Ocklawaha Valley Railroad

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Ocklawaha Valley Railroad

Locale	northeastern Florida
Dates of operation	1914 – 1922
Track gauge	4 ft 8½ in (1435 mm) (standard gauge)
Headquarters

The Ocklawaha Valley Railroad, originally the Ocala Northern Railroad, was a railroad running from Silver Springs Junction, Florida (east of Ocala, Florida) to Palatka, Florida, running roughly parallel to the Oklawaha River. Except for the southern most part, from Silver Springs Junction to Silver Springs, which was leased from the Seaboard Air Line Railroad (with trackage rights on the SAL main line to Ocala), the railroad never had any corporate relationship with larger railroad companies.

Connections were provided to every major railroad in the area:

Seaboard Air Line Railroad at Silver Springs Junction
Atlantic Coast Line Railroad at Palatka
Florida East Coast Railway at Palatka
Southern Railway at Palatka

1 Stations
2 History
3 Today
4 External links
5 Sources

[edit] Stations

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City	Station	Notes
Ocala	Ocala	junction with Atlantic Coast Line Railroad
	Silver Springs Junction	junction with Seaboard Air Line Railroad main line
Silver Springs	Silver Springs	Seaboard Air Line Railroad-owned track ends
	Oak Junction
	Burbank
	Daisy
Fort McCoy	Fort McCoy
	Bay Lake
	Orange Springs
	Kenwood
	Kennilworth
	Rodman Junction	branch to Rodman
	Silver Lake
Palatka	Palatka	used the Southern Railway station at the St. Johns River via trackage rights connections to the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad main line and the Florida East Coast Railway Palatka Branch

[edit] History

The Ocala Northern Railroad, a new line, leased the 1.9-mile SAL spur to Silver Springs on December 14, 1909, and obtained trackage rights over four miles of the SAL to downtown Ocala. The ONRR was owned by E. P. Rentz, who owned a saw mill at Silver Springs. He soon built it north to Fort McCoy and built a logging railroad west into the forest. He continued to build the ONRR, and it reached Palatka by 1912, with 45.5 miles of track from Silver Springs to Palatka. Plans to extend the railroad across the St. Johns River to Hastings and then north on the east shore to Jacksonville fell through; the company went bankrupt in May 1913. The railroad was also involved with the Ocala Southwestern Railroad, which was planned to Tampa; no part of that was ever constructed.

On April 16, 1915, the railroad was bought by H. S. Cummings of Rodman Lumber in Rodman, Florida, and reorganized as the Ocklawaha Valley Railroad. The lease of the SAL's Silver Springs Branch was transferred on August 19, 1915. A short 1.5-mile spur was built from Rodman Junction to Rodman. and many logging lines were built to connect to the OVRR. Passenger service was also provided.

The mill closed in 1922, and Cummings had grown ill. The railroad was sold at a bankruptcy auction. Each major railroad wanted the line, but they were all afraid of a bidding war, so they agreed to allow an independent company to win the auction unopposed. Unfortunately for them, that independent company, Assets Realization of New York, had bought it for scrap value. Residents and companies along the line and connecting railroads protested, and brought the case all the way to the Supreme Court, which ordered that it would not be abandoned. However, Assets Realization disobeyed the court and tore it up anyway in December 1922, leaving the Florida Railroad Commission "no recourse but to declare the Ocklawaha Valley Railroad abandoned".

[edit] Today

Several station foundations remain, and large parts of right-of-way are visible on aerial photos and on the ground. Parts of the right-of-way were used for CR 315 from Orange Springs to Kenwood and SR 19 into Palatka.