A visually and cartographically explicit narrative blog about Tampa's built history and development.
(Above banner created from photo in the Burgert Brothers Photographic Collection)



Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Railroad Yards

One of my favorite images in the Burgert Brothers Collection is this cirkut picture taken of Atlantic Coast Line railroad shop employees grouped in front of and on a locomotive at the Uceta Rail Yards taken in 1929:
I don't know what is the most interesting part of this photo; the process, the fact that the photographers got all or the majority of these people to stand still, the diversity of the workers, or the building looming to the right?  These rail yards are still at the heart of CSXs operations in Tampa and it appears that old shop is still standing.  Take a ride down Adamo between Tampa and Brandon and on the east side of 50th street you drive past a lot filled with trees, punctuated by a signed entranced to CSX.  You would never know that this building and a whole rail yard lie beyond.  However if you drive the elevated crosstown expressway and peer over to the yard you will see this building.
Picture taken 1988

Here is the shop building from Bing's Birds-eye-view maps (views from the West and South) :
Another recent picture from the extensive rrpicturearchives.net, reveals that the building got gussied up by CSX sometime in the middle of the decade, a new shell perhaps but the layout appears to be the same. 
Below one last aerial image comparison to be sure, from 1938 USDA aerial and a current image from Google Earth:
The Hillsborough County Property Appraiser's websites says that none of the buildings on the parcel were built before 1950, however these pictures seem prove otherwise.  Another example of history right under our nose.

1 comment:

  1. My granpa worked for 33 years on the railroad with CSX. He mainly worked over in the Polk Co. phosphate mines.

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