Wildwood station

Wildwood station is a bus station, and former train station, in Wildwood, Florida.  It serves Amtrak's Thruway Motorcoach bus system and formerly served trains for Amtrak and other rail companies.  The station is located on 601 North Main Street (US 301) in Wildwood, Florida.  Along with the northern terminus of Florida's Turnpike, the station gave Wildwood a reason to refer to itself as "The Crossroads of Florida." 

The station was built in 1947 by the Seaboard Air Line Railroad (SAL), and is located on what is today CSX's S-Line, which runs along the west side of the building.  This segment of the S-Line is officially named the Wildwood Subdivision.  The station served SAL's Orange Blossom Special, Palmland, Silver Meteor, and Silver Star to Tampa, St. Petersburg and Miami.  It is also the western terminus of an inactive SAL spur that once ran to cities such as Leesburg and Tavares.  This spur is now owned by the Florida Midland Railroad, and only runs as far east as Orange Home along County Road 44A, where it served as home for some abandoned freight cars until the first decade of the 21st Century. 

In 1967, after the merger of Atlantic Coast Line Railroad (ACL) and the SAL into the new Seaboard Coast Line Railroad, the Florida Special, Palmland, Silver Meteor, Silver Star, Sunland and Tidewater made stops at the station from 1968 to 1971, where than Amtrak discontinued the Palmland, Sunland and Tidewater on May 1st, 1971.  

In 1971 most passenger service in the United States was transferred to Amtrak; and Silver Meteor made a stop in Wildwood station.  By summer, 1973 Amtrak added the Silver Star to stop at the station.  The Palmetto was rerouted to the CSX S-Line in 1979, until it was truncated to Savannah, Georgia on November 1, 2004, prompting Amtrak to revive Silver Star service to Tampa along the same line shared by the current Silver Meteor, and part of the suspended Sunset Limited.  Today, the station operates as a CSX maintenance yard, and by Amtrak's Thruway Motorcoach bus service between Jacksonville and Lakeland.  The actual station building remains, but the platform was demolished and a new double track was built over it. 

Notes

External links

Wildwood Amtrak Station (USA RailGuide – TrainWeb)

Wildwood
Wildwood, Florida
Category:Amtrak Thruway Motorcoach stations in Florida
Wildwood Station
Category:Railway stations closed in 2004
Category:Railway stations in the United States opened in 1947
Category:1947 establishments in Florida