The stone tracks are a little run off of the Amtrak's Silver Comet and CSX line. Today the tracks are hardly ever used except by a the Rinker Grain Company and a few other warehouses in the area. However most of the tracks cut right through suburban living area very close to some houses while other parts of these tracks are covered by weeds, trees, woods Etc. One way leads to a dead end eventually while the other way cuts into the main train line which is used by freight and passenger trains. However at one time the split in the tracks  led to the ghost town of St. Francis. We found this out by hiking deep in the woods of the ghost town and found these same tracks if you took them would dead at at the St. Johns River. If you were to cross the river you would see the rail bed right in the middle of the once thriving town of St. Francis. So yes there is quite a significant past to these train tracks.

I did not find alot of history on these tracks I do know though within a matter of a few miles some teenagers committed suicide on them, a truck was hit and even a train wreck occurred where people had died. None the less the tracks are from the 1800s and at one time they cut near Painter's Park and downtown Deland. Also there was a old train station at one time on these tracks. Today though the double set of tracks remain but parts of them are in ruins as some are buried by mud, others torn apart. 

Since the train tracks end near the Henry A. Deland Mansion and near Stetson University we have to assume this is the same line that  John B. Stetson had a Depot named after him. He owned the land surrounding the tracks in the late 1800s and by the mid 1890s Stetson Depot was a railroad freight and post office. John B. Stetsons personal office was just a little south of this Depot.

Another story is that in 1880 Eber W. Bond incorporated the Orange Ridge, Deland & Atlantic Railroad. In 1881 he laid the narrow gauge tracks from Deland to Deland Landing by 1884 the tracks then were operable with its first train run.  The purpose of these tracks was to pick up passengers from the St. Johns River Steamboats and bring them into Deland. Well D.B. Parce from NY arrived by riverboat at the Landing in 1885-1886. While he was walking across the Wharf and wooden platform to the train he stepped into a hole in one of the planks. He ended up injuring his ankle sued Bond and won in court. Because of the lawn suit he became the owner of the railroad. In 1886 the Jacksonville, Tampa And Key West Railroad reached Beresford it absorbed the previous line and a depot was built here. Beresford is not to far from my current residence.  

We did walk to the dead end of the tracks on our investigation, we also walked a mile the other way during the day where we found fairly new grain cars. From the grain cars its hard to say where the bend in the tracks takes you next so we will explore here at least a second time someday. 

Rather then haunted the tracks are more eerie and foreboding. There are times where the woods are so thick you cannot see anything but rather you hear movement in the woods, perhaps a dog growling or feelings that perhaps something is watching. 

Years ago I believe that this was a passenger line that would cut on in to Deland but now its owned by CSX none of the crossings have gates or anything either kind of odd perhaps since some roads are very busy. We found that there were fresh oil spots the opposite way we walked during the day so they are in use occasionally. None the less we wanted to bring you a story locally here in Deland about these overgrown tracks. 

With any train tracks that are a century old your always going to have misfortunes where someone hops a train and falls to there death or many other mishaps its just a given. We basically want to unlock these mysteries and perhaps the ghost will be able to show us a little bit about what happened here at one time. Do you dare to walk with us into the night on Stone Tracks?

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Rick-AngelOfThyNight

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