Texas and Pacific Railway: Map, History, Timetables

Last revised: November 10, 2026

The Texas & Pacific Railway, reporting mark TP, was the southern transcontinental that Congress chartered in 1871 and that stopped at Sierra Blanca, 92 miles east of El Paso. From there the road became the Missouri Pacific’s main line across Texas and Louisiana, with a New Mexico feeder and, late in the story, the Muskogee roads in Oklahoma and Arkansas. The corporation was merged on October 15, 1976. Union Pacific still runs the line the Texas & Pacific built.

Texas and Pacific F7A 1570 and GP7s at Fort Worth in the 1950s or early 1960s

Texas & Pacific F7A 1570 and a set of GP7s at Fort Worth, in a scene that probably dates to the 1950s or the early 1960s. Nathan Edmonson photograph. John Edmonson collection.

On this page: The federal charter · Longview to Dallas · Sierra Blanca · Louisiana and the feeders · Oil and the Missouri Pacific · At a glance · The 1940 map · Passenger trains · Timetables, 1940 · Fort Worth · Locomotives

The federal charter

Congress chartered the Texas Pacific Railroad Company on March 3, 1871, to build along the 32nd parallel from a point near Marshall, Texas, toward San Diego. An act of May 2, 1872, renamed it the Texas and Pacific Railway Company. It was the only railroad in Texas, and one of the few in the United States, to operate under a federal charter. The land grant was 20 sections a mile in California, 40 sections a mile in present-day Arizona and New Mexico, and 20 sections a mile from the State of Texas. George C. Werner’s account in the Handbook of Texas is the spine of what follows.

The Texas legislature recognized the charter in 1871 and allowed the company to buy three paper roads. The Southern Pacific Railroad Company of Texas, chartered on February 16, 1852, as the Texas Western and renamed on August 16, 1856, was acquired on March 21, 1872. That company was a Texas corporation. It was the one predecessor that had built and run a railroad: Longview to Waskom, and a lease of the North Louisiana & Texas from the state line into Shreveport, 66 miles. The Southern Trans-Continental Railway, acquired March 30, 1872, and the Memphis, El Paso & Pacific, acquired June 12, 1873, never got past construction.

Marshall O. Roberts was the first president. Thomas A. Scott of Philadelphia succeeded him early in 1872. The chief engineer was Grenville M. Dodge, who had been the Union Pacific’s engineer. The California and Texas Railway Construction Company began work in October 1872.

Longview to Dallas

The first train ran from Longview to Dallas, 125 miles, on July 1, 1873. Marshall to Texarkana, 74 miles, opened on December 28, 1873. Sherman to Brookston, 56 miles, was built in the same season. Then the Panic of 1873 closed the construction company, which could not negotiate its securities, and the western push stopped.

Work resumed after the worst of the panic. Eagle Ford, on the west side of Dallas, reached Fort Worth on July 19, 1876. Brookston reached Texarkana on August 11, 1876. The railroad then had 444 miles in service.

Sierra Blanca

A Gould syndicate took an interest in the fall of 1879 and put Dodge back in charge of finishing the road. Track laying west from Fort Worth began on April 1, 1880. The Trans-Continental Division, Sherman to Fort Worth, 90 miles, opened on May 9, 1881. The rails reached Sierra Blanca on December 16, 1881. Dodge had built 520 miles west of Fort Worth. At the end of 1881 the company had 1,034 miles of main track in Texas.

The California Southern Pacific had reached El Paso in May 1881. It had taken an interest in the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio and, under that charter, reached Sierra Blanca ahead of the Texas & Pacific. It had also occupied the survey the Texas & Pacific had marked from Yuma east. Suits followed. The Gould-Huntington agreement of November 26, 1881, set Sierra Blanca as the western end. The two companies would use the 92 miles into El Paso jointly. The Texas & Pacific gave up its property rights and franchises west of El Paso. Later pieces of the agreement, including the pooling clauses, were nullified. The Texas & Pacific tried in court and at the Interstate Commerce Commission to obtain a half interest in the joint track, and failed.

The land grant followed the construction clock. From 1873 through 1881 the company built 972 miles and was entitled to 12,441,600 acres. It received land only for the line east of Fort Worth, 5,173,120 acres. Track west of Fort Worth was finished too late for the grant. In 1891 Attorney General Charles A. Culberson sued for 301,893 acres, and the state recovered 256,046. The Commission later put the state land that remained, 4,972,974 acres, at about $3 an acre, $15,621,881.

