A close look will reveal that their have been some recent revisions to the site. Part of this is an effort to make it more fluid and readable and part of it reflects some changes on the layout front. As you look at the home page you will notice that the site no longer focuses solely on the East Rail layout but will also encompass a second layout that I've just started building. My N scale Monon layout is no more. Having served its purpose, it was dismantled in December of 2007. The room it occupied was stripped to the walls, renovated and prepped for a new layout. The new layout is based on another spur in Miami called the Downtown Spur. Geographically this is very close to East Rail and is even served by the same train. Visually it is much different however. The structures are older, the industries are different and there is more of a rail/marine presence. I have no immediate plans to dismantle the East Rail layout although once the downtown spur project gets developed I may take it down.
One of the main purposes of this site is to serve as a resource and tool for the model railroading community. If there are subjects you feel should be covered and are not, let me know. If you have suggestions as to better ways to organize the site let me know that as well.
Powered by GP-38-2 number 2617, the Downtown Spur local switches Trujillo Foods on June 26, 2008.
Some rail activities are timeless. The locomotive and boxcar are modern, otherwise this photo could just as easily have been taken fifty years ago. This scene was taken in June of 2008 in front of the Downtown Spurs Gulf Atlantic Warehouse.
While not rail served, the Downtown Spur rails do pass by Sea River North Terminal, Inc. so it will be included on the layout next to Antillean Marine. In this June 2008 view, the freighter "Ahrensloop" likely having just berthed from a Caribbean destination, is being unloaded.
happened to go by the Florida Bottling Company and found a box car spotted just west of the loading platform and they were unloading pallets of bagged rice with a forklift. As you can see from the photos the truck was completely blocking the road, but no one seamed to really care. Now I know why a regular box car was spotted just west of the loading dock and was not refrigerated, they use the siding as a team track for other businesses when Fl bottling is not using the spot.