Rolly Martin Country
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16 August 2025
09 August 2025
Abilene, Texas - The Texas & Pacific Railway - Illustrations of Classic Railroad Technology
My virtual vacation in Abilene, Texas continues. Abilene is 1700 miles away from here as the Google drives, and the temperature easily tops 100 degrees F on many days during the summer. While we've only been reaching 88 degrees F here this week, our heat pump is working harder than normal in sympathy with its distant Lennox cousins.
In my previous piece on the Texas & Pacific Railway, I presented what I could find here in the way of photos, maps, published schedules and an employee timetable. This was done to depict some of the history of the railroad which gave birth to the city of Abilene in its first iteration as a railroad shipping centre for cattle.
That piece was atrociously long because I found so much material. This is an attempt to supplement the wordiness of the first piece with illustrations ... and still ... more words to interpret the images.
These images are presented in roughly the same order as the subjects appear in the previous Texas & Pacific piece.
Abilene, Texas - The Texas & Pacific Railway
from: Railroad & Photo Annual; 1953; Trains & Travel; Kalmbach. |
Texas & Pacific locomotive 706 was built by Baldwin in 1919. It's Pacific-type - used in passenger service.
* * *
Elesco Feedwater Heater
These were often used to maximize efficiency on later Texas & Pacific freight locomotives.
from: Locomotive Boiler-Feeding Devices; JW Harding; 1937; International Textbook Company. |
from: Locomotive Boiler-Feeding Devices; JW Harding; 1937; International Textbook Company. |
from: Locomotive Boiler-Feeding Devices; JW Harding; 1937; International Textbook Company. |
from: The Steam Locomotive, Part 1; JW Harding; 1934; International Textbook Company. |
A safety valve system (not shown) is designed to automatically vent excess pressure. When the main safety valve opens, the sound of escaping steam is thunderous and deafening.
It seems counter-intuitive that one superheats the steam, but its pressure stays the same. The explanation for this requires discussion of molecular structure, and how it relates to a substance's vapour pressure/temperature curve. But we're just here for the pictures!
Without a reverser, our engine as shown will only travel forward. A reverser is an important tool of steam economy because it allows the engineer to taper the steam cutoff.
For example: Steam would be admitted for the full travel of the piston when starting a heavy train. In contrast, if a light passenger train was travelling fast, only a short tick of steam would be needed to maintain momentum. (Short tick is not a legitimate mechanical engineering term.)
Finally, through the helpful work of the cylinder valve (l), the exhaust steam and smokebox smoke is pushed out through the stack (c).
* * *
from: A Locomotive Engineer's Album; George B Abdill; 1965; Bonanza Books. |
from: A Locomotive Engineer's Album; George B Abdill; 1965; Bonanza Books. |
from: History of Railroads in America; Oliver Jensen; 1975; American Heritage. |
from: Yonder Comes the Train; Lance Phillips; 1965; AC Barnes & Co. |
from: Advertisement; American Association of Railroads; June 1948; Trains. |
from: A Locomotive Engineer's Album; George B Abdill; 1965; Bonanza Books. |
from: The Central Pacific & Southern Pacific Railroads; Lucius Beebe; 1963; Howell-North Books. |
from: Statistics of Railways in the United States; 1909; Interstate Commerce Commission. |
from: Right-hand Man in the Cab, article; Howard W Bull; May 1948; Trains, Kalmbach. |
from: Yonder Comes the Train; Lance Phillips; 1965; AC Barnes & Co. |
from: PE's Bustling Freight, article; no author; photo from: Pacific Electric Magazine; Trains June 1948; Kalmbach. |
A mention was made in the previous piece about a freight house - a railroad facility used by the many shippers whose business did not require their own siding. Draft-horse-drawn wagons or trucks would be used for transportation between a shipper's facility and the freight house.
An interesting technique which is shown here is the aligning of multiple 40-foot boxcar doors with a single freight house door. Multiple boxcars could be loaded or unloaded at once. As many of the interior surfaces of boxcars were 'nailable' ... gaps between the boxcars could be spanned safely using metal plates nailed to the door thresholds.
