The Florida East Coast Railway's arrival in South Florida created the transportation network that made large-scale agricultural production possible. In a 1930s publication looking at its history over the previous fifty years, this part of the railway's business was discussed:

The Florida East Coast Railway early adapted the character of its service to the highly perishable class of [agricultural] products which it was called upon to transport, operating fast, regular freight trains at express speed. Before the development of packing houses, side tracks and platforms were established at frequent intervals from which "pick-up" trains gathered the growers' produce, concentrating it into carloads and trainloads. The railway even issued weather warnings. Prior to the advent of radio, and its wide use in rural communities, Florida East Coast Railway locomotive engineers were required to sound six long blasts of the whistle at frequent intervals to warn growers that an approaching cold wave was predicted . . .

(Excerpted from The Story of a Pioneer, 1885-86 -- 1935-36, published by the Flagler System and reprinted by the Boca Raton Historical Society in The Spanish River Papers, October, 1974.)