Fort Lauderdale station is a train station in

Fort Lauderdale, Florida Fort Lauderdale () is a coastal city located in the U.S. state of Florida, north of Miami along the Atlantic Ocean. It is the county seat of and largest city in Broward County with a population of 182,760 at the 2020 census, making it the tenth ...

. It is served by

Tri-Rail Tri-Rail is a commuter rail line linking Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach in Florida, United States. The ''Tri'' prefix in the name refers to the three counties served by the railroad: Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade. Tri-Rail i ...

and Amtrak. The station is located on Southwest 21st Terrace, just south of West Broward Boulevard.

History

The original station, which is used by Amtrak, is a former Seaboard Air Line Railway depot built in 1927. Designed in the prevalent Mediterranean Revival style by

Gustav Maass Gustav Friedrich Hermann Maass (2 December 1830 – 28 April 1901) was a German botanist who was a native of Brandenburg an der Havel. In 1848, he became an assistant to agriculturalist Hermann von Nathusius (1809–1879); further, from late ...

of the West Palm Beach architectural firm

Harvey & Clarke Harvey and Clarke was an American architectural firm formed by Henry Stephen Harvey and L. Philips Clarke in West Palm Beach, Florida, in 1921. The firm was active in South Florida for only a few years, but in that time designed a number of disti ...

, it is virtually identical to the Hollywood Seaboard station to the south. The station took the place of a temporary structure that had been hastily erected at the end of 1926 to greet the January 1927 arrival of the first Seaboard passenger train in South Florida, the '' Orange Blossom Special''. The station was served by the ''Orange Blossom Special'' until 1953 and, among other Seaboard trains, the '' Silver Meteor'' beginning in 1939. Amtrak maintained ''Silver Meteor'' service to the station when it took over intercity

passenger train A passenger train is a train used to transport people along a railroad line. These trains may consist of unpowered passenger railroad cars (also known as coaches or carriages) hauled by one or more locomotives, or may be self-propelled; self pr ...

service in 1971. Both the ''Silver Meteor'' and Amtrak's ''

Silver Star The Silver Star Medal (SSM) is the United States Armed Forces' third-highest military decoration for valor in combat. The Silver Star Medal is awarded primarily to members of the United States Armed Forces for gallantry in action against an e ...

'' continue to use the station. On January 9, 1989, the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority began Tri-Rail service to the station, building additional facilities and a pedestrian overpass just north of the original station. A park and ride lot is available, and is directly accessible via a proprietary exit from

Interstate 95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from U.S. Route 1, US Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between M ...

north. The station consists of a passenger waiting room on the northern end and a baggage room in the center section. On the southern end is a freight room, which is used by

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

, the successor to Seaboard. Just south of the street side entry to the passenger waiting room, and representative of the racial segregation laws of the era in which the station was constructed, is the entrance to what had been the "colored" waiting room.

Station layout

The station has two side platforms connected by an elevated passageway. The station house, parking lot, and bus stops are located west of the southbound platform.

Gallery

File:Fort Lauderdale Amtrak.jpg, Fort Lauderdale Amtrak and former Seaboard Air Line Railway station (left) and Tri-Rail station (rear) File:Fort Lauderdale SAL station NE.jpg, Northeast view of former Seaboard station File:Fort Lauderdale SAL station SW.jpg, Southwest view of former Seaboard station File:Fort Lauderdale SAL station S.jpg, South view of former Seaboard station File:Ft Lauderdale SAL seg entry.jpg, Separate entrance to the former "colored" waiting room of the station File:Amfleet Silver Star & Tri-Rail in Fort Lauderdale.jpg, Amtrak ''Silver Star'' and Tri-Rail side by side at Fort Lauderdale Station File:Amfleet Silver Star at Fort Lauderdale Pedestrian Bridge.jpg, The ''Silver Star'' beneath a pedestrian bridge

References

External links

1947 photo of Seaboard Air Line steam engine no. 242 leaving Fort Lauderdale

South Florida Regional Transportation Authority – Fort Lauderdale Station

May 1995 Photograph (Amtrak Photo Archive)

{{South Florida rail metro system Tri-Rail stations in Broward County, Florida Amtrak stations in Florida Seaboard Air Line Railroad stations Railway stations in the United States opened in 1927 Economy of Fort Lauderdale, Florida 1927 establishments in Florida