* * *
The Considerations Behind Block Signaling in ABS and CTC
from: The Railroad - What It Is, What It Does; John H Armstrong; 1978; Simmons-Boardman. At the time of publishing: Medium Speed was 30 mph and Limited Speed was 45 mph. |
He was present when the CTC system was implemented at Schreiber, Ontario on the Canadian Pacific Railway and Rolly Martin told me a few times that CTC on single track could safely carry the same traffic load as non-CTC double track.
from: Popular Mechanics Railroad Album; John O'Connell; 1954; Popular Mechanics. |
In doing the research to find Texas & Pacific items, I found this curiosity. It was probably tested near large population centres - where it could be near to rescue locomotives (it has standard couplers). I've included this in case ardent fans of the Texas & Pacific find the reference interesting, or in case they collect mentions of this unusual trainset.
The locomotive section also includes a mail hook for picking up mailbags 'on the fly' (first door) and a baggage and express section (second larger door).
Early self-propelled railcars had problems with dependably getting from Point A to Point B. Passengers often received a rough, jarring ride at high speed on fast streamlined trainset prototypes.
At least in this experimental vehicle, they enjoyed rubber-tired comfort!
from: Photo Section, Rail Photo Service; May 1948; Trains, Kalmbach. |
Abilene, Texas - The Texas & Pacific Railway
01 August 2025
Abilene, Texas - The Texas & Pacific Railway
I'm just back from Texas after a quick vacation. I was driving the streets, listening to real estate agents talk about the city, playing local radio (101.7 - The Patriot ... in The Big Country), and looking at historical features, including railroads and old roadbeds. Leafing through The Flashlight from 1960 - the Abilene High School yearbook - was another interesting bit of research.
Of course, I did all this virtually and it was an enjoyable and refreshing break from my usual ... 'area of specialization'.
Gathered together below are materials which I hope might be helpful or interesting for Abigail of the Abilene Preservation League.
The Abilene Railroad Festival is scheduled for 12-13 September 2025.
... At the link below, you can see some of the League's success in preserving and restoring some of Abilene's unique heritage and architecture.
Abilene Preservation League website
My focus is on the Texas & Pacific Railway because Abilene sprang up on its mainline from New Orleans to El Paso, Texas. There were other railroads serving Abilene and we'll see a couple of them in passing.
* * *
This post has been a welcome opportunity to follow-up on a childhood interest ...
from: Railway Annual No 3; 1954; Kalmbach. |
This magazine was around our house from my earliest days. As a preschooler, I was familiar with CNR steam locomotives in person, and CPR and US locomotives via magazines and books.
To pre-literate me, this Texas & Pacific Railway, Texas-type always looked identical to my favourite CNR engines - with the Elesco feedwater heater perched high on its 'brow'.
It was later a surprise to learn how far this locomotive was from my native Montreal!
Incidentally, this magazine is now 71 years old. The first locomotive of this type was 29 years old when this type was featured on the cover. So every time you see a Texas and Pacific Texas-type locomotive, consider that the first one was built exactly a century ago.
A locomotive 'type' is generally determined by its 'wheel arrangement' ...
Simplified: The 'pilot' wheels help guide the engine around curves, the 'driving' wheels apply motive power to the rails, the 'trailing truck' supports the firebox. So, the Texas type side view (farther down this page) will show 2 pilot, 10 driving, 4 trailing ... making it a 2-10-4.
The type name is often determined by the first US railroad to use the type ... the Texas and Pacific.
(Four years later, the Canadian Pacific had 2-10-4 'Selkirks' - but that's for another day.)
* * *
That transverse tank seen at the top of the locomotive contains a bundle of pipes holding cold water which was piped forward from the tender.
When the locomotive is running, some 'used steam' from the cylinders is diverted into that feedwater heater tank where it surrounds those pipes and heats up the water they contain. The feedwater heater system is pressurized by a steam-driven pump which forces the heated water from the tank into the boiler through a check-valve.
... So the feedwater heater scavenges some heat from the 'used steam' before it is lost into the sky ... and heats up water before it is directly exposed to the heat from the firebox inside the boiler.
Short explanation: The feedwater heater improves the thermal efficiency of the steam engine.
* * *
In winter, my beloved Canadian National Railways steam engines often had tenders full of water which was literally ice cold so it was reasonable to pre-heat the water.
But why would the the Texas and Pacific Railway use feedwater heaters?
