Dear Roy, Stephenville was the last town in Erath County to get a Railroad. Best I remember it was the Santa Fe. It had passenger trains which stopped at Bluff Dale for water. I have letters and a diary of my Great Aunt Susie Moxley from Johnn Tarleton College riding this train with college friends to visit college friends and their parents in Bluff Dale, Texas. Hico and Duffau had the first ones which had horse drawn taxi service to Stephenville. Don't know2 if the TP at Thurber, Erath County was oldest or not, but it brought hundreds of European Immigrants in less than 5"tall, to mine the thin hard coal veins. TP Coal and Oil actively recruited these immigrants and paid the expense for their families to come to Thurber and live in company owned houses. This was a main line to California from Fort Worth. Not sure , but I think the one at Duffau was the old I & GN or "Tin Can Railroad. The one at Hico was the old Texas Central with roundhouse, for turning locomotives, the shops, the lake for steam powered shops, the Texas Central Hospital on Steele Creek, the Texas Central College and Railroad houses. It sold out to MKT- Missouri- Kansas- Texas- or Katy who closed the shops and moved them to Waco. A few years later they were moved to McKinney. The old shops in Waco were used by R.G. Letorneau Tech during the Korean and Vietnam War to make artillery shell casings. The building still stands. The Katy shops in Walnut Springs were moved by the WPA in the 1930's to the school and became a gym with a stage at one end and Vocational Agriculture classrooms below the stage. There were two classrooms at the entrance . One was used as a comodity storage and one was a concession stand where we enterred the lunch room under the bleachers. The dressing rooms were under the south bleachers. The buildingg is no longer standing, but the school thrives. The Katy followed the Hwy 6 from Meridian to Albany or Anson Sheetrock and lime plants into the 1970's, appx. Birdsong Peanut in Gorman bought the tracks from Gorman to Dublin to get bulk peanuts to the Stephenville RR Tracks for shipment to Georgia and others who made peanut candy. Another RR was the Stephenville, Alexander and Orient, which ran trains but went broke before completion. Alexander no longer has a school or church- They had a High School in the 1940's . If these schools were so bad, how did their students get so smart and become so successful with 7 or 8 month of school a year???? Somerville County is probably the only county without a Railroad, unless one was laid to service the Comanche Peak Neuclear Plant. Private investors built a Railroad grade embankment from Walnut Springs to Glen Rose. No track was ever laid, but the grade is still visible. The Texas Electric Interurban - 1 & 2 cars- joined Waco to Fort Worth and Dallas and once extended farther north and some say it went to Temple- following I-35- the old Spanish Arkansas trail to Mexico- and a major stagecoach route. Today you will see busses and trucks from Mexico on I-35 which are not required to meet Texas safety standards, but most look in good shape. . We often see convoys of 2 vehicles in tow going to Mexico , especially pickups, to be rebuilt and returned to Texas dealers. Transporthation changes. A RR agent in Elm Mott, William Custeed and a friend Mr. Whitehead of Ohio flew 8 moveable wing aircraft 6 years before the Wright Brothers and had a contract with the War Department to develop the airships- see book with Tribune Herald photos and stories called " Did William Custeed Fly First?" by Nick Pocock He supposedly flew it from Elm Mott to Tokio and back- at least 7 miles. If I had been one of the first generation Czech immigrants he flew over, I certainly would not have told about it, especially since the McLennan County Ku Klux Klan told their children that people who did not speak English and attended Catholic Schools, were not " White"They look white to me- many of their grandchildren attend Baylor University. Confused yet? Happy Hunting Charles Wyly On Thu, 03 Sep 1998 10:55:29 -0500 Roy Ables <roya@airmail.net> writes: >How would I go about finding information as to when RAILROADS >first came to Erath County and their names? > >Thanks for any help. > >-- >Roy Ables >Home Address 1808 Stolper Dr. Arlington, Tx 76013 >Genealogy Home Page http://users.why.net/roya >E-Mail roya@airmail.net > > > _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]