This locomotive is housed in a small, glass enclosed shed located between Beach Blvd and Pablo Ave in Jacksonville Beach, FL.
The shed sits over part of the old Jacksonville & Atlantic Railroad grade built some time in the 1880s or early 1890s to run seventeen miles from South Jacksonville to Pablo, FL. The railroad was purchased by Henry Flagler in 1899 and became part of the Florida East Coast system. It may originally have been a narrow gauge line converted to standard after the purchase.
The shed housing #7 was built in 1996 and dedicated as "Pablo Station". I visited in early January, so the tender still sported a Christmas tree!
#7 is a 36" gauge Mogul (2-6-0) type locomotive, constructed for W. W. Cummer & Sons Lumber Co., by H. K. Porter of Pittsburgh, PA, in 1911. The Cummer Company of Jacksonville, FL, owned several steam locomotives, which were used to transfer logs from lumber stands to its mills in various parts of Florida, as well as to switch cars at the mills.
Smaller, Porter built locomotives were used primarily in logging. They were initially wood burners but were later converted to burn coal. The Company also owned larger, Baldwin built locomotives that operated on the Company's main line railroads and under trackage rights on the Seaboard Air Line and Atlantic Coast Line Railroads.
#7 weighs 40,000 lbs, has 12" x 16" cylinders and 36" drivers. A coal burner operating at a boiler pressure of 155 psi, it delivered tractive effort of 9,200 lbs.
#7 was retired in 1960 after fifty years of service and was bought by Greville Bath. The following year, it was donated to the City of St. Augustine, FL, where it went on display as St. Johns Railway #7.
The City of St. Augustine donated the locomotive to the Beaches Area Historical Society in 1981, and it has been on display in Jacksonville Beach ever since. It was renovated by Great Atlantic Boiler Services of Jacksonville, FL, in 1993-94.