Louisiana and the feeders

Several Louisiana lines were brought in, and the through route from Shreveport to New Orleans was finished on September 12, 1882. In 1898 the company built its own line from Waskom to Shreveport and gave up the leased track it had used since 1862. At Longview the road met the International & Great Northern. At Texarkana it met the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern. Those connections were the Gould Southwest.

The only Texas branch the company built in that period was six miles from Mingus to the Thurber coal mines, in 1888. The feeders it acquired or financed stayed separate corporations: the Denison & Pacific Suburban in 1895; the Weatherford, Mineral Wells & Northwestern in 1903; the Cisco & Northeastern, the Abilene & Southern, and the Pecos Valley Southern in 1927; the Texas-New Mexico Railway, organized in 1928 to build from Monahans to Lovington, New Mexico; the Texas Short Line, purchased in 1929; and 60 percent of the Fort Worth Belt in 1932. The company also held one-eighth of Dallas Union Terminal and one-sixth of the El Paso Union Passenger Depot.

A 1940 route map of the Texas and Pacific Railway

A route map of the Texas and Pacific Railway as the road appeared in 1940. Author’s collection.

Oil and the Missouri Pacific

The Missouri Pacific Railway leased the Texas & Pacific from 1881 until 1885, the year the Texas & Pacific entered receivership. After the lease ended, the Gould holdings kept the two roads working as a system. The 1917 Missouri Pacific reorganization ended Gould control of both. In 1918 the new Missouri Pacific Railroad began buying Texas & Pacific stock. By 1930 it held nearly 75 percent. By the end of 1974 it held nearly 97 percent.

West Texas oil in the late 1920s, and then the East Texas field, carried the railroad through the Depression in better shape than many of its neighbors. In 1928 crude oil was 22 percent of the freight tonnage. The 1931 report counted 365 locomotives, 236 passenger cars, and 9,816 freight cars. Freight brought in $24,000,000, passengers $3,282,000, and other revenue $2,721,000.

A few of the feeders left before the merger. The Cisco & Northeastern was abandoned on March 9, 1942. The Pecos Valley Southern was sold on November 30, 1946. The Texas Short Line was abandoned on March 7, 1962. Trackage rights on the Katy between Denison and Whitesboro made the Denison & Pacific Suburban surplus, and abandonment authority came on April 2, 1965. In 1968 the company took off 29 miles between San Martine and Rockhouse. In 1969 it bought nine miles, Fort Worth to Everman, from the Missouri Pacific.

In September 1964 the Texas & Pacific took control of the Kansas, Oklahoma & Gulf, the Midland Valley, and the Oklahoma City-Ada-Atoka. The Oklahoma City-Ada-Atoka was resold to the Santa Fe. The Midland Valley was merged on April 1, 1967, and the Kansas, Oklahoma & Gulf on April 1, 1970. Those two mergers are why the 1974 mileage reaches into Oklahoma and Arkansas. The New Mexico reach was the Texas-New Mexico, to Lovington. El Paso, and the joint track from Sierra Blanca, are in Texas.

In 1974 the railroad owned 1,982 miles of main track in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, of which 1,109 were in Texas. It had 153 diesel units and 3,629 freight cars on the property, and freight revenue of $149,073,000. It still controlled the Abilene & Southern, the Fort Worth Belt, the Texas-New Mexico, and the Weatherford, Mineral Wells & Northwestern. The merger into the Missouri Pacific was completed on October 15, 1976.

At a glance

Item	Detail
Reporting mark	TP
Charter	March 3, 1871, as the Texas Pacific Railroad Company. Renamed May 2, 1872
First train	Longview to Dallas, July 1, 1873
Western end	Sierra Blanca, December 16, 1881. Joint track into El Paso
States	Texas and Louisiana. Lovington, New Mexico, on the Texas-New Mexico. Oklahoma and Arkansas after the 1964 Muskogee-road control
Main track, 1974	1,982 miles owned, 1,109 of them in Texas
Passenger terminal	Fort Worth, 1931, Wyatt C. Hedrick
Gauge	4 feet 8½ inches
Steam classes on the roster page	70 Texas types and 10 Mountains
Diesels built for the railroad	246 locomotives
Merger	Missouri Pacific, October 15, 1976

Passenger trains

The ten 4-8-2s, classes M-1 and M-2, handled the long passenger trains: the Sunshine Special, the Texan, and the Southerner. Steam came off in 1951. The E7s and E8s that followed them onto the passenger trains are on the diesel roster. The September 1937 Official Guide sheets are a separate page, the Texas & Pacific timetables of that month. In the November 1948 timetable the Texas Eagle became a Texas & Pacific train at Texarkana, and the sections fanned out at Longview.