Amazingly, two months have passed since my last news report. Where the &*%$ does the time go?

It will probably be a while before I post any new photo pages to the site. Most of my material is pretty well used up. But I'll continue to post news reports as time allows.

Following extensive mechanical work sponsored by the City of Grapevine, Fort Worth & Western's 4-6-0 steam locomotive, the 2248, is operating again on Tarantula passenger trains between Grapevine and the 8th Avenue Station in southwest Fort Worth. Reports indicate that the steam engine is operating Thursdays through Sundays, with a diesel powering the train on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. Check the Tarantula's website, http://www.tarantulatrain.com, for times of operation.

* * * * *

Elsewhere in the area, a report in the -- excuse me if I get this wrong -- "Paris News" (that's Paris, TEXAS) indicated that the Hugo Heritage Railroad (based in Hugo, Oklahoma) will resume operation of excursion trains over Kiamichi Railroad's trackage on July 21, thanks to a grant from the State of Oklahoma. It is expected that the train will operate once a month, and may operate on Kiamichi's lines to Fort Towson, Paris, Antlers, or eventually, to Idabel. The July 21 trip is scheduled to leave Hugo at 10 a.m. and will go to Fort Towson.

The report listed the following sources for interested people to contact for additional information:

To make a reservation call Hugo Heritage Railroad at (580) 326-6630 or the Choctaw County Chamber of Commerce at (580) 326-7511.

* * * * *

I recently spent part of a weekend in San Angelo, where I was able to observe what was a first for me: a train belonging to Texas Pacifico Transportation, the new operator of the South Orient line which commenced operations in February. Here's a report from my trip, which began Friday July 6th and concluded on Saturday the 7th:

First of all, some bad news: the wig-wag signals south of Coleman on FM 1026 are gone. They have been replaced with standard-style flashers and crossbucks; the crossing remains un-gated. The work appeared to have taken place quite recently... the dirt around the bases of the new crossing appliances looked like it had just recently been dug up.

In Talpa (between San Angelo Jct and Ballinger) the siding was crammed full of stored cars (I didn't even know it was in service!) ... mostly PLCX empty covered hoppers and a dozen or so old brown boxcars lettered for Hutchison Northern, but stenciled with ITLX reporting marks. As we rolled into Ballinger on US 67 I noticed cars standing on the main line underneath the overpass and on the bridge over the Colorado River. It turned out to be the rear end of a stopped westbound, which had Ferromex GP38-2s 2044 / 9298 on the head end. The engines are painted in a maroon, white, and dark green scheme, with black lettering. All lettering is for Ferromex; I did not notice any lettering for "Texas Pacifico." The head end of the train was stopped at the first crossing in Ballinger, and no crew was present. The train itself consisted of two bulkhead flatcar loads of steel (destined to Hirschfeld in San Angelo) and then a good number of empty covered hoppers... probably totalling 30 cars in all ( a rough estimate). The time of this sighting was 1800 on Friday; when I drove back through Ballinger around 0600 Saturday the train was still tied down with no crew!

The elevator tracks in Miles were as full as I've seen them in a long time. Looks like good grain business coming out of there. No cars in Rowena or at the San Angelo Feed Yard west of Miles. But the grain elevator on the northeast side of San Angelo near Baze Street had several cars on hand. I also spotted the BN 1711 at Texas Tank Car Works as we made our way through town on the Houston Harte. This locomotive -- a GP7 -- was formerly on South Orient's roster and is now owned by San Angelo's transportation mueseum located at the old KCM&O depot downtown.

I also noticed, at every automatic grade crossing, the silver boxes which house the signal equipment have large white stickers affixed to them which say "Texas Pacifico Transportation".

Didn't get a chance to head by the San Angelo yard office on this trip... did stop by San Angelo Jct on the way back to Ft Worth Saturday morning and only a handful of cars were present... probably 10 or so on the west leg of the wye and about 4 more in the siding south of the wye.

I drove back by way of Hwy 377 and noticed the FWWR still has stored cars in most of the sidings on the former Santa Fe Dublin Sub... Blanket, Proctor, Stephenville, and Tolar all had cars on hand. At Dublin, engines 2001 (Niles City) and 2002 (Cowtown) were on the head end of a short train that looked like it had come down the "Peanut" line from Gorman, and was tied down near the depot south of the highway crossing. Also in Dublin, I noticed a few trucks marked with "Queen City Railroad Construction"... this is the same group that was doing tie replacement on the AUAR (ex-Longhorn / SP) line between McNeil and Burnet last winter. Reports on the Railspot list indicate that Queen City is performing track work on the former Texas Central Peanut line.

In all, it was a very brief trip, but it was nice to get a look at the line's life after South Orient. Hope to get down there again soon and catch a train actually moving... and hope to hear of trains operating between San Angelo and Alpine (and on to Presidio) in the near future as well. Watch for some photos on this site soon.

Addendum: Mr. W.D. Green from Texas Tank Car Works in San Angelo responded to my posting of the above trip report on the Railspot list with the following information. Wish I had stuck around down there to see this move:

* * * * *

Over 100 (Shoot me if I miscounted) cars left out today (Saturday, July 7) for the second trip to Presido today in as many weeks. 90 cars went last week. 2041, 2040, SO 107, 108, 109 were the power for today.

It is hoppers that GE had stored here. A customer in Mexico leased them and the TXPF is taking them down there. I think the number is somewhere around 278 cars. Good haul, and from what I hear some good money to get them down there.

I don't think there will be any bridge traffic until the track is worked and I have no clue when that will start.

* * * * *

Watch for more news soon...

WSC

Wednesday, May 9, 2001

You won't see any information to this effect on the company's website ( http://www.bigeasysteamtrain.com) , but reports to the Railspot list indicate that the Big Easy Steam Train in New Orleans (operator of ex-Southern Pacific 2-6-0 1744) will cease operations on Saturday, May 12. Reasons behind the shutdown are low ridership and mounting financial losses.

On a more positive note, reports to Railspot indicate that the City of Grapevine's repair work on the Tarantula 4-6-0 2248 is progressing, and the engine may be fully operational and ready to pull the Tarantula passenger train by Memorial Day. Stay tuned for updates...

I've added two small pages today:

Northwestern Oklahoma Railroad
Southwestern Railroad - Shattuck Branch

Check em out if you get a chance.

WSC

Tuesday, May 8, 2001

Well, it's only been two months since an update, but here's a look at the critter (and I ain't talkin' 'bout a small industrial locomotive) who is the main reason why it's been so long: http://members.home.net/carrxpress/images/matthewjoel1.jpg

That's right! It's a photo of my son Matthew, who was born March 20 at North Hills Hospital in North Richland Hills, Texas. In fact, he's about ten minutes old in that photo! Needless to say, I've been a bit preoccupied lately and the website has therefore been placed on the back burner.

I've still got a few pages left to post before I run out of material, starting with the Hollis & Eastern, a page I just added today. Coming shortly will be the long-anticipated Panhandle Northern page, a page on the Cimarron Valley (including Blair Kooistra's Cimarron Valley photo pages, which will probably re-locate from his site to my site),and a few other surprises.

Hang in there, and I'll post a "real" news update sometime soon.

WSC

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 to Trainweb 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! ;-) 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 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 posting a more detailed news report soon.

WSC

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.

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.org/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.org/southwestshorts/vla.html

Watch for more new stuff coming soon, including a few surprises.

WSC

Saturday, February 3, 2001

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

Saturday, January 13, 2001

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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