Florida East Coast Railway: Map, History, Rosters

Last revised: October 8, 2026

The Florida East Coast Railway is the railroad Henry M. Flagler built down the Atlantic shore of Florida. It reached Miami in 1896 and Key West in 1912, doubled its main line in the boom of the 1920s, and entered receivership on September 1, 1931. The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 took the Overseas Railroad. The company came out of court on January 1, 1961, survived a strike that began on January 23, 1963, and made its living afterward on intermodal freight, rock, and automobiles. Reporting mark FEC. The railroad is still that company.

Grupo México Transportes closed its purchase of the freight railroad on July 10, 2017. The main line remains Jacksonville to Miami, 351 miles, with interchange at Jacksonville to CSX and Norfolk Southern. Passenger trains returned to the same track as Brightline, a separate company, beginning in 2018 and reaching Orlando International Airport on September 22, 2023. Steam since 1900 is the steam roster. Diesels, with serials, are the diesel roster.

Florida East Coast E3A 1002 and E7A 1012 laying over at Jacksonville during the railroad's 1965-1968 passenger service

Florida East Coast E3A #1002, originally named The Champion, and E7A #1012 lay over at Jacksonville during the passenger service that ran from 1965 until July 31, 1968. American-Rails.com collection.

On this page: Flagler · At a glance · To Miami · Key West · Boom and receivership · Diesels, then the strike · Grupo México and Brightline

A hotel man buys a narrow-gauge railroad

Flagler had made his fortune with John D. Rockefeller in Standard Oil, and he came to St. Augustine in the winter of 1883–1884 already retired. The oldest continuously occupied European settlement in the country, founded by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés on September 8, 1565, was still a small place reached by a hard connection. Rail stopped at Jacksonville. A traveler crossed the St. Johns River by steamboat and then rode the narrow-gauge Jacksonville, St. Augustine & Halifax River Railway about 36 miles into town. Flagler called the coast he wanted to build the American Riviera, and he came out of retirement to build the hotels and the railroad that would fill them.

The JStA&HR had been organized on February 21, 1881, and it opened in June 1883. Flagler bought it on December 31, 1885. He standard-gauged the line, bought more equipment, and gathered the short roads south and west of St. Augustine: the St. Johns Railway, the St. Augustine & Palatka, the St. Johns & Halifax, and the lines that reached Daytona. A bridge across the St. Johns opened on January 20, 1890 and put Jacksonville on the same railroad as St. Augustine. In the fall of 1892 the properties took the name Jacksonville, St. Augustine & Indian River Railway. On September 9, 1895 they became the Florida East Coast Railway.

The first hotels were the point of the railroad. The Ponce de Leon opened at St. Augustine in January 1888, and the Alcazar followed in 1889. Ormond, Palm Beach, and Miami each received a Flagler house as the railhead moved south. The land grant that came with the charters totaled, in Seth Bramson's accounting, 2.04 million acres. Flagler used that land for the railroad, for farms and towns along the shore, and for the resort business that made the east coast of Florida a winter destination.

At a glance

The Florida East Coast Railway logo. Author’s work.

Item	Detail
What it is	Class II railroad, Jacksonville to Miami, still operating. Mark FEC
Headquarters	St. Augustine in 1930. Jacksonville for the modern company
Formed	September 9, 1895. Predecessor Jacksonville, St. Augustine & Halifax River Railway, organized February 21, 1881, opened June 1883
Flagler buys the predecessor	December 31, 1885
Miami	April 15, 1896. Jacksonville–Miami, 366 miles
Key West	Extension opened January 22, 1912. Abandoned after the September 2, 1935 hurricane. The story is the Key West Extension
1930 system	917.57 route miles, Key West and the Okeechobee branch included. January 1930 Official Guide
Gauge	3 feet, June 1883–January 19, 1889. 4 ft 8½ in from January 20, 1889
Receivership	September 1, 1931–January 1, 1961. Then St. Joe Paper, Edward Ball
Strike	January 23, 1963. Passenger service restored August 2, 1965, and ended July 31, 1968
Main line today	351 miles, Jacksonville–Miami, the figure used when Grupo México closed the purchase
Owner since 2017	Grupo México Transportes. Agreement March 28, 2017, reported at $2.1 billion. Closing July 10, 2017
Passenger on the line	Brightline, a separate company. Miami–Orlando since September 22, 2023
Rosters	Steam since 1900 · Diesel roster

The 1930 mileage is the Official Guide listing already published on this site. The 351-mile main line is the description used at the 2017 closing. Information compiled October 8, 2026.

