifice will be watched by someone hidden, supposedly to ensure the violent death of the sacrifice."
"The Voodoo issue was an emerging thing when I was there and grew with the Haitian influx after I left. It was tough when I was there. There was a headless corpse found in an empty EL gon on the team track at the north end of the depot warehouse and a robbery with a double homicide at the bar at the corner of 46th Street and 37th Avenue."
"Antillean had 2 or 3 tracks all buried in the pavement including one that went to ship side. Metro Iron and Metals, which I expect is now FP&T Recycling, is the scrap yard where the famous "Goldfinger" scene of bailing the Lincoln with the the gangsters inside was done."
"....about Antillean Marine. They were a fascinating outfit and used break bulk ships to the Antilles. They handled everything and were great guys. They got boxcars and an occasional flat loaded with machinery. The ships were small... a couple of hundred feet long. They had to be to get up the Miami River."