The Florida Railroad Museum was founded in 1981 as the Florida Gulf Coast Railroad Museum, and has been operating weekend excursions out of Parrish since 1992. It is open Saturdays and Sundays from 10.00 am to 4.00 pm year round and operates an excursion train departing at 11.00 am and 2.00 pm from Parrish eleven miles to Willow, the round trip lasting about an hour and a half. It is usually hauled by ex-US Army EMD GP7 #1835.
The line is a small part of what was a fifty-five mile route built from Durant to Sarasota, FL, starting in 1895. A subsidiary of the Seaboard Air Line Railway, it was incorporated in 1902 as the United States & West Indies Railroad & Steamship Company and became the Florida West Shore Railway the following year. In 1909, the road was absorbed by the SAL. The SAL merged with the ACL in July 1967 to form the Seaboard Coast Line.
The museum became one of three Official State Railroad Museums in Florida in 1984 when it changed its name to the Florida Railroad Museum. There are two steam locomotives in the museum's collection, neither of which is operational.
It was the largest of the four independent rail-marine terminals in Brooklyn and was the last operator of steam locomotives for freight service in New York, with steam locomotive operations ceasing on 25th October 1963. Operations continued until 1983 with diesel locomotives.
In 1963, Ron Ziel bought #12 for $900. He intended to set up a tourist steam ride in eastern Long Island, the "Sag Harbor and Scuttle Hole Rail Road", rebuilding the old Sag Harbor branch of the Long Island Railroad, which had been abandoned in the 1930s.
Tank type locomotive 0-6-0T #12 was built by H. K. Porter Inc., in Pittsburgh, PA, for the United States Navy to work at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, NY. In 1922, it was sold to the Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal. It has an 11’ wheelbase and weighs 128,000 lbs. With 46” drivers and 18” x 24” cylinders, it operated at a boiler pressure of 180 psi delivering 25,865 lbs tractive effort.
The Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal was organised in 1906 as a marine and navigation company. It only operated a total of 11 miles of track at its peak, but had many locomotives.
However, the venture never got off the ground and #12 sat on a siding in New Jersey until 1971, when it was bought by Robert Most in Tampa, FL.
It moved to various Florida locations during the next decade before being donated to the museum in 1982.
This 0-6-0 switcher was built by Baldwin in 1911 for the St. Louis & San Francisco. It weighs 154,500 lbs and has 51” drivers and 20½ x 26” cylinders. Operating at a boiler pressure of 185 psi, it delivered 33,700 lbs tractive effort.
#3749 was the last Frisco steam locomotive still on the active SL&SF roster to run in regular service. It was leased to the Alabama State Prison in Atmore, AL, in 1954 and worked there until the Fall of 1956. In 1963, it was sold to Pensacola Scrap Processors, who donated it to Historic Pensacola Preservation Board in 1976.
