The Florida East Coast Railway Locomotive No. 153 is a historic Florida East Coast Railway 4-6-2 ALCO steam locomotive in Miami, Florida, USA.
The locomotive served on the Florida East Coast Railway from 1922 to 1938, and pulled a train carrying President Calvin Coolidge's to Miami in 1928. In 1935, when she was in use on the run between Miami and Key West, #153 was one of the last engines to reach Miami before the hurricane that year destroyed the bridges to the Florida Keys. For pulling the "rescue train" out of Marathon, #153 (currently at the Gold Coast Railroad Museum) was designated a National Historic Site in the 1980s. After 1938 #153 was used as an industrial switcher by the United States Sugar Corporation of Clewiston, Florida. In 1957, she was donated to the University of Miami. From March 1957 until November 1966, she operated in Miami every Sunday. In 1966 she received a major overhaul, after which she was inspected and subsequently certified by the Interstate Commerce Commission.
Due to age and damage by Hurricane Andrew in 1992, she is currently out of service On February 21, 1985, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. It is located at the Gold Coast Railroad Museum, 12400 Southwest 152nd Street, Miami, FL.
Famous quotes containing the words florida, east, coast, railway and/or locomotive:
“In Florida consider the flamingo,
Its color passion but its neck a question.”
—Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989)
“Though the words Canada East on the map stretch over many rivers and lakes and unexplored wildernesses, the actual Canada, which might be the colored portion of the map, is but a little clearing on the banks of the river, which one of those syllables would more than cover.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It cannot but affect our philosophy favorably to be reminded of these shoals of migratory fishes, of salmon, shad, alewives, marsh-bankers, and others, which penetrate up the innumerable rivers of our coast in the spring, even to the interior lakes, their scales gleaming in the sun; and again, of the fry which in still greater numbers wend their way downward to the sea.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“A bill... is the most extraordinary locomotive engine that the genius of man ever produced. It would keep on running during the longest lifetime, without ever once stopping of its own accord.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)