Florida Railroad Museum, Railway museum in Parrish, United States.
The Florida Railroad Museum is a railway collection in Parrish that preserves locomotives, passenger cars, and railroad equipment along a route between Parrish and Willow. The facility displays restored trains and various historical railroad machines and objects from different eras.
The museum was founded in 1981 as the Florida Gulf Coast Railroad Museum and has run weekend excursions out of Parrish since 1992. It gained statutory recognition as an Official State Railroad Museum of Florida in 1984. Its six-mile line is a remnant of a route begun in 1895 from Durant toward Sarasota, incorporated in 1902 as the United States & West Indies Railroad and Steamship Company and absorbed by the Seaboard Air Line in 1909.
The museum's heritage railroad runs six miles of the former Seaboard Air Line Sarasota Subdivision between Parrish and Willow, a route built south from Durant starting in 1895. Excursions depart from Parrish and take about an hour and a half round trip. Special events during the year include Day Out With Thomas, Pumpkin Patch Express and North Pole Express.
The museum is open Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. year-round. Excursions leave Parrish at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. and take about an hour and a half round trip to Willow. The ticket office and museum gift shop occupy a silver riveted railcar reached by a wooden staircase.
The museum's reporting mark is FGCX, and it is one of three Official State Railroad Museums in Florida, a status granted by the Florida Legislature in 1984. Its excursions run on Class I track with jointed, 75-pound rails, part of the CSX Palmetto Subdivision's Parrish Spur. The North Pole Express is a seasonal holiday event, not a year-round service.
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