Once under the ownership of the Seaboard Air Line, the Florida Railroad between Baldwin and Waldo would become part of the company's main line. In 1900, a year after purchasing the majority of FC&P stock, the newly organized Seaboard Air Line Railway leased the FC&P and, in 1903, acquired it outright. The Florida Transit and Peninsular Railroad was merged with the Florida Central and Western Railroad, Fernandina and Jacksonville Railroad, and Leesburg and Indian River Railroad in 1884-85 to form the Florida Railway and Navigation Company. The company was restructured again as the Florida Transit and Peninsular Railroad in 1883. Due to financial difficulties, the Atlantic, Gulf and West India Transit Company was reorganized as the Florida Transit Company in 1881, under the control of Sir Edward James Reed. In the meantime, the Atlantic, Gulf and West India Transit Company had leased the Fernandina and Jacksonville Railroad, providing a connection from its tracks at Hart's Road (later Yulee, Florida) to Jacksonville, Florida. The newly reorganized company began construction of the long-promised line to Tampa through subsidiary companies: the Peninsular Railroad operated the line from the connection with the Florida Railroad at Waldo to Ocala and Silver Springs, while the Tropical Florida Railroad ran from Ocala to Wildwood. In 1872 the Florida Railroad was reorganized as the Atlantic, Gulf and West India Transit Company, still under the control of the Dickerson syndicate. The railroad was auctioned off, and bought back by the Dickerson syndicate for twenty percent of the original value of the bonds. The Dickerson syndicate resumed operation of the Florida Railroad after the war, but with much of the railroad's equipment, facilities and track destroyed or seized, the company did not do well, and defaulted on its bonds to the Internal Improvement Fund in 1866. : 34–37, 40ġ939 image of Cedar Key showing the Florida Railroad's former right of way and trestle remnants Union forces had also destroyed 30 miles of track leading from Cedar Key. In 1864, the Confederate States Army pulled up rails from the Florida Railroad to use on a new rail line from Live Oak, Florida to Lawton, Georgia (now known as DuPont. Shells fired by the USS Ottawa damaged the last train leaving Fernandina, killing or injuring several passengers, and almost killing Senator Yulee. In March 1862 a Union squadron seized Fernandina.
The USS Hatteras raided Cedar Key in January 1862, destroying the railroad's rolling stock and buildings. The Florida Railroad was adversely affected by the Civil War. At 156 miles in length, it was the longest railroad to be completed in Florida before the start of the American Civil War. Other towns served by the railroad included Callahan, Baldwin, Waldo and Archer. The line was completed to Gainesville in 1859 and Cedar Key in 1861. Yulee had to surrender a majority interest in the railroad to a northern investment syndicate headed by Edward Dickerson to save the company. By 1858 the rail line was open between Fernandina and Starke, but the Panic of 1857 had left the railroad on the edge of bankruptcy. Construction started in Fernandina in 1855. Yulee decided to complete the line to Cedar Key first, leaving the connection to Tampa for later. The president and chief stockholder of the Florida Railroad was U.S. Mary's River) to Tampa, Florida, with a branch to Cedar Key. In 1853 the Florida Legislature chartered the Florida Railroad to build a 5 ft ( 1,524 mm) gauge rail line from Fernandina (near the mouth of the St. Mary's River and Cedar Key in the Territory of Florida. In 1842 the United States Congress commissioned a survey of a route for a railroad between the St. A railroad across the northern end of the Florida peninsula would allow cargoes from ships in the Gulf of Mexico to be transferred to ships in the Atlantic Ocean, and vice versa, without the risk of passage through the Straits of Florida, while cutting 800 miles off the trip. Prior to the 20th century many ships were wrecked around the southern end of the Florida peninsula. The shipping route between the east coast and gulf coast of the United States passes through the Straits of Florida, close to the Florida Reef that lies just off the Florida Keys.
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