Somewhere in Hernando County, Florida, the ACL and the SAL came together. That location was called Conrock Station. Can anyone help with more details as to where and what? I recently was reading a 1961 published book on Florida Road Building and it referred to the Florida Railroad Association? Does anyone have knowledge of this trade group? Thanks

-- Dick Kearns (kearnsrh@aol.com), October 14, 2002

Answers

My previous post should read "northeast of Dunnellon".

-- Joseph Oates (jlosal@mindspring.com), October 22, 2002.

The ACL and the SAL crossed at least three times or more on the lines from Tampa,St.Pete and Williston.Drexel,then a location just south of Dunnellon(can't remember the name) and just northeast of Brooksville.

-- Joseph Oates (jlosal@mindspring.comj), October 21, 2002.

I cannot guarantee this, but I'm pretty sure the Florida Railroad Association was a trade organization of Florida railroads for the purpose of lobbying the state legislature and other government agencies on behalf of the railroad's interests. It included Class Is as well as shortlines. I recall accompanying the General Manager of the Live Oak Perry & Gulf and South Georgia Railways to Tallahassee on a few occasions in the 1960s to make legislative contacts. I believe the name of the umbrella organization was the Florida Railroad Association. Russell Tedder

-- Russell Tedder (srtedder@arkansas.net), October 21, 2002.

The ACL had a small yard and station on the south side of Brooksville. The yard was basically used to sort and store cars. There never seemed to be much interchange occurring between the ACL and SAL in Brooksville, except for bad order freight cars. The local ACL freight between Brooksville and Croom exchanged freight cars at ACL's Croom Yard and kept the cars from the Brooksville branchline "on-line", with interline interchange in Tampa or Jacksonville. Aaron Dowling (aarondowling@cfl.rr.com)

-- Aaron Dowling (aarondowling@cfl.rr.com), October 14, 2002.

oh, and conrock, was due east of downtown brooksville off of what is now mondon hill road (CR 484)

Also, i incorrectly mentioned in the previous post that the ACL croom sub terminated there, it terminated at the interchange with the SAL south of downtown brooksville

-- troy nolen (tnolen12@tampabay.rr.com), October 14, 2002.

conrock was a mine... acl's croom subdivision terminated there and the SAL built a spur out to it as well, and technically they interchanged there, although not much traffic was actually interchanged here. Later on, and until its abandonment, the croom sub was kind of a shortcut for trains on the SAL brooksville sub to get out without having to go to tampa. The SAL was cutoff from interchange with the ACL at Inverness at a place called landrum (near what is now the citrus game preserve south of inverness) so the only way north was through the croom sub and over to the ex-ACL west coast subdivision and on to high springs or perry and points north

The croom sub was abandoned and removed in the early 1980's although i believe the SAL spur to conrock survived longer, although is gone now

Off topic, I never understood why the SCL eliminated the SAL brooksville sub interchange at Inverness, this never made ANY sense to me, and had they not abandoned it in the late 60's, it and possibly the west coast sub from gulf junction to inverness would still be active today

-- troy nolen (tnolen12@tampabay.rr.com), October 14, 2002.