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You are in the CarrTracks website Picture Gallery.
Santa Fe train picture gallery Panhandle,
Slaton, and Lampasas Subdivisions
This train picture gallery covers the Panhandle, Slaton,
and Lampasas Subdivisions from Canadian, TX southwest
through Amarillo to Texico, NM, then southeast through
Lubbock to Temple. The first portion of the lines covered
was built by the Santa Fe under the name Southern Kansas
Railway of Texas through Waynoka to Panhandle City in 1888.
This line was later extended to Amarillo.
The Santa Fe, under the name Pecos and Northern Texas
Railway to comply with Texas law, began building southwest
from Amarillo through Canyon to Texico in 1898. Then
continued under the name Pecos Valley and Northeastern
Railway completed the line to Carlsbad, NM in 1899. The
Santa Fe built a line south from Canyon to Plainview in 1907
and extended this to Lubbock in 1910.
Traffic increased dramatically when the Santa Fe
completed the Belen Cutoff in 1908 and reroute much of the
freight traffic off the line over Raton Pass in 1909. Due
to increased traffic, the Santa Fe added a second track from
Pampa through Amarillo to just north of Canyon in 1927 and
had block signals installed by 1930. The single track
portions of this line from Waynoka, OK to Texico, NM
received CTC around 1948.
A group of Galveston businessmen had a vision of
building a railroad into Texas and incorporated the Gulf,
Colorado & Santa Fe Railway Company in 1873. Actual
construction began at Galveston in 1875 and stopped at
Arcola in 1877 because of poor financing. With more
financial backing the building started again in 1879 and
reached Rosenberg by the end of the year, and Cameron by the
end of 1880. After completing a line to Fort Worth in 1881,
the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe began building northwest from
Temple and reached Lampasas in 1882. The railroad reached
Brownwood in 1885 and Coleman in 1886. The Coleman Cutoff
was completed between Coleman and Texico, NM in 1914. Block
signals were installed around 1930 and CTC was installed
between Slaton and Sweetwater in 1950. The line from
Sweetwater to Temple is under track warrants.
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