One automatically thinks of Orlando in terms of the resorts and hotels that have been built in recent years so I comes as something of a shock to discover a part of the city that dates back to 1880’s.

Church Street Station was constructed in 1889 by South Florida Railroad and was used by several different railroads until 1926 when passenger services transferred to the current Orlando station (Amtrack).  In the 1970s, the station and nearby buildings were bought and converted into an entertainment centre.

It appears that Church Street Station while successful for many years eventually experienced a steep decline in the 1990s.  Later efforts to revive it were affected by bankruptcy and foreclosure (see Wikepedia for the gory details).  Certainly when I was there in 2009 there seemed to be little going on.  It seems that since then there has been something of a revival aided by the opening of the SunRail transit system.

Below are some photographs I took on a rainy day (a severe thunderstorm was passing through).

2012: RR FRISCO 0-6-0 Switcher Locomotive #3749 was donated by the City of Orlando to the Florida Railroad Museum and relocated to the latter's facility in Parrish, Florida.