Amtrak Station in Orlando FL
Jose’s nephew who is currently staying with us to learn English just visited his girlfriend in Miami. Since we couldn’t drive him down there he decided to take the train. Today I picked him up at the train Amtrak train station in Orlando (Kaley Street Exit, after the 408 Exit when coming from Sanford).
So as I was waiting for him in the car I started thinking about how awesome it would be to have such a train station closer to us, even better, in Sanford! When I got back home I started some research…
Growing up in Europe I was obviously used to trains and the convenience they bring. I used the train a lot to get from city to city. Needless to say I was very disappointed with the rejection of the Sun Rail project in Orlando. But now there’s at least some hope for Sanford in terms of a passenger train station. You might remember that Sanford did have an Amtrak passenger train station before the hurricanes of 2004 hit us badly. After the hurricanes the train station was never fixed so that the only train stations in the area remained in Deland, Winter Park and Orlando. Well, as it turns out Amtrak is receiving funds from the government (part of a specific act, don’t quote me on any of this info) and will resurrect the train station in Sanford as early as this year. Please visit the Sanford City web site for more accurate and up to date info though!
The train will connect Sanford not only with Miami but also with New Orleans. I am really hoping that further stops will be implemented in the future (how about routes into the North to cities like Chicago, Washington DC or New York?). Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
Last but not least Juan Jose (Jose’s nephew) reports that riding in the Amtrak train is comfortable but that it gets quite cold in there…
