A bunch of individual reasons.
Chock Full-0-Sea ports
Nasa historically moved a lot of big stuff over rail.
Florida has a shit ton of Agriculture but a lack of raw materials
Tourism
It’s flat as hell
Comment on PUT THE TRAINS IN THE BAG
tetris11@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
why do all tracks lead to Florida?
rumba@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
Chock Full-0-Sea ports
Is really the big reason. Less and less portage is going through the traditional East Coast hubs of NY and NJ, mostly going to places like Louisiana , Texas, and Florida instead.
Historically Florida has always been pretty big on trains as well. In fact you used to be able to take a train from Florida to Cuba…kinda. You could take a train across the overseas rail line to Key West where they would ferry the whole train car over to Cuba.
We used to be an actual country that did stuff, and that’s because we weren’t afraid to do cool stuff with trains.
shalafi@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Flattest state in the union, which I learned not too long ago. As to raw materials? We don’t even have rocks down here. I can only think of one place I’ve seen natural rock, and I’m all over the woods and swamps.
rumba@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Well, you do have limestone in spades, but you either get land or limestone :)
RoabeArt@hexbear.net 3 weeks ago
Florida is also densely populated compared to other similarly sized states, around 135 people per km² (US average is about 37/km²)
logicbomb@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The train tracks are extra support to keep Florida from floating away.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
wont stop it from going under water though.
The_Sasswagon@beehaw.org 3 weeks ago
Lots of people in a pretty small area in relatively dense cities that currently drive or fly between the cities (technically called strong city pairings). There’s also a pretty enormous tourism industry in Florida that captures much of the Midwestern US/anyone not going to California or Hawaii for their beach or disney vacation. Florida is also flat which makes for very cheap high speed rail. Note how the map goes out of its way to avoid the mountains out West.
That being said, I’m not sure this map is one of the ones made with serious city pairing calculations. I’m skeptical that Quincy, IL has a really strong draw for high speed rail, for example, and that long gap between Portland and Sacramento/San Francisco, while beautiful and filled with cool places, is way too sparsely populated to justify 6hrs on high speed rail. I think it’s a sort of meme map that’s been going around for years, though I wish it were real.
Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Thats a weird way to spell Chicago? 3 out of 8 tracks is far from all of them
tetris11@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
Look how many tracks are aligned for consecutive stops in the state though
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
Those aren’t necessarily tracks but services. 3 services can share one mainline and several stops. Makes (dis)boarding easier for longer distances if passengers don’t have to change trains after they get out of the peninsula, plus 3 services hitting the same stations means 3x as much frequency along that corridor. Someone going Jacksonville to Miami can pick between the Chicago, LA or New York route and someone going from Miami to LA can just hop into the LA route and stay there until they arrive without changing trains
jaybone@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
It’s better than being stuck in Cheyenne Wyoming.
bobs_monkey@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
oscardejarjayes@hexbear.net 3 weeks ago
The tracks in Ticket to Ride do something similar. idk the root cause though
DarkAri@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Ports to South America, and ports in New york to Europe.
shalafi@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Third most populous state for one.
LolaCat@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Its the other way around, there needs to be as many ways to get out of Florida as possible.
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
One reason for this is hurricanes are more frequent, and sometimes the notice level is too short to have safe evacuation from Miami through highway systems. There has been anger over deaths from evacuation, when a storm warning did not destroy as many homes as was “hoped”/feared.
jaybone@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
I think because it has large populations on both coasts?
maxxadrenaline@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Quote from ‘The People Under The Stairs’ ; “Sometimes the only way out is the way in.”