page_title: Tampa Northern Railroad
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Tampa Northern Railroad / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Westbound view of the CSX Clearwater Subdivision bridge over the Hillsborough River in Tampa, Florida. Taken from the Rowlett Park Drive Bridge, which I was only able to do because of a red light at the East Mulberry Drive/North 22nd Street intersection. In case anybody is interested, the bridge over East Mulberry Drive was made in 1928, and has provisions for a southbound track.
context_page_description: The Tampa Northern Railroad was a historic railroad line running from just east of downtown Tampa north to the city of Brooksville in Hernando County. The line continues to operate today and is under the ownership of the CSX Corporation, who operates it as their Brooksville Subdivision north of Sulphur Springs and part of their Clearwater Subdivision south of there.
  The Tampa Northern Railroad began just southeast of downtown Tampa at Hooker's Point, where it had its own terminal facilities. From there it proceeded north, crossing the main lines of both the Seaboard Air Line Railroad and Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in Gary, just east of Ybor City. Continuing north, the line goes through Sulpher Springs, Lutz, Land O' Lakes, and Masaryktown and into Brooksville.
context_section_description: The Tampa Northern Railroad began as a small logging railroad known as the Brooksville and Hudson Railroad.   The Brooksville and Hudson Railroad was built in 1902 and was initially owned by Aripeka Sawmills Inc.  This line went from Brooksville south to what would become Fivay Junction (near the present-day intersection of US 41 and SR 52)  then west to Hudson.  A line also had a branch from just south of Brooksville northwest to Tooke Lake.
  The Tampa Northern Railroad company was incorporated on April 7, 1906 by Henry M. Atkinson of Atlanta.  Atkinson intended to build a railroad from Tampa to Thomasville, Georgia to connect with his Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic Railroad, which would create a direct rail route between Tampa and Atlanta, which never happened.  In 1907, the Tampa Northern Railroad bought the Brooksville and Hudson Railroad.  New track was built from Tampa to Fivay Junction and the company rebuilt the Brooksville and Hudson Railroad from there to Brooksville.  The line was completed in 1908. In Brooksville, the Tampa Northern connected to the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad's Brooksville Branch from Pemberton Ferry (known today as Croom).  The branch to Tooke Lake was abandoned in 1930.
  The Tampa Northern Railroad was one of three railroad that served Tampa Union Station when it was first built in 1912, along with the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and the Seaboard Air Line Railroad.  The Tampa Northern was bought out by Seaboard later that year.  In 1925, the Brooksville and Inverness Railway, a Seaboard subsidiary, extended the line north from Brooksville to Inverness where it connected to the Seaboard's branch from Waldo and Archer.  This would create an additional route from Tampa to the Seaboard main line in northern Florida.  The Seaboard would renumber the mileposts north of Sulphur Springs in accordance with the extension north, which was numbered north to south.  This resulted in the Tampa Northern's current milepost numbers which increase north from Tampa to Sulphur Springs, and then decrease from Sulphur Springs north.
  Today, the line ends just north of Brooksville near the former Broco quarry.  Track north of this point was abandoned in the 1970s.
caption: Bridge over Hillsborough River near Sulphur Springs
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