... To make some random kid in Montreal happy?
No, they could not have known about my pre-literate interests. They used feedwater heaters to maximize the efficiency of their locomotives. In the last 30 years of North American steam locomotive design, the locomotive builders were constantly bumping up against the power output limits of this type of external combustion engine.
Railroads were moving longer and heavier trains and they required more powerful locomotives, but steam engines were requiring increasingly expensive and painfully baroque designs to accomplish this.
The T&P Texas-type engine was a fine example of the largest and most powerful locomotive one could build in a traditional, aesthetically-pleasing and complete form.
Its design originated from Lima Locomotive Works and mechanical engineer William E Woodard. He used all the available methods of increasing efficiency to create the 'Super Power' locomotive concept. But once you succeed at creating 'Super' ... can anything ever surpass it?
* * *
It is possible that rail enthusiasts who visit this blog may be joined (today) by people who have invested less of their lives in the study of railroads. So, some images will involve a bit more 'interpretation' than normal.
* * *
There is a companion piece to this post which provides illustrations
for many of the topics discussed:
Abilene, Texas - The Texas & Pacific Railway - Illustrations of Classic Railroad Technology
* * *
Here's a nice capsule summary of the Texas and Pacific's history:
from: The Historical Guide to North American Railroads; George H Drury; 1985; Kalmbach. |
from: Travelers Official Rail Way Guide of the United States & Canada; June 1868; Reprint. |
* * *
From 1887:
This is a standard reference book which was published monthly to include all of the current schedules for 'all' of the railroads in North America. People planning trips for themselves or others would use this reference to set up an itinerary. One copy (from 1941) of this monthly publication is 2.5 inches thick!
A general hazard of early train travel was that every major settlement used 'solar noon' to set its clocks. Trains were the first method of travel which took you far enough in a single day, that these solar-noon-based systems collided with each other.
As a matter of civic pride, railroads used the time at their head offices as the standard for their far-flung railroad systems.
Before the railroads promoted a national switch to 'standard time zones' ... at Chicago you would have several different railroads arriving at several different passenger terminals. In that city, each railroad would be using a different head office city's time for their published schedules. Chicago station clocks would naturally use their own solar time.
Regular readers know this is one of my favourite topics and you can use the search box at the top to look up other, much longer, efforts at exploring this railway-created phenomenon which resulted in a recognized system of standard time zones.
If you examine the cover below, you will notice that a few of locations are still using local solar time.
... You might not miss a train ... but you might schedule a business meeting by telegraph, and make a bad impression because your train's distant head office solar time made you late for the 'local solar time' meeting!
Looking at the map below, the dark wave-form railroad line from New Orleans to El Paso (via Abilene) will be the focus of the other bits of history presented here. The lines around Gainesville and Texarkana will be neglected in my scribblings.
from: Travelers' Official Guide; December 1887; National Railway Publication Co. |
from: Travelers' Official Guide; December 1887; National Railway Publication Co. |
from: Travelers' Official Guide; December 1887; National Railway Publication Co. |
If you find Abilene on the sheet above under the Rio Grande Division ... and check the footnotes (11) you'll see there is a connection with the stage (coach) for Fort Concho.
from: A Locomotive Engineer's Album; George B Abdill; 1965; Bonanza Books. |
from: Official Guide of the Railways; 1916; National Railway Publication Co. |
from: Official Guide of the Railways; 1916; National Railway Publication Co. |
from: Official Guide of the Railways; 1916; National Railway Publication Co. |
from: Official Guide of the Railways; 1916; National Railway Publication Co. |
My guess is that when multi-part tickets (special pre-printed perforated cardstock forms routinely issued between popular destinations) were used ... their issuance and handling was performed at larger designated centres.So perhaps ... at 'coupon station' Abilene you could buy ONE preprinted multi-part ticket to take you all the way to Los Angeles in a sleeping car. On the train, the T&P conductor might punch or detach their coupon before your train carried you through onto the next railway. You would retain the main part of the ticket with any remaining attached coupons.
... You would not have to carry extra money, hope that the next railroad's train had available space in its sleeping car, and purchase a ticket for the next segment of your journey when you reached the west end of the T&P at El Paso.
