Fort Lauderdale station is a

train station A train station, railroad station, or railway station is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight, or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track, and a station building providing suc ...

Fort Lauderdale, Florida Fort Lauderdale ( ) is a coastal city located in the U.S. state of Florida, north of Miami along the Atlantic Ocean. It is the county seat of and most populous city in Broward County, Florida, Broward County with a population of 182,760 at the ...

. It is served by

Tri-Rail Tri-Rail is a commuter rail service linking Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach in Florida, United States. The ''Tri'' prefix in the name refers to the three counties served by the railroad: Palm Beach County, Palm Beach, Broward Count ...

and

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

. The station is located on Southwest 21st Terrace, just south of West Broward Boulevard. The station has two

side platform A side platform (also known as a marginal platform or a single-face platform) is a platform positioned to the side of one or more railway tracks or guideways at a railway station, tram stop, or transitway. A station having dual side platforms, ...

s connected by an elevated passageway. The station building, parking lot, and bus stops are located west of the southbound platform.

History

The original station, which is used by Amtrak, is a former

Seaboard Air Line Railway The Seaboard Air Line Railroad , known colloquially as the Seaboard Railroad during its time, was an American railroad that existed from April 14, 1900, until July 1, 1967, when it merged with the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, its longtime ri ...

depot built in 1927. Designed in the prevalent

Mediterranean Revival Mediterranean Revival is an architectural style introduced in the United States, Canada, and certain other countries in the 19th century. It incorporated references to Spanish Renaissance, Spanish Colonial, Italian Renaissance, French Colonial ...

style by Gustav Maass of the West Palm Beach architectural firm Harvey & Clarke, it is virtually identical to the Hollywood Seaboard station to the south. The station took the place of a temporary structure that had been hastily erected at the end of 1926 to greet the January 1927 arrival of the first Seaboard passenger train in South Florida, the '' Orange Blossom Special''. The station was served by the ''Orange Blossom Special'' until 1953 and, among other Seaboard trains, the ''

Silver Meteor The ''Silver Meteor'' is a Long-distance Amtrak routes, long-distance passenger train operated by Amtrak between New York City and Miami, Florida. Introduced in 1939 as the first diesel-powered streamliner between New York and Florida, it was t ...

'' beginning in 1939. Amtrak maintained ''Silver Meteor'' service to the station when it took over

intercity InterCity (commonly abbreviated ''IC'' on timetables and tickets) is the train categories in Europe, classification applied to certain long-distance passenger train services in Europe. Such trains (in contrast to InterRegio, regional train, r ...

passenger train A passenger train is a train used to transport people along a railroad line, as opposed to a freight train that carries goods. These trains may consist of unpowered passenger railroad cars (also known as coaches or carriages) push-pull train, ...

service in 1971. Both the ''Silver Meteor'' and Amtrak's '' Floridian'' continue to use the station. On January 9, 1989, the Tri-County Commuter Rail Authority began Tri-Rail service to the station, building additional facilities and a pedestrian overpass just north of the original station. A

park and ride A park and ride, also known as incentive parking or a commuter lot, is a parking lot with public transport connections that allows commuters and other people heading to city centres to leave their vehicles and transfer to a bus, Rail transport, r ...

lot is available, and is directly accessible via a proprietary exit from

Interstate 95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from U.S. Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, north to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the ...

north. The station consists of a passenger waiting room on the northern end and a baggage room in the center section. On the southern end is a freight room, which is used by

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Railroad classes, Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles () of trac ...

, the successor to Seaboard. Just south of the street side entry to the passenger waiting room, and representative of the

racial segregation Racial segregation is the separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Segregation can involve the spatial separation of the races, and mandatory use of different institutions, ...

laws of the era in which the station was constructed, is the entrance to what had been the "colored" waiting room. On November 10, 2024, the ''Silver Star'' was merged with the as the ''Floridian''.

References

External links

South Florida Regional Transportation Authority – Fort Lauderdale Station
{{South Florida rail metro system Tri-Rail stations in Broward County, Florida Amtrak stations in Florida Former Seaboard Air Line Railroad stations Railway stations in the United States opened in 1927 Economy of Fort Lauderdale, Florida 1927 establishments in Florida