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| South Orient Railroad - the final Santa Fe Years |
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Click here to go directly to the photos.
The South Orient Railroad was established in 1992, when Santa Fe sold
375 miles of its trackage in central and west Texas. The line sale inlcuded
approximately 70 miles of trackage between San Angelo Jct (the San Angelo
Subdivision's connection with the Santa Fe Lampasas Sub east of Coleman)
and San Angelo, and 305 miles of track from San Angelo to Presidio. The
sale also included Santa Fe's San Angelo Yard.
The history of the South Orient's trackage is an interesting one. The line
between San Angelo Jct and San Angelo was built by the Gulf, Colorado,
& Santa Fe in the late 1880s. West of San Angelo, the trackage is all original
Kansas City, Mexico & Orient trackage, built during the early 1900s
under the direction of Arthur Stilwell. Stilwell built the line with the intention of
reaching the deep-water port of Topolobampo, Mexico, thus creating
the shortest possible rail route from Kansas City to the Pacific coast. Construction delays,
a shortfall of capital, and a lack of traffic caused the troubled line to wander in and out of
receivership, and Santa Fe acquired it in 1928. The Mexican portion of the line was not
completed until 1961! At over 300 miles, the segment between San
Angelo and Presidio is is the longest remaining stretch of intact former KCM&O trackage
anywhere in the U.S.
During the 1980s, traffic levels on the Santa Fe's San Angelo Subdivision
fluctuated wildly.
San Angelo and the communities to the east (Miles, Rowena and Ballinger)
have always provided this stretch of railroad with some seasonal shipments
of grain, and the gateway to Mexico at Presidio allowed the line west of San
Angelo to host
international traffic. Although the traffic volume interchanging
to Mexico at Presidio was never anywhere near the volume crossing the
Rio Grande at Santa Fe's larger El Paso terminal, the line carried a fair share
of traffic, including occasional unit trains of Mexico-bound grain.
The line also saw numerous unit trains of molten sulfur operating between a
mine near Ft Stockton (west of San Angelo) and the port of Galveston; these
trains operated up through the late '80s.
During the late 1980s and early '90s,
declining traffic levels (combined with Santa Fe's desire to reduce its
rail network to a core system of high-density traffic lines) resulted in the
Santa Fe considering an abandonment or sale of the San Angelo Sub. As
Santa Fe began its search for
a buyer for this low-density line during the early 1990s,
train traffic dwindled to just one six-day-a-week local between San Angelo
and San Angelo Jct (continuing on to Brownwood), and just one train every
couple of weeks west of San Angelo.
Although I began shooting color slides in 1990, I was in college in Dallas and
was not often able to photograph Santa Fe trains on the San Angelo Sub.
Following are shots of the few Santa Fe trains I WAS able to catch prior to
the line sale to South Orient in 1992.
Please click on any of the following pictures to see a larger image:
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A westbound Santa Fe train passes the old Kansas City, Mexico & Orient depot in San Angelo on August 13, 1990. |
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A westbound Santa Fe train passes the old Santa Fe depot in Ballinger, Texas on November 25, 1990. |
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An eastbound Santa Fe train crosses Red Creek east of San Angelo in August 1991. |
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Prior to seeking a buyer for the San Angelo line, Santa Fe originally considered abandoning the line, and posted notices like this one at all of its depots along the line. |
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South Orient 1992 - 1994
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All images on The Southwest Railfan © 2000-2004 by Wes Carr.
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rights reserved.