South to Miami

South of St. Augustine the coast was still mostly open beach. Daytona, incorporated in July 1886, was a hamlet of a few hundred people. Flagler pushed the railhead through New Smyrna Beach in 1892, Cocoa in 1893, and West Palm Beach in 1894. The first train reached Miami on April 15, 1896. The main line from Jacksonville was 366 miles. The Royal Poinciana had opened at Palm Beach in February 1894. The Palm Beach Inn, later The Breakers, opened in January 1896. The Royal Palm Hotel opened on Biscayne Bay on January 16, 1897. At the north end, The Continental at Atlantic Beach opened in 1901 and burned in 1919. The hotels were the traffic. The railroad was how a guest from the Northeast reached them.

In 1897 Flagler started the Florida East Coast Steamship Company, Miami to Nassau, and on July 1, 1900 that operation joined the Plant steamships as the Peninsular & Occidental Steamship Company. The P&O stayed in the Flagler orbit for decades. Its busiest years were the years the railroad reached Key West and a passenger could change to a ship for Havana. That train is the Havana Special.

The railroad that went to sea

Key West was the last great Flagler project. He wanted a deep-water port at the end of the keys, a coaling stop for ships using the Panama Canal, then still being built, and a short sea crossing to Cuba. Construction was announced in April 1905. The line already reached Homestead. From Miami to Key West the extension was 156 miles, much of it on concrete viaducts, Seven Mile Bridge the longest of them. Flagler, 82 years old, arrived at Key West in his private car on January 22, 1912. He died on May 20, 1913. The building of the Overseas Railroad, the hurricanes during construction, and the highway that replaced the track are the Key West Extension.

Historical system map of the Florida East Coast with the Key West Extension in service, before 1935

A historical system map of the Florida East Coast as the railroad stood with the Key West Extension in service, before 1935. Author’s work.

The last big branch was the line into the interior. Work began in February 1911 on a railroad south from Maytown, near New Smyrna Beach, and it reached Okeechobee in early 1915, 122 miles. A spur along the east shore of Lake Okeechobee reached Lake Harbor in 1929 and an interchange with the Atlantic Coast Line. After the Key West line was gone, a newer connection from Fort Pierce opened on April 1, 1947, and much of the sparse track north of Okeechobee came out.

The boom, the Seaboard, and 1931

The 1920s were the railroad’s great decade. New residents filled the east coast faster than the single track could carry them. In 1925 the company embargoed some freight until it could catch up. Eight passenger trains, and for a short time fourteen, ran each way between Jacksonville and Miami. In 1926 the railroad handled a billion ton-miles and took in $29.4 million, more than $13 million above the total of three years earlier. It double-tracked Jacksonville to Miami between 1924 and 1926, with block signals, and it built the Moultrie Cutoff, 29 miles from St. Augustine to Bunnell, which took about 20 miles out of the old route through East Palatka. Rail on the main line went from 70 pounds to 90. The new power was Pacifics, then Mountains, Mikados, and switchers. Those classes are the steam roster. George H. Drury counted 125 new locomotives in the years of the boom.

The break came at the end of 1926. A hurricane hit Miami that September. In 1927 the Seaboard Air Line opened its own line into Miami, and FEC revenue that year was about $18 million. In 1928 it was under $14 million. The stock-market crash followed. The railroad entered receivership on September 1, 1931. Revenue in 1933 was about $7 million. Branch lines came out through that decade. By 1940 the railroad was down to 679 route miles.

On September 2, 1935, the Labor Day Hurricane crossed the keys with winds clocked at 200 miles an hour and destroyed about 42 miles of the extension. The railroad, already in court, turned the right-of-way from near Florida City to Key West over to the State of Florida for $640,000. Trumbo Point at Key West went to the government. The state built the Overseas Highway, U.S. 1, on the old grade. The extension had already been a thin railroad: a few passenger trains south of Miami, sealed freight for the port, water for the keys, and a car ferry to Cuba that later left from Port Everglades and then from Palm Beach until 1960. Miami had become the port.

Florida East Coast 0-8-0 270 on the ready track at West Palm Beach on December 15, 1953

Florida East Coast 0-8-0 #270, built by Alco in 1926, on the ready track at West Palm Beach on December 15, 1953. John Krave photo.

Streamliners, diesel, and the 1963 strike

The first new diesels were Electro-Motive E3As 1001 and 1002, delivered in November 1939 for the passenger trains. E6As 1003–1005 followed in 1940 and 1942. After the war the hoods and the E7s and E9s finished the job. Drury’s count of steam fell from 66 locomotives to 9 between 1952 and 1954, and six were still on the roster through 1958. The railroad was all-diesel in 1959. The FEC’s own streamliner in that era was the Dixie Flagler. It also forwarded the Champion, the City of Miami, and the South Wind south of Jacksonville.

New Florida East Coast F3s in the sun at Miami in January 1949

New Florida East Coast F3s in the Florida sun at Miami in January 1949. Harry Wolfe photo.

