This website has been archived from TrainWeb.org/southwestshorts to TrainWeb.US/southwestshorts.
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Monday, March 12, 2001
Today is the one-year anniversary of Southwest Shorts on Trainweb! I started the
site a little over a year ago on a different host, but I had to move it due to
webspace limitations on the old server. It's now been a full year at Trainweb, and I
couldn't have asked for better service, especially considering the price! ;-)
Saturday, February 17,
2001
Well, the proverbial ink on my last "news update" wasn't even dry yet when the San
Angelo Standard-Times ran an article announcing the completion of the South Orient deal.
The $9.5 million offer resulted in the Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) becoming the
line's owner. The new operator will be Texas Pacifico Transportation Ltd., a subsidiary of Nuevo Grupo
Mexico. Though its locomotives continue to labor for north Texas shortline Fort Worth & Western (and probably, for
a while longer on the TXDOT / Texas Pacifico line), South Orient is officially a "fallen flag". Want to read the
article?
Visit the Standard-Times archives using this link:
http://www.texaswest.com/archive/index.html Use the " search by date " option,
and you'll find the article on the February 3, 2001 archive.
Saturday, February 3,
2001
Saturday, January 13,
2001
News Archive (previous news reports)
Many thanks are due to the
Trainweb staff for making this site possible. I'm celebrating the big day by posting a
surprise: five photos of the New Orleans & Gulf Coast 2-6-0 steam locomotive # 1744,
which made some break-in runs on local shortline Fort Worth & Western last September.
The break-in runs included a charter trip for the joint BRHS / RITS convention on September
21, 2000. Check out the photos here:
New Orleans & Gulf Coast 1744 photos
That's all for now; I'll be putting a more detailed News Update together soon.
WSC
I spent last weekend with friend and co-worker Joe Brice, on a mission to catch and photograph the Austin Steam
Train Association's Alco RSD15 "Alligator" engine, the 442. She looked and sounded great as she
lugged six passenger coaches on the Hill Country Flyer up and down the many dips and sags along the former SP
line between Cedar Park and Burnet.
Track work was the order of the trip, as we found the Rockdale, Sandow,
& Southern pretty well shut down the morning of Friday, February 9 for tie and surfacing work; and on Saturday,
the Hill Country Flyer received minor delays in both directions of its round trip to Burnet, courtesy of a tie gang working
in the Bertram area. That line can certainly use the work; it will be good to see the track structure upgraded and speeds
on that line increased.
The track work DID give us an opportunity to gain more "intelligence" into the operations of the RS&S;
a brief visit with a couple of the track workers revealed that the RS&S is (as previously presumed) strictly a
Monday-through-Friday operation. One daily trip from Marjorie to the Alcoa plant is usually the norm, with extra trips
operated on
Mondays and Wednesdays handling traffic brought to Marjorie the previous day(s)
by the Point Comfort & Northern shuttle train, which
operates between Lolita,TX and Marjorie (via trackage rights over the UP by way
of Houston and Navasota) to interchange to the RS&S.
In all, it was a worthwhile trip, especially if you overlook the generally poor weather with which we were "blessed."
Man, what is it with clouds and crappy weather when I take time off from work to go on shortline expeditions, especially
ones where I'm guaranteed to see exotic motive power?
Some site news of interest: I decided I wanted to compile a "Photo Gallery" page
containing links to several of what I feel are my best shortline photos. I started
tinkering around with a few of the images, and before I knew it, I had chosen about 30 to
put in a single "Photo Gallery". Check 'em out at:
http://www.trainweb.us/southwestshorts/gallery.html
I just completed a page on New Mexico's Very Large Array site, which is not a railroad
in and of itself (the VLA uses an application of railroading to move its radio
telescope antenna dishes around)... but its tracks are active and the operation is
little-known: more proof that if it's obscure and it runs on rails, you'll (eventually) see it
here on Southwest Shorts. Check it out at:
http://www.trainweb.us/southwestshorts/vla.html
Watch for more new stuff coming soon, including a few surprises.
WSC
First of all, if you try to access my website and the page looks
like this, it's probably just the fact that my site is hosted by
a server in the People's Republic of California, and is therefore subject to rolling
blackouts. No troubles yet; I believe the Trainweb server is in Fullerton (in Orange County)
which to my knowledge has not yet been affected. But wait and see...
I've been remiss in not posting the latest news from Texas shortline South Orient. The
San Angelo Standard-Times reported on January 13 that South Orient was close to reaching
a deal with TXDOT (the Texas Department of Transportation) and Grupo Mexico with regard to
a change in operators. Reportedly, once the deal is finalized, South Orient would sell its
interest in the line to TXDOT, which in turn would lease the operating rights to Grupo
Mexico under a 40-year operating agreement, with options for renewal 10 years at a time,
following the initial 40. The agreement, once completed, should effectively spare the South
Orient line from abandonment for at least several decades. For the complete text of the
article, check out the Standard-Times archives via the following link:
http://www.texaswest.com/archive/index.html Using the " search by date " option,
the article can be found on the January 13, 2001 archive.
Just a tidbit of site news...added within the past two weeks have been my pages on the
Black Mesa & Lake Powell Railroad and the
Apache Railway. The new pages introduce a slight change in
appearance from my earlier pages. If nothing else, it helps to give them a "fresh"
look. Let me know what you think. Watch for more new stuff soon.
WSC
Time to work on the website continues to elude me, and it's about to become considerably
more scarce. You see, my lovely wife of nearly 4 years is with child, and we are expecting
the arrival of our first son in the month of March. The plus side is that the arrival of the
new baby will equalize the male-female membership of the Carr household at 2-2 (we are already
the parents of a beautiful daughter). The negative
side, as you might have guessed, is
that the amount of free time I have for railfanning, photography, and maintaining this
website, will soon be next to nothing. At least I and my friend and co-worker Blair Kooistra
will be going through the trials and tribulations of fatherhood together (I for the second
time and Blair for his first); his wife is due in February. Fellow BNSF dispatcher Pat Flynn
says he "knows what Blair and I didn't do (i.e., spend lots of time out shooting pics)
last summer!"
Yes, I will soon be struggling to find enough time to take a shower before
work!
But
no matter, there is still time over the next two months to throw together a few new pages, the
first of which, Navajo Mine Railroad, is already up. Watch in
the coming weeks for pages on the Black Mesa & Lake Powell, the Apache Railroad, the
Texas Northwestern, Hollis & Eastern, and more.
Local news consists of the recent departure of Central Kansas GP38-2s 381 and 382 from the
Ft. Worth & Western here in Ft. Worth. FWWR's new power continues to arrive, with new
GP38-3s 2000, 2001, and 2002 on the property, and the 2003 en route. CKRY 381 and 382 are
on their way to the Panhandle Northern Railway in Borger, Texas, and will soon be joined
by the CKRY 351 (model unknown), destined to Borger from the Central Kansas in Wichita.
That's all for now, will post more when I get a chance.
WSC
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