(Source of images: Florida State Archives)

These steps lead back into time, ascending into the passenger cars of yesteryear.  The top image shows a Pullman sleeping car in Jacksonville on June 28, 1948, while the undated bottom picture depicts rolling stock that belonged to Seaboard Railroad.

On many Southern railroads, only white passengers might have crossed some of these steps.  During the mid 1900s, the Atlantic Coast Line operated a number of local train routes, and it usually maintained separate coaches for whites and African Americans on them.  Attracting relatively few riders, these short train runs often made little or no profit.  However, Southern laws and customs dictated that segregated cars be used.  The company had to waste a lot of money because of this, although sometimes it just placed partitions between the two races in a coach.    

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