Did the T&P Serve Coal Mines

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Hello All:

Did the Texas and Pacific Rilroad serve coal mines?

Did the T&P serve any mines in Texas?

Can you be specific regarding the mine locations.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Timothy

2

Not sure where the T&P ran, but there is a ghost town named Thurber between Fort Worth and Abilene that was a big coal mining center. In addition to supplying railroad coal, there was a thriving brick works that provided hard-fired paving bricks to a lot of paving projects in Texas.

The growth of oil as a heating and locomotive fuel, and the nature of the coal seams in Thurber’s underground mines, doomed the business. About all that is left today are the Smokestack Restaurant (in the former company store) and the smokestack after which the restaurant was named.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with two underground coal mines)

3

Era? Maybe in the WW1 era, or before, but I doubt much in the WW2 or later era.

Are you trying to figure out how to use hoppers? They had some rock and ballast pits and several gypsum mines. There was petroleum coke off the Gulf coast.

4

Chuck is spot on about Thurber.

IIRC, T&P subsidiary Weatherford, Mineral Wells and Northwestern extended its lines to Newcastle to service coal mines there, but I doubt that this traffic survived beyond the 1930’s. I have seen pictures of freight cars (can’t remember if they were gondolas or hoppers) at the mine; can’t remember the source.

5

T&P had a mainline across Texas from El Paso (utilizing trackage rights on SP west of Sierra Blanca) to Shreveport, with another line southeast to New Orleans. There were several branch lines and subsidiary railroad off the mains.

6

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Here are some results of a Google search for Texas and Pacific Railroad coal mines.

There are many more links if you want more info so you can search if you want more details. Some might have near duplicate info. Have fun.

I would post the Google result search link but some here do not like that and go ballistic.

http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/exhibits/railroad/other/coal-thurber.html

http://www.texaspacificrailway.org/news/the-dallas-morning-news-hundreds-of-railroad-lines-chugged-off-into-history-16.html

http://www.trainweb.org/texasandpacific/history.html

http://www.strawntexas.net/history.asp

Rich

7

For some reason I cannot make the first link clickable. Just cut and paste into the brower.

Rich

8

The [/url] is at the top of your post instead of at the end of the URL.

I don’t know when they built it, or the OP’s era, but the 2006 Refinery Capacity Report (the oldest I have) listed a coking plant at the refinery in Tyler, TX.

9

They served a few coal mines in the area between Weatherford and Abiliene in the 20’s around Gordon;Strawn and Thurber.

I’m sure they also hauled lignite mined in East Texas as well.

Also,joint owned MP/T&P subsidiary Kansas Oklahoma and Gulf hauled coal from mines in eastern Oklahoma as well.