Nostalgia & History > Tyler Tex on the Cotton Belt

There was a time when the Cotton Belt had its headquarters in Tyler and a large locomotive maintenance & repair
shop, car repair shop, classification yard, etc. and like other railroad towns, the Cotton Belt was by far the
largest employer and offered some of the best paying jobs here.  The RS3 was a big player here in the 1950's
with these road switchers making a daily trip to Lufkin, to Corsicana, and a pair also used to switch the yard.

Today we still have the yard, albeit with less trackage.
The brick passenger car shop, in the upper left of the photo, still stands and is used by a seed company.
The steel shed at the upper right side is still there and used by Saia Motor freight for its Tyler terminal.
Oddly the balloon track is still in place and up until a few years ago an old SP TEBU was stored on it but its gone now too.

Everything else was razed by UP in the mid 90's when it took over the SP.  Supposedly the turntable was cut
up and thrown in the pit, then covered up with clay and rock.

The Blue Streak used to change crews in the yard here and at least one old head told me they would keep the train moving slowly
forward while the new crew got on and the old crew got off.

UP runs one way westbound through here now, mostly stackers for the west coast, autoracks and auto parts to Mexico, and a variety
of mixed freights.  The other day an approx 100 car train passed through town with almost all boxcars in tow.  There 
is some local work still done in town too, with the Delek Refinery still operating at capacity, a Cemex concrete plant, and Trane Air 
Conditioners are made here and they get a tank of freon (or whatever is used now) twice a week.  They have actually moved jobs back
from Mexico and are running this plant 24/7 in 3 shifts .

Up until last month there were sulphur unit trains to a nearby plant in Eustace TX but it has closed due to downturn in the energy markets.
Same for fracking sand trains passing through town, they are few these days.

I suppose this story can be repeated a hundred times, just substitute Cotton Belt for another road and Tyler for another town.

​Time marches on.

 

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Your well-written nostalgic summary is a great capture of what goes on all around us, all of the time.  Very nicely done!

-- Greg

Might have to model that setup. Cool how it's layed out.

Great article and photos! Thanks for sharing.