Okay I can do the research, I'm just not sure where to start. I want to try and find out what industries the Coast Lines (ACL/SCL) served in the Jax area in their days here. I guess that would have been called a local or a turn or something like that. I don't want to go any farther than Baldwin to the west, Orlando to the south and Kingsland to the north. Can anybody point me in a direction? Would the railroads have kept any sort of list of their customers Thanks John

-- John Buckley (jbu50@yahoo.com), June 02, 2004

Answers

John, I have a ACL 1912 Industral and Shippers Guide that I can look in for you,does that fit the time frame that you want to model or would like to know about.

-- Gary Riccio (g.riccio@worldnet.att.net), June 07, 2004.

Thanks for all those great ideas. I hadn't even thought about timetables and I have several from right around that time period. Have to get them off the shelf and look at them. My office also has a set of four Sanborn map books of Jax that date back to the early 1900's. I'm gonna have to peruse them I guess. Thanks again everyone. John

-- (jbu50@yahoo.com), June 04, 2004.

John - I don't know if the ACL, SAL or SCL produced a Station and Customer Guide, but if you could find one it would be your best source document. One document that would give you some assistance would be an employee timetable. They contain lists of industrial and private sidings not shown in the timetable. This would identify most of the major shippers. Of course, many smaller shippers loaded and unloaded their shipments at team tracks. While I can't help you precisely with the shippers, I can give you a precise list of all of the locals and road switchers that operated around Jacksonville. I have a document prepared by the ACL and SAL that shows all of the proposed local freight and road switcher service of the operating divisions of SCL. Here are the Jacksonville and vicinity jobs - Savannah Division - Local Freight - Savannah-Jacksonville (SAL); Road Switcher - Jacksonville-Kingsland; Road Switcher - Eastport-Dames Point-St. Regis; Turn-Around Local Freight - Baldwin-Fernandina; Road Switcher - Fernandina-Yulee;Local Freight - Jessup-Jacksonville. Jacksonville Division - Local Freight - Jacksonville-Tallahassee; Local Freight - Jacksonville-Wilcox via High Springs and Haile; Turn-Around Local Freight - Jacksonville-Waldo; Road Switcher - Lawtey-Starke-Camp Blanding-Bell; Turn-Around Local Freight - Jacksonville-Bostwick; Local Freight - Jacksonville-Sanford. The ACL labor agreements provided for the operation of local freights. The SAL agreements permitted the operation of the road switchers and/or local freights. Local freights were made up in "station order" by yard crews and operating from terminal to terminal performing the local work on the line-of-road. Turn-around locals operated from a terminal to some intermediate point, where they turned and returned to the original terminal, only doing road work on the line-of-road. Road switchers had the flexibility to operate in and out of terminals and some of the agreements provided for them to perform switching in the yard. Perhaps knowing the operating limits of the locals and road switchers will assist you in narrowing down the industries they served.

-- William E. Griffin, Jr. (Griffinwejr@aol.com), June 03, 2004.

John - Here are some possable answers to your question. First, you should understand that not all of a railroad's freight customers had a private siding. Some businesses used a railroad's team track, a siding in a lot where trucks could turn and back up to a freight car to load or unload. The business may have been several blocks, or more, away from the railroad. It is suggested that you try to obtain SCL employee timetables for the Waycross and Jacksonville Divisions from 1969-1970 era. I seem to remember that there was a page in the back of these publications that listed places with team tracks and also gave names of businesses with private sidings, showed their milepost location, siding car capacity, and whether a double end or dead end siding. Check advertisements in TRAINS magazine for timetable dealers. Finally, if you are in the Jacksonville area, visit the main or central library and see if they have a file of Sanborn Fire Insurance maps, either "hard copy" or on microfilm of the Jacksonville area. These maps show, in many cases, sidings, names of businesses, plus floor dimensions of buildings, and what building was made out of (wood, brick, etc.). Many of these buildings may still be standing along either working or abandoned rights-of-way. Hope the above helps.

-- Tom Underwood (tlu1650@attglobal.net), June 03, 2004.

John: Speaking from my point of view as a retired railroad employee, your best bet is to luck up on one or more retirees who used to work in the clerical department of the various agencies in question. Case in point. I retired as second trick operator at Gainesville, Ga. on the Norfolk Southern. In the early 70's the railroads started closing small agencies and putting on mobile agents to serve the customers affected by closing that agency. At my agency the customers had the option of picking up the telephone and calling in their switching needs around the clock. After I retired, Norfolk Southern proceeded to close all agencies, leaving the customer to use either a toll-free telephone number or the computer to deal directly with the sales office in Atlanta. I still have the names of all the customers within 25 or 30 miles of Gainesville commited to memory. In your case, the sales office of CSX in Jacksonville has that information, but it is hardly likely that they would release it to an outsider. There should be some retirees from both the operating and clerical departments who are members of the ACL-SAL Historical Society who could fill in some of the blanks for you. I hope this will be of some help.

-- Bill Sellers (was2nd@charter.net), June 02, 2004.