Florida by Train: What's Old is New Again

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West Palm Beach train station is one of the prettiest in South Florida. Service opened here in 1925.

Photo Credit: Peter W. Cross for VISITFLORIDA.com

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Early commuters wait at the West Palm Beach station. Double-deck tri-rail trains run 71 miles between Miami and northern Palm Beach county.

Photo Credit: Peter W. Cross for VISITFLORIDA.com

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Amtrak trains, stopping here in West Palm Beach, dominate Florida service, with twice daily trains running mostly inland. They connect Jacksonville to Tampa, Tampa to Miami and Jacksonville to Miami...

Photo Credit: Peter W. Cross for VISITFLORIDA.com

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Miami's Metromover is undoubtedly the best free ride in Florida. These trains are arriving at the Knight Center Station.

Photo Credit: Peter W. Cross for VISITFLORIDA.com

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Cars on Miami's Metromover, seen here leaving the Knight Center Station, run on a 4.4-mile loop with kite-tail extensions north to the city's majestic performing arts venue and south across...

Photo Credit: Peter W. Cross for VISITFLORIDA.com

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Looking east on the Miami River, Miami's free Metromover includes free stops throughout the city.

Photo Credit: Peter W. Cross for VISITFLORIDA.com

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Although trains outrace planes, they can't compare for the ride. Train passengers enjoy the view of mega-yachts on the New River west of Fort Lauderdale.

Photo Credit: Peter W. Cross for VISITFLORIDA.com

In Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Tampa and Jacksonville, trains move travelers between destinations. In 2012, three rail systems will converge at Miami International Airport Intermodal Center.

Planes and cars may be faster from Point A to Point B, but they can't compare with a train for the ride.

Passengers are treated to picture-window views:

• In Winter Park, a station set in a park fronts a famed retail row.
• In Lakeland, the station on a rise overlooks one of Florida's best examples of the City Beautiful Movement.
• West of Fort Lauderdale, trains pass yards of mega-yachts on the New River.
• Between Orlando and Sanford, they run alongside cars on U.S. Highway 17.
• West of DeLand, trains play peek-a-boo with a popular Central Florida cycling trail.

  "I didn't know anybody rode trains anymore." – A young man on Amtrak's Silver Star from Orlando to Jacksonville

Passengers get to talking with their neighbors. Some meet over dinner in the dining car. Others text and work their computers. Some, steeped in the setting, read books about trains by Paul Theroux and Dick Francis, or legendary train mysteries by Graham Greene and Agatha Christie that limn the escapades of pre-WWII high society.

While some riders may stare out windows and snooze, romance blossoms for others, as happened with friends of mine who met on a trans-continental train. What began in the club car wound up in a marriage now 10 years old.

Every conductor's shout of "All aboard!" parts the curtains on a rolling stage. Theme park, meet reality show.

It was rail that 125 years ago ushered Florida from steamboating into the 20th century. Now the buzz that was is back on track. For instance:

• Tampa's Streetcar has newly extended its range from the Ybor City historic quarter into the city's high-rise downtown.
• Three rail systems in 2012 will converge at Miami International Airport Intermodal Center.
• Commuter rail in 2014 will link Orlando with northward and southward population centers.
• Also by 2014, passenger rail might resume through the Florida East Coast Railway corridor if the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council succeeds in a national Department of Transportation grants competition for advancing long-distance passenger service. Until the FEC in 1963 discontinued passenger service, its 350-mile route was the fast way between the north and east coast Florida.

Florida's best rides aren't limited to places that Mickey, Shamu and Harry Potter call home. Florida trains trace loops in the air, whistle and squeal, and clang along city streets.

For most people, trains stall us at rail crossings when we're already late. Freight trains are galleries of rolling graffiti. Passenger trains are dinosaurs. On a recent northbound ride aboard Amtrak's Silver Star, a young man traveling on a friend's advice from Orlando to Jacksonville told me, "I didn't know anybody rode trains anymore."

Amtrak dominates Florida service, its twice-daily trains running mostly inland. They connect Jacksonville with Tampa, 252 miles and 5.5 hours distant; Tampa with Miami, 260 miles and 5.25 hours; and Miami-Jacksonville (avoiding Tampa yet by way of Orlando), 412 miles and 8.25 hours.

In Sanford, Amtrak's Auto Train provides overnight service that compares well with European trains for its comfortable bedrooms, cheese, wine and veggies before departure, and wine again with cooked-to-order complimentary dinners.

Miami's Metromover is undoubtedly the best free ride in Florida. Twin cars run a 4.4-mile loop with kite-tail extensions north to the city's majestic performing arts center, and south across the Miami River to a corporate row and boutique, restaurant and nightlife zone.

Jacksonville's 2.5-mile Skyway costs 50 cents (a dime for seniors) and outdoes Miami with its crossing of the St. Johns River. Skyway's twin cars (smaller than Miami's) drop roller coaster-like to the ground before ascending through a spaghetti of freeway ramps to views that flaunt Jacksonville's skyline, four more bridges and the river almost a mile wide.

You have to love the clang of the Tampa Streetcar along its 2.7-mile route that, between Ybor City and downtown, swerves past the Florida Aquarium, Tampa Bay History Center and St. Pete Times Forum. Most of the way, rails embed in roadway pavement. Where a stretch opens with rail bolted to cross ties set in ballast stone – the same beds used for cross-country trains – the ride recalls yesteryear's rural inter-urban trains that connected small cities everywhere, caricatured by the Toonerville Trolley comic strip.

At Orlando, Tampa and Miami international airports, rails connect terminals to plane gates, and Disney has its monorail that 40 years ago indicated a new era for Sunshine State rail.

Yet most persuasive about Florida's train future is where Tri-Rail commuter trains at ground level and Miami's elevated Metrorail cross at a transfer station.

Double-deck Tri-Rail trains run 71 miles between Miami and northern Palm Beach County; Metrorail runs 22 miles from northwest Hialeah south to the corporate and shopping district at Dadeland.

Heading for Tri-Rail's southernmost station, you cross beneath the soaring extension of Metrorail on its reach to the intermodal center. Today's airport station is a short bus ride from the airport itself. Arriving passengers step directly onto Tri-Rail trains. Some ride to Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. Others connect by Metrorail to downtown. When the intermodal center opens in 2013, people will arrive from around the world in a Sunshine State where anyone might easily believe that rail rules.

At a Glance

For information about Amtrak reservations and otherwise about stations, fares and ticketing, hours of operation, parking, transfers, baggage and carry-ons, wheelchair access, rules about consuming food and drink, wi-fi availability, et cetera, check out:

• Amtrak
• Auto Train
• Tri-Rail
• Metrorail and Metromover
• Jacksonville Skyway
• Tampa Streetcar
• Miami Intermodal Center

Herb Hiller likes to write about trains, which he has ridden across America, Europe, Argentina, in Jamaica and Guyana.