History
Intercity passenger rail service into Miami began in April 1896 with the arrival of the Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) at the new southern terminus in downtown, just east of the current site of Government Center station. Service between Miami and New York operated in conjunction with both the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and the Seaboard Air Line Railway from Jacksonville. In January 1927, the Seaboard Air Line Railway commenced service on its newly completed extension to Miami, with the Orange Blossom Special arriving at Seaboard's terminal in Allapattah two miles north of downtown.
Passenger service on the FEC was halted by a strike in January 1963, and the FEC downtown station was demolished that November. Seaboard, however, continued providing passenger service to its terminal via the streamlined Silver Meteor and other trains. Amtrak took over Seaboard's passenger routes in 1971, continuing to provide service to the Seaboard terminal.
In 1977, Amtrak determined it could not maintain the decaying Allapattah terminal, which also posed logistical problems for passenger coach maintenance, and moved the Miami terminus to its current location at the Seaboard passenger coach yards near Hialeah. The new Miami Central Station is located six miles south of the current Amtrak station, on a mile-long spur that branches south off of the beginning of the Seaboard (now CSX) Homestead extension near the Miami River.
Construction of the facility began on May 18, 2011, but the ceremonial groundbreaking did not take place until September 27.
Read more about this topic: Miami Central Station
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