South Florida Railroad

The South Florida Railroad was a railroad from Sanford, Florida, to Tampa, Florida, becoming part of the Plant System in 1893 and the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in 1902.

The Lake Monroe and Orlando Railroad was organized in 1875 with a charter to build from the St. Johns River port of Sanford south to Orlando. The South Florida Railroad was incorporated on October 16, 1878, but was unable to obtain a charter until December 9, 1879, when it took over the charter of the Lake Monroe and Orlando Railroad, which was in danger of losing its land grants.

 The South Florida Railroad first ran on November 11, 1880, running the short distance between Sanford and Orlando. However, the company had plans to continue to the Gulf of Mexico, reaching it at Tampa.

 On May 4, 1883, Henry B. Plant and his Plant System (headed by the Savannah, Florida and Western Railway) bought 3/5 of the stock of the South Florida Railroad after an unsuccessful attempt to buy the Florida Southern Railway.

Plant had made an agreement with the Florida Southern Railroad not to build the SF&W south of Gainesville or Palatka, the northern ends of the Florida Southern Railroad, but the existing South Florida was immune from this.

Plant then made agreements with all the railroads building towards Tampa except for the Florida Transit and Peninsular Railroad. Specifically, the Florida Southern would not build any lines south of Pemberton's Ferry (Croom) and Brooksville or north of Bartow, and the South Florida would build its Pemberton Ferry Branch between the two and assign trackage rights to the Florida Southern Railroad.

The agreement with the Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railway specified that that company would only build north of Sanford; in both cases the South Florida Railroad would give up their rights to the territories given to the other companies. The JT&KW had already done some grading at Bartow and Tampa and sold them to the South Florida Railroad.

Thus, two railroads remained in a race towards Tampa - the South Florida and the Florida Transit and Peninsular Railroad.

The South Florida Railroad managed to get there first and obtained the best ports (now known as Port Tampa). The South Florida's original passenger depot in Tampa was located on the east side of the intersection of Ashley and Madison Streets. The Tampa end opened on December 10, 1883, and on January 25, 1884, service began over the full line, built to 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge. On February 20, 1886, the 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railway opened to Sanford, and the South Florida was converted to standard gauge on September 22.

In 1893 the Savannah, Florida and Western Railway (Plant System) directly acquired the South Florida. Henry Plant died in 1899, which led his heirs to sell the Plant System to the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in 1902.