Western Railroad Discussion > Texas State Railroad Questions

At Palestine, it looks like the former U.P. connection was previously a diamond (at Royall Street) and the TSRR went into town. The trackage is still there buried in weeds. What was the purpose of this trackage? It looks like a customer formerly served by the TSRR is now served by the UP. This spur was the one that continued into town crossing Cook and Burkitt roads, ending before Reagan street next to a demolished building (freight depot)? and electric substation. When was this last used?

I don't know if Iowa Pacific would like to reconnect this.

My goodness.

fulldynamics Wrote:
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> . . . ending before
> Reagan street next to a demolished building
> (freight depot)?

It was long gone when I had time to poke around there in the early '80's.

RailNet802, out

The west end of the line, from the UP connection at Royall Street into town, is literally so overgrown and has no traffic potential at all, that I cannot see the reason for it ever to be rebuilt. TSRR crews are now qualified to go into Palestine on the UP for interchange purposes as well.

There isn't much of a reason to reconnect with the line in question. The industry which uses the spur is I believe defunct, or at least no longer uses rail service, and there are no other industries on this track. As mentioned is stops short of Reagan St. near a electric substation. Connecting it to the Texas State RR would require installing a diamond, which I am quite sure the UP would not approve of. If they did, we would be on the hook for it's maintenance.

This line was the Texas State Railroad's original mainline into Palestine. They had a freight house at the end of track. It would be interesting to know when the last time anything had a reason to head up that way.

There has been some local interest in restoring the line for passenger service to get passenger train into Palestine. The whole proposition is somewhat absurd. The trains would still stop well short of downtown. The passengers would then have to walk across the UP Yard to get to downtown. the UP is not going to like us crossing their yard lead with a passenger train.... the list goes on and on.

I can thing of a dozen better things to spend $$ on.

Earl Knob.
GM, Texas State RR