The fire academy at Florida State College at Jacksonville has this railroad tank car to help train firefighters in handling hazmat spills. The new CSX facility will be built nearby. | Dan Scanlan, Jacksonville Today
Published on August 4, 2025 at 3:14 pm
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Jacksonville soon will have the first railroad company-operated training center in the nation where firefighters can learn how to handle railway hazardous material spills.
Railroad company CSX will partner with Florida State College at Jacksonville on the facility. The center will expand the existing academy at FSCJ’s south campus where about 5,000 fire trainees annually learn to battle everything from aircraft incidents to high-rise blazes.
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The CSX Hazardous Materials Training Institute will begin construction in a few weeks on property next to the fire academy’s railcar fire simulator. It will replace a regional training center once operated in Atlanta. It also will supplement the CSX’s Responder Incident Training train, which is based in Jacksonville and travels to cities to offer hands-on experience to firefighters about railcar equipment and emergency response procedures.
“We are going to have our headquarters training facility here, and are glad with the partnership with FSCJ to be able to make that come to light in our own backyard,” CSX Chief Legal Officer Michael Burns said Monday. “The great part of this is we will have several rail lines and track panels that will have a lot of different cars — different kinds of tank cars — and we want to make sure that all first responders get exposure to those different kinds of tank cars so that they can have that training in the event that they encounter one in the field and know how to deal with those when they happen.”
The college’s Fire Academy of the South will be home to the hazmat center because there is already an established first responders’ program there, said Cedric Gibson, vice president of FSCJ’s workforce development and entrepreneurship programs.
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“We had previously established partnership training with CSX many years ago, and through those trainings, we just became familiar with one another,” Gibson said. “They liked the experiences they had with those earlier trainings, and the conversation just began organically from the past.”
The Fire Academy of the South opened in 1990 at FSCJ’s South Campus, set up by the college and the city to train emergency responders in basic firefighting skills. Firefighters can be certified in advanced training that includes firefighting on ships, aircraft and other facilities. The facility has two mockup jetliners, a single railroad tanker car and a multilevel building for training.
The new CSX institute will have more than 1,200 feet of track with functional features such as switches, signals and railroad crossing warning devices.
“We know they pretty much could have gone anywhere else in the Southeast region, but we are proud of the fact that they chose us here in Jacksonville to be part of this project,” said FSCJ President and CEO John Avendano. “This new training facility for CSX will be in tandem with the resources we already have here, and makes this a training complex in the country that I believe is really second to none.”
During a groundbreaking ceremony Monday, U.S. Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Florida, reminded the audience of the derailment of a Norfolk Southern freight train in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 3, 2023, where hazardous materials leaked from cars or caught fire.
Bean called the derailment “catastrophic” for that community, with cleanup continuing. Having a training institute where firefighters can better learn how to handle hazmat spills can save lives, Bean said.
“We know that the chances of that happening here are rare,” he said. “But we also know what we want to stack in our favor is a 100% chance that our men and women first responders will have the full knowledge of what to do should disaster strike.”
CSX will design, build and conduct all training at the facility, which will cost about $1.5 million. FSCJ will develop its own courses to be integrated within the institution.
Construction should be done by the end of the year, with classes beginning in early 2026. All training will be free to first responders, with CSX customers and regulators also invited to get training at the facility, Burns said.
“What a great opportunity to be here in Jacksonville, our home,” said CSX President and CEO Joe Hinrichs. “You don’t want, the first time somebody ever sees a tank car, to be in the moment. You want people to be comfortable with the valves and familiar with where to find information so they can respond and help.”
CSX moves 1 million railcar-loads of freight annually in the East Coast from Rhode Island to Florida, and west to Memphis and St. Louis. It has 3,000 employees in Jacksonville, and 6,000 total in the state, Hinrichs said.
