Lost Jacksonville: Union Terminal

[CS Foltz]

stjr............nice post big fella! AGREED! Some aspects, such as plain common sense, seems to have take a back seat to urban planning and the like! There is something be said about the "Days of yore"...........technology is not the ultimate answer but only a tool to be used..............just like common sense!

[finehoe]

The Terminal is also mentioned as waystation for Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in Frank Capra's "It Happened One Night."

In the film, both stars arrive by train in Jacksonville and leave north via bus.

http://www.filmsite.org/itha.html

Actually, as your own link says, they arrive in Jacksonville by bus:

"In the Miami bus station, detectives can't believe she would take a lower-class night bus. "We're wasting our time. Can you imagine Ellie Andrews riding on a bus?" To evade her father's search by traveling incognito, she has another elderly lady buy a ticket for her on a Greyhound bus - a rickety, proletarian means of transportation which would be unlikely for a rich heiress. She is determined to escape detection and join her husband (to spite her father) after a night bus ride from Miami, Florida to New York. "

The scene in Jacksonville presents the city as quite the bustling metropolis, although I doubt it was actually filmed on location.

[gogators07]

Oh you're right -- they do arrive on bus!

No it wasn't filmed on location -- but a set was constructed to convey a sense of downtown Jacksonville at the time.

Another film, "A Florida Enchantment" (based on an earlier 1891 novel) also prominently featured transportation to and from Jacksonville.

[mtraininjax]

I still hope that we will return passenger rail to where it belongs.  As it is now, however, nobody seems to care.

Its not that nobody seems to care, if we, citizens, want the PO to again live as a terminal, we need more players than locals who would like to "see trains stop there". Take for instance what is taking place at Denver's Union Terminal. Similar issue, gateway to the west, historic structure, downtown Denver, http://www.unionstationdenver.com/index.aspx, this is the gold standard by which all future downtown developments of railroad stations will be judged. It is an amazing effort by City of Denver, Colorado DOT, Denver Regional Govts, and the Regional Transportation District. That is a HUGE effort, and its organized. Jax is not as well dialed in, the trans hub is a step, but is nothing on the level of what Denver has planned.

The FEC Picture with the EMD engine and 3 streamliner passenger cars is most likely an EMD E3, I have a picture on my wall of one of Mark Johnson's paintings, and that slant and headlight configuration is most likely an early E3, which is my favorite passenger diesel. Nice pic!

[Ron Mexico]

What a great series of pictures.  I love being able to come to this site to get a look at the history of the some of the more recognizable buildings in Jacksonville.  Please keep up the good work!

[heights unknown]

I put the captions in.  Since I wasn't around back when it was a train station, I listed them as they were classified in the state archives.

Gotcha Lake; wasn't rapping you on the knuckles, just laying out the "real deal" on those "caps."  Great job you did for this thread.


"HU"

[JaxNative68]

"The tomb of the last remaining passenger rail car on site.
This scene is double sad to a railroad historian, Seaboard Coast Line never operated the "Orange Blossom Special" passenger train, and where they have a train name painted, would have been the name of the car. In this case a First Class Sleeper Lounge"

Maybe the one who painted the name on was a Johnny Cash fan and couldn't resist.

[JaxNative68]

Look a-yonder comin'
Comin' down that railroad track
Hey, look a-yonder comin'
Comin' down that railroad track
It's the Orange Blossom Special
Bringin' my baby back

Well, I'm going down to Florida
And get some sand in my shoes
Or maybe Californy
And get some sand in my shoes
I'll ride that Orange Blossom Special
And lose these New York blues

"Say man, when you going back to Florida?"
"When am I goin' back to Florida? I don't know, don't reckon I ever will."
"Ain't you worried about getting your nourishment in New York?"
"Well, I don't care if I do-die-do-die-do-die-do-die."

Hey talk about a-ramblin'
She's the fastest train on the line
Talk about a-travellin'
She's the fastest train on the line
It's that Orange Blossom Special
Rollin' down the seaboard line

[JaxNative68]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkKuhOkg1sI&feature=youtube_gdata

[boteman]

Perhaps I missed something, but is Prime Osborn no longer being used as a convention center? Or is this conversion back to a train terminal being promoted as a Good Idea?

Thanx.

[Charles Hunter]

It's something a lot of folks here think is A Good Idea.
Which means the chances of it happening are slim.  (Yes, I got up on the pessimistic side of bed today.)

[mtraininjax]

It's something a lot of folks here think is A Good Idea.

I know a few good city workers who had a "good idea" once, they left the public sector and went to work in the private sector where they cared about ideas.

[MajorCordite]

OCKLAWAHA writes: Actually the railroad's in the State of Florida were way ahead of their time and sued, and won the right to integrate trains and facilities, this was prior to WWII, long before the civil rights battles. No doubt it was an economy measure, done to wipe out the need for two train cars, or special "Jim Crow" cars on the trains, where ever they could be replaced with a single car.  I don't know the details of the deal, but is was done, perhaps in phases, perhaps some counties held their stations out but here in Jax it was different. All over the station we had signs that read "Anyone regardless of color can use this _____"  fountains, restrooms, restaurant etc..."

My grandfather as well as my father worked for the Atlantic Coast Line from 1920 till 1968.  I had an executive pass that granted "professional courtesy" on all lines.  All during the late 1950's and 1960's, as a teenager, I travelled the country with this pass.  All you had to do was show up at the concourse and board.  Many times during the Xmas Holidays the trains were completely full of Vietnam War soldiers and I had to sit in a lounge area with my suitcase, sleeping sitting up.   

In 1948 President Truman's mandate thru the Interstate  Commerce Commission and the U.S. Courts banned segregation in railroad dining cars. Black passengers in the early 1950's, in the South, were restricted to the "colored" coach which was located behind the diesel.   I remember as a very young boy walking back to the passenger coach in the dark to find my parents and I walked into this car on the Champion.    It struck me as being very odd because many of the ACL employees on the train were African American.  By 1957 the "colored" coach on the Champion was retired.  However, I do remember that most of the restrooms up until the mid 1960's were segregated in most of the small southern town depots.   

[BridgeTroll]

Interesting account Major... Thank you...

[MajorCordite]

What a wonderful set of pictures.   Lonesome train whistles and old train stations provide evocative memories for many folks and some people are even moved to write songs or poems about these iron horses.   In 1968, my dad took me down to the Union Terminal and put me on the *Gulf Wind (*correction) to visit my cousins in New Orleans, I was 15 years old.  As I said my goodbyes and pulled out of the station I did not know that it was the last time I was ever to see him. We lost him in a tragic accident.   Several months later I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote this poem.   And one of my favorite songs, even to this day, is The Dixie Flyer, written and sung by Randy Newman.  Please check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jiLL2d-alc&feature=related

Grass Between The Tracks

There lies across this changing land
a pair of once polished rails
steamed and buffed under turning wheels
by locomotives of iron and steel.

The swaying light on trains of night,
the rumbling of wooden ties and tracks,
the barking of distant dogs at dawn
the smoke, the hissing steam, all have gone.

Goods and people of a time not long past
rode to and from towns that are no more
on racing, rumbling giants driven so fast
playing children waving as they passed.

Grasses bordered by parallel rails
begin to sprout from years of sleep,
the massive engines rest in yards of lull,
the shining steel so quickly dulls.