Chock Full-0-Sea ports

Is really the big reason. Less and less portage is going through the traditional East Coast hubs of NY and NJ, mostly going to places like Louisiana , Texas, and Florida instead.

Historically Florida has always been pretty big on trains as well. In fact you used to be able to take a train from Florida to Cuba....kinda. You could take a train across the overseas rail line to Key West where they would ferry the whole train car over to Cuba.

We used to be an actual country that did stuff, and that's because we weren't afraid to do cool stuff with trains.

Flattest state in the union, which I learned not too long ago. As to raw materials? We don't even have rocks down here. I can only think of one place I've seen natural rock, and I'm all over the woods and swamps.

Florida is also densely populated compared to other similarly sized states, around 135 people per km² (US average is about 37/km²)