DS Update: The Sunshine Rail Line

If you look real careful on the lower level of Pleasure Island, you can find a faded old mural advertising the Sunshine Rail Line. Long gone from the Florida travel scene, the steam locomotives of the former SRL brought northerners to the warm shores of Disney Springs.

Of course the Sunshine Rail Line predated Amtrak by many decades. There isn't a lot of written history about the line but if you wander about Disney Springs West Side, you can still find remnants of the system. The line was elevated as it entered the Disney Springs community from the west.

Several remaining trestles or "hi-lines" still remain standing.

Here another remaining trestle stands by what is now the AMC 24 Theaters. Back in those days it was probably called the AMC 1 Theater.

We're not really sure why the City of Disney Springs never removed them but if anything they are useful for creating shade.

One thing we never understood is why this last trestle on the extreme east end of the West Side curves? With that curve, tracks could never have lined-up with the bridge ahead. But we do have some recollection of the bridge having been repositioned at some point in time so the track must have indeed lined-up with the bridge prior to that!

One can't tell anymore that the bridge at one time carried a train track over it.

On Pleasure Island itself, the railroad yard has long-ago been pulled-up but there remains embedded track at West End Plaza adjacent STK Steakhouse. One can also make out an old turntable used to turn locomotives around for their outbound journeys.

The original Disney Springs train depot still stands.  It was long-disused and only recently was repurposed for Men and Ladies WC duty. If you use the facilities, you're sitting (or standing) in a historical building where thousands of happy travelers once congregated. Come check it out for yourself.