CSX Transportation's Valrico Subdivision is a railroad line in CentralFlorida. It serves as CSX's main route through a region of Central Florida known as the Bone Valley, which contains the largest known deposits of phosphate in the United States. The Valrico Subdivision runs from a junction with CSX's S Line in Valrico east to Mulberry and Bartow before turning south to Fort Meade and Bowling Green for a total of 47 miles. Much of the Valrico Subdivision dates back to the early 1900s and was originally operated under the same name by the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, a CSX predecessor. Though track to Bowling Green was previously operated by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, another CSX predecessor.
Operation
The Valrico Subdivision is currently CSX's busiest rail line thorough Bone Valley and carries large amounts of phosphate traffic, its main commodity. The line is mostly dispatched by Track Warrant Control, though there is a small Centralized Traffic Control signal system around Mulberry between IMC and Ridgewood.
History
The 47 miles of track that are today the Valrico Subdivision were built incrementally from the late 1800s and early 20th century as the phosphate industry in Bone Valley began expanding.
The Seaboard Air Line Railroad built the segment of the line from Welcome to Nichols around 1905. It was built as an extension of the Plant City, Arcadia, and Gulf Railroad, which Seaboard had bought earlier that year. Seaboard extended the line east to Mulberry and Bartow in 1912. The line crossed the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad's Bone Valley Branch in Mulberry. The junction of these two lines is today located in the median of State Road 37. The line also connected to the Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railway in Mulberry which at the time went as far as Port Boca Grande where a vast majority of phosphate was shipped in the early 20th century. By 1916, Seaboard would extend the line east from Bartow to Lake Wales, Alcoma, and Hesperides. Track east of Bartow to Lake Wales has since been abandoned. Track from just east of Bartow south to Homeland was part of a Seaboard spur built in 1914 to the now-defunct Coronet Pembroke Mine. Seaboard built the Valrico Cutoff in 1925 which connected the Seaboard main line at Valrico with the track at Welcome. This is today is the westernmost trackage of the line. Seaboard designated the line as the Valrico Subdivision. With the Valrico Cutoff in place, the Valrico Subdivision would additionally become an important route for Seaboard's passenger trains as it provided a direct route from Tampa to Miami. Seaboard would operate the Cross Florida Limited over the line, which was one of the first rail services to connect Tampa and Miami directly.
Homeland to Bowling Green
The oldest trackage of the current Varico Subdivision is its south-easternmost trackage from Homeland to Fort Meade and Bowling Green. This segment was built in 1886 by the Florida Southern Railway as their Charlotte Harbor Division. Today, this segment of the Valrico Subdivision ends less than a mile south of the Polk/Hardee County line in Bowling Green. The line was abandoned between Bowling Green and Arcadia in the late 1980s. Former Atlantic Coast Line depots still stand along the line in Fort Meade and Bowling Green. The Bowling Green depot stands about a hundred yards south of where the track now ends.
Later years
The Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line Railroads merged in 1967 to form the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad, which brought all of the track under a single owner. In the Seaboard Coast Line era, the Valrico Subdivision designation continued to covered the line from Valrico east through Bartow and West Lake Wales, which was still in service at the time. The track from Homeland to Bowling Green was part of the Fort Myers Subdivision. Track was removed east of Bartow by 1982. When the Fort Myers Subdivision south of Bowling Green was abandoned in the late 1980s, the remaining track was annexed to the Valrico Subdivision. In 1980, the Seaboard Coast Line's parent company merged with the Chessie System, creating the CSX Corporation. The CSX Corporation initially operated the Chessie and Seaboard Systems separately until 1986, when they were merged into CSX Transportation.
Milepost numbers
Despite being a continuous line today, the milepost numbers on the Valrico Subdivision are not continuous throughout and remain as they originally were under predecessor companies. The segment from Valrico to Welcome Junction is numbered independently from the rest of the line since that was the last track segment to be built. It is numbered SZ 0.0 through SZ 11.8. From Welcome Junction east to Bartow, the mileposts are numbered SV 834.2 through SV 851.1. When the line turns south on to the former Seaboard Pembroke Mine spur in Bartow, the numbering continues with the prefix SVE since the SV prefix continued along the former east continuation to West Lake Wales. In Homeland, where the line transitions to the former Atlantic Coast Line track, the mileposts abruptly change at approximately SVE 857.3 to AX 870.8 reflecting the Atlantic Coast Line numbering. The line today ends at AX 882.7.