Florida East Coast E9A #1034 at Jacksonville in the mid-1960s, in the railroad’s late passenger years. American-Rails.com collection.

Florida East Coast E7As led by 1014 laying over at Miami in the 1960s

Florida East Coast E7As, led by #1014, lay over between assignments at Miami in the 1960s. Warren Calloway collection.

On January 1, 1961 the receivership ended and the St. Joe Paper Company, in the person of Edward Ball, took the railroad. Two years later, on January 23, 1963, the operating unions struck. Management crews kept the freight moving. Passenger trains stopped, came back under a requirement to serve Jacksonville–North Miami from August 2, 1965, and ended again on July 31, 1968. The National Labor Relations Board eventually decertified the unions. Crews went from five people to two, an engineer and a conductor. The payroll, about 2,100 before the strike, was under 1,100 by the early 1970s. What replaced the old merchandise business was trailer-on-flatcar, containers, and automobiles. Revenue was over $100 million by 1980.

An official 1969 system map of the Florida East Coast Railway. Author’s collection.

Florida East Coast GP40 403, GP40-2 424, and GP9 654 southbound at Titusville in January 1981

Florida East Coast GP40 #403, GP40-2 #424, and GP9 #654 head south through Titusville in January 1981. American-Rails.com collection.

Fortress, Grupo México, and Brightline

The FEC stayed out of the Coast Line, the Seaboard, and CSX. In 2007 Fortress Investment Group bought the parent company. In March 2008 RailAmerica was named operator, and for a time locomotives wore that company’s red, white, and blue. Fortress then kept the FEC as its own railroad. Genesee & Wyoming bought the RailAmerica short lines in 2012 and the FEC stayed outside that sale. On March 28, 2017, Grupo México Transportes, owner of Ferromex, agreed to buy Florida East Coast Holdings. The price in the announcement was $2.1 billion. The closing was announced on July 10, 2017. Brightline was a different company, left with Florida East Coast Industries, and it kept the right to run passenger trains on the corridor.

Florida East Coast SD70M-2 107 in RailAmerica colors leading autoracks near Jacksonville on March 29, 2014

SD70M-2 #107, in the red, white, and blue worn while RailAmerica’s name was on the railroad, leads autoracks near Jacksonville on March 29, 2014. Warren Calloway photo.

The eight SD70M-2s, 100–107, went back to the lessor. The locomotives Grupo México inherited as the new road power were twenty-four General Electric ES44C4s, 800–823, built in the fall of 2014, together with the GP40-2s and the secondhand SD40-2s. Serials and order numbers are on the diesel roster. The freight is the same coast the railroad has served since 1896: intermodal at the South Florida ports, automobiles, rock and other construction material, and the Jacksonville interchange.

Brightline is the passenger service announced in 2012 as All Aboard Florida. Trains began between Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach in January 2018 and reached Miami that May. Boca Raton and Aventura opened in December 2022. On September 22, 2023 the line opened from Cocoa to Orlando International Airport, on track Brightline built in the median of State Road 528, and the corridor from Miami to Orlando was complete. The trains use the FEC between Miami and Cocoa. The extension toward Tampa remains a project of its own. The freight railroad and the passenger railroad share a grade and keep separate companies. That arrangement, a private passenger operator on a regional freight railroad, is the modern chapter of the line Flagler finished to Miami in 1896.

Sources

Seth H. Bramson, Speedway to Sunshine: The Story of the Florida East Coast Railway (Boston Mills Press, 1984), for the land grant of 2.04 million acres, Flagler’s arrival at Key West, and the corporate story Drury cites.
George H. Drury, Guide to North American Steam Locomotives, revised edition, pages 177–179, for the post-1900 class grid, the 1924–1926 double-tracking, the 125 new locomotives of the boom, the profile of the peninsula main line, and the drop from 66 steam locomotives to 9 between 1952 and 1954.
David P. Morgan, “Where Did the Railroad Go That Once Went to Sea?,” Trains, February 1972, for the December 31, 1885 purchase of the Jacksonville, St. Augustine & Halifax River Railway.
Harold Mayer, “Rich Road, Poor Road,” Trains, April 1941, for the revenue drop after 1926.
January 1930 Official Guide of the Railways, on this site as the Florida East Coast timetable page, for 917.57 route miles.
Miami Herald, March 28, 2017, for the Grupo México agreement at $2.1 billion and for Brightline remaining a separate company. Railway Age and Railway Track & Structures, July 10, 2017, for the closing and the 351-mile main line.
The Diesel Shop, Florida East Coast roster, revised January 21, 2024, for the SD70M-2s returned to the lessor and for ES44C4s 800–823.
Brightline corporate timeline, for January 2018, May 2018, December 2022, and September 22, 2023.

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