BROOKSVILLE, Fla. — You need a ticket to ride this story.

What You Need To Know

  • The Hernando Historic Museum Association provides a look at early rail work at the 1885 Train Depot in Brooksville

  • The Train Depot holds historic records, miniature train sets, tools of the age and even coal found under depot

  • A restored cook's rail car shows how timber companies fed workers at remote locations

  • It's open on Fridays and Saturdays, located in the original location, within sight of the downtown area

And Mary Sheldon, president of the Hernando Historic Museum Association, has one for you.

“I love the history, I love the local,” she said, standing in front of a miniature train set in the 1885 Train Depot in Brooksville.

What she loves even more than history — association volunteers like Bonnie Letourneau.

She’s been a docent for the association for 21 years. She knows a lot about life in the late 1800s, especially for railway laborers.

The rail car — discovered abandoned in the Green Swamp and restored — is an example of Uber and a food truck rolled up in one.

“It belonged to the forest industry,” Letourneau explained, standing inside the rail car, “and would be used to prepare meals for all the workers.”

Locomotives delivered the cook’s rail car to the workers' location, preparing the meals along the way.

“There was a stove for cooking, and there were lanterns because no electricity,” Letourneau said of the kitchen area.

The kitchen opens up to a small cleanup area and then a dining room.

Meals were ready upon arrival, as workers cleaned up and ate.

Then they went back to work, loading timber into another railroad car for transport.

“So these trains, they were the lifeblood of these companies,” Letourneau said. 

And now the people behind the 1885 Train Depot continue to keep Hernando County’s history for all.