Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal #12 - Parrish, FL - Locomotives on Waymarking.com

The Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal, an independent rail-marine operation, began life in 1907 and lasted over 70 years. Its main business was shuttling railroad cars of various freight and commodities between mainline railroads such as the Pennsylvania RR, the Central of NJ, the B&O, the New York Central, Lehigh Valley and others to a number of industries and distributors located in Brooklyn, NY. Their main terminal was located in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, but they maintained ‘float bridges’ in New Jersey and Queens. Cars would be loaded onto barges via the float bridges and transported to the main terminal where they would be sorted and delivered to their destination.

Though operating only about ten miles of track, BEDT owned about a dozen locomotives, all small industrial tank engine types. These were kept busy moving freight cars full of grain, coal, cattle (in the early days), copper, steel, scrap iron, large industrial equipment, finished goods and just about any else you can think of for their local customers. These customers included food processors, a brewery, a sugar refinery, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, coal distributors and many others found in that highly industrial area of Brooklyn.

BEDT maintained their own fleet of steam locomotives and operated them well into the 1960s. In fact, they were the last railroad in the northeastern U.S. to convert to diesels. This industrial switcher was built by the H. K. Porter Company of Pittsburgh, PA in 1919 for the U.S. Navy Fleet Supply Base in South Brooklyn. It was purchased by BEDT in 1922 who used it continuously for the next 40 years. All of BEDT's Porter-built locomotives survive to this day (all of their Baldwin-built switchers were scrapped). One of these was acquired by the Strasburg Railroad who modified it to resemble Thomas the Tank Engine and it’s still operational. This one wound up in Florida where it’s part of the Florida Railroad Museum’s permanent display. The Florida Railroad Museum runs various excursions but you don’t need to ride one in order to see this locomotive as it is located at the Parrish terminal.

Locomotive Type: (required): Steam Do you need to pay an entrance fee to view this locomotive? (required): No How accessible is this locomotive display? (Required): Only touching is allowed. If "other" what is the engine type? (optional): Not listed If a fee is required what is the approximate cost for admittance? (optional): Not listed

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