Who owns florida east coast railway

Its strategic, exclusive partnerships with PortMiami, Port Everglades Fort Lauderdale , Port of Palm Beach and motor carriers let it move freight safely, efficiently and reliably within Florida and beyond.

Tracing its lineage back to and owing roots to the legendary Henry M. Flagler who founded Palm Beach, Miami and most of the east coast of Florida, and built the fabled Key West Extension connecting the chain of islands to the mainland , the Florida East Coast Railway is the sole rail provider operating along the east coast of Florida. Our Commitment. Meet The Team We have an executive management team with deep experience in the industry, each member with more than 20 years working in railroad and freight transportation.

Bob has more than 25 years of legal and management experience in corporate law and business and transportation transactions. The synergies between the US and Mexican railroads promotes exchange and the implementation of best practices, to the benefit of clients. GMXT is the leading company in its sector, with the best level of connectivity in Mexico.

Flagler's construction of hotels at points along the railroad and his development of the agricultural industry through the Model Land Company established tourism and agriculture as Florida's major industries, which remain so even now more than a century later.

In essence, Henry Flagler invented modern Florida. Amazingly, Flagler accomplished these feats after retiring from his first career and having reached an age equal to the average life expediency for an American male of the time. Flagler had co-founded Standard Oil with partners John D. Rockefeller and Samuel Andrews, long before becoming interested in Florida. Standard Oil remained the largest and most profitable corporation in the world for more than a century. When Flagler first visited Florida in , he recognized the state's potential for growth but noticed a lack of hotel facilities.

Flagler returned to Florida and in with an eye toward developing the area around St. Augustine and began building a grand hotel, the Hotel Ponce de Leon. Flagler realized that the key to developing Florida was a solid transportation system and consequently purchased the Jacksonville, St. He also noticed that a major problem facing the existing Florida railway systems was that each operated on different gauge systems, making interconnection impossible.

Shortly after purchasing the Jacksonville, St. The Jacksonville, St. In addition to improving the railroad, Flagler built schools, a hospital and churches in St. Augustine, systematically revitalizing the largely abandoned historic city. Flagler soon purchased three more railroads: the St. John's Railway, the St. Augustine and Palatka Railway, and the St. Johns and Halifax Railroad so that he could provide extended rail service on standard gauge tracks.

With the addition of these three railroads, by spring Flagler's system offered service from Jacksonville to Daytona. Continuing to develop hotel facilities to entice northern tourists to visit Florida, Flagler bought and expanded the Hotel Ormond, located along the railroad's route north of Daytona. Beginning in , when landowners south of Daytona petitioned him to extend the railroad 80 miles south, Flagler began laying new railroad tracks; no longer did he follow his traditional practice of purchasing existing railroads and merging them into his growing rail system.

Flagler obtained a charter from the state of Florida authorizing him to build a railroad along the Indian River to Miami and as the railroad progressed southward, cities such as New Smyrna and Titusville began to develop along the tracks.