... If you were just travelling by coach to Los Angeles, you might be able to detrain at El Paso (a coupon station), see the sights, and use your next coupon to board a coach on a later train and continue your journey west.
... Often, the through fare was cheaper than the sum of its parts: i.e. If the trip segments were purchased individually as you travelled, your trip was more expensive.
from: Official Guide of the Railways; 1916; National Railway Publication Co. |
from: Official Guide of the Railways; 1916; National Railway Publication Co. |
from: Official Guide of the Railways; 1916; National Railway Publication Co. |
from: Official Guide of the Railways; 1916; National Railway Publication Co. |
from: Official Guide of the Railways; 1916; National Railway Publication Co. |
Still circa 1916 ...
from: The Book of Texas; Harry Benedict; 1916; Doubleday Page & Co. archive.org |
- At the left, the large, low, peaked roof is probably a railroad freight house where strings of boxcars would have been spotted. The shed would have been designed so that the door of each standard-size boxcar in a coupled string of cars would line up with a corresponding door on the shed.
- There was probably a loading dock for wagons pulled by draft horses, or trucks, under the very low roof closest to the camera.
- Of course, local products being shipped would travel from the dock, through the shed, to the cars in the opposite direction through the freight shed.
- There are probably 8 or 9 locomotives working in this crowded yard.
- A new worker in this environment had to learn a great many things fast to avoid injury or death.
- You can see the brakewheels sprouting up near the boxcar roofwalks.
- At this point in history, automatic air brakes would have been used for train control. The handbrakes would have been used mainly as 'parking brakes' - when cars were spotted on inclined tracks.
- Handbrakes were also used to control the speed of cars when performing highly skilled 'flying switches' or when cars were 'kicked' ... during which a brakeman rode the top of a boxcar released by the engine and rolling under its own momentum. The brakeman controlled/stopped the car using the handbrake.
- To avoid heat spoilage for apples or potatoes, large pieces of ice would be loaded.
- If dressed meat was loaded in the car on meat hooks, smaller pieces of ice mixed with rock salt might be used for more intense cooling.
- The hatches could also be propped open so the air flowing through the car acted as another variable in this highly-skilled 'latent heat of fusion science project'.
- The cooling regime chosen by the shipper would determine where a given car was pre-scheduled for re-icing at facilities along the route to its destination.
- To prevent spoilage and to otherwise compensate for unforeseen problems such as heat waves melting the ice too fast en route, experienced 'carmen' inspected the ice bunkers and thermometers of refrigerator cars at major terminals. They ensured the re-icing work was done at the icing facility and they kept a log of their inspections.
from: American Locomotives; Edwin P Alexander; 1950; Bonanza Books. |
from: Straight Through Texas, article; David P Morgan; Trains March 1950; Kalmbach. |
from: Straight Through Texas, article; David P Morgan; Trains March 1950; Kalmbach. |
The 'Espee' they are referring to is the Southern Pacific.
from: Straight Through Texas, article; David P Morgan; Trains March 1950; Kalmbach. |
from: Highball, A Pageant of Trains; Lucius Beebe; 1945; Bonanza Books. |
from: Highball, A Pageant of Trains; Lucius Beebe; 1945; Bonanza Books. |
from: Steam Locomotives; 1953; Trains & Travel; Kalmbach. |
- A general order book and a standard clock. (In the book, you'll find management operational messages. Railroaders must use railroad grade watches set to the correct time while on duty.)
- Yard limits. (Protects switching movements. Simplified: Be prepared to stop in 1/2 range of vision.)
- Track scale. (For weighing cars to help determine the billable cost of a shipment.)
- Radio base station. (A powerful radio tower which train radios can contact. e.g. To speak to the Dispatcher.)
- Train order office. (Where paper movement orders dictated by the Dispatcher are put into writing for individual train crews.)
The End.
* * *
There is a companion piece to this post which provides illustrations
for many of the topics discussed:
Abilene, Texas - The Texas & Pacific Railway - Illustrations of Classic Railroad Technology
* * *
Local History Bonus!
from: Dallas (Q5); 1944; US Coast & Geodetic Survey. David Rumsey Map Collection. davidrumsey.com |
from: Dallas (Q5); 1944; US Coast & Geodetic Survey. David Rumsey Map Collection. davidrumsey.com |