Florida East Coast Railway Locamotion Shop / New Smyrna Beach, Florida

A rail corridor runs beneath an overpass at the edge of town, where freight, highway traffic, and remnant scrub meet.

The tracks run straight ahead, then begin to bend, their steel catching light in narrow bands. Gravel is packed between the ties. Fallen palm fronds lie caught in the gaps. To one side, service boxes sit on a strip of cut grass. Behind them, cabbage palms and scrub form a dense margin. The growth presses close to the rail corridor but does not cross it..

A freight train passes beneath the concrete bridge. Its headlights are steady against the flat sky. The numbers on the engine are fixed and legible; the cars follow in measured sequence. Above, vehicles cross the overpass without pause. Two movements, one elevated, one on the ground, neither interrupting the other.

Signal towers stand along the line, ladders bolted to their sides. Their metal surfaces catch the light. Behind the corridor, cabbage palms rise above a dense edge of scrub and oak. The vegetation is thick but contained — held back from the tracks by gravel and clearance. The sun is low enough to outline fronds and leaves.

The site feels provisional rather than wild — a maintained passage bordered by trees, defined by steel, shaped by the steady exchange of transit.