Florida Northern Railroad summary
The Florida Northern Railroad (FNOR) is a short line railroad operating in northern Florida as its name implies. It is one of three of the state’s shortline railroads that is part of Regional Rail, LLC. The railroad operates 104 miles of standard-gauge track on two separate branch lines. One out of Ocala and the other out of Newberry.
History
The Florida Northern Railroad was once part of the former Seaboard Coast Line. By the 1980s, the SCL’s successor, CSX Transportation was looking to dispose the lightly used track. Under new ownership by the holding firm Pinsly Railroad Company, the Florida Northern began operations in 1988 from Lowell to Chandler, crossing CSX’s busy “S Line” at Ocala. The railroad tripled its track total in 2005 when it acquired CSX’s West Coast Subdivision between Newberry and Crystal River. On October 29, 2019, it was announced that an agreement was made for Regional Rail to acquire the Florida Northern.
Operations
The Florida Northern has benefited freight traffic from several “non-repeating projects,” including bringing in materials and equipment for gas pipeline construction. The Lowell to Chandler line sees deliveries of unit stone trains to the Anderson Columbia industrial paving plant on the north side of Ocala. Although coal traffic plummeted in 2016, it has remained steady since 2017. In addition to freight haulage, transloading, railcar storage and 3pl warehousing is also provided on the FNOR.
A total of three first-generation General Motor diesel locomotives serves the FNOR which also operates on both the Florida Central Railroad and Florida Midland Railroad. Some were once part of the Pinsly Railroad’s roster pool, and still carries the company’s red and yellow paint scheme. The most notable locomotives being the EMD GP9RMs, rebuilt by the Canadian National Railway in the early 1990s.
The Florida Northern interchanges with CSX at Newberry and Ocala. Motive power from the Class I railroad is used as run-through locomotives by FNOR crew to deliver the unit stone trains for Anderson Columbia at Ocala.
Read more about the Florida Northern Railroad in Trains’ June 2017 issue.
