I posted this the other day on the weekend photo thread, but it probably deserves to be here so someone could find it if they were looking for such a thing. This depot in Lampasas, TX is listed online as a museum, but it's clearly closed and all but abandoned. Sent from my SM-A716U using Tapatalk
That's a very interesting station. It was pretty clearly both a passenger and freight station even before it was expanded. Being between Temple and Brownwood, we think of the line as the Coleman Cutoff. This isn't the Santa Fe Main, of course, but it's a main line by any standard, and made the Santa Fe competitive with the SP from Houston west to the Pacific coast. It's just not the usual thing to see a combination station on a major Santa Fe route. That was branch line fare. Even little Collinsville, OK had a tiny stand-alone passenger station. The Katy or the Midland Valley would have considered the K.C.-Tulsa line a main, had it been theirs. But by Santa Fe standards it was a branch, though a long one, and long glorified by a streamliner. The Santa Fe just wasn't in the habit of stopping real passenger trains at combination stations. Doodlebugs or mixed trains on branch lines, yes. But technically, Lampassas wasn't on the Coleman Cutoff. That line began as a simple branch to San Angelo. The cutoff was built from Coleman, on that branch, to Clovis at a much later date. That promoted that much of the branch to cutoff status, basically making a main line of it after this station was built. The last part, from Coleman to San Angelo, remained a branch, though the army base there later kept it in small passenger trains well into the fifties. The California Special was an interesting, unsung Santa Fe service. Technically this name train only operated from Houston to Temple, on the route of the Antelope, Ranger and Texas Chief. But though it lost its name there, it did keep going. It changed numbers at Temple, because it went from an even numbered northbound to an odd numbered westbound (and vice versa on the return). But even though it had lost its name, it grew longer at Brownwood when cars from Dallas/Ft. Worth were added in (after 1937, when they bought that line from the Frisco). As late as the early sixties that nameless train was liable to run into Lubbock fifteen cars strong, yet it still terminated at Clovis and its through cars were still added to transcontinentals out of Chicago. Why the Special never operated through to California in direct competition with the Sunset I don't know. The San Francisco Chief was an awfully heavy train through the mountains as a result of getting those through cars. It was at least as convenient to and from the Dallas area as riding the West Texas Eagle to a connection at El Paso with the Sunset, and saved travelers between Houston and the San Francisco Bay a change at L.A. That train stopped at this little station, if only when flagged. It's fun to see it. But I'm curious where the tracks are, @Pastor John. That line is still in service. Were you standing near them when you shot the sixth pic?
I walked around two sides of the station and didn't see any tracks. The street that runs alongside is where I would have expected to see tracks. Sent from my SM-A716U using Tapatalk
There does not appear to be an operators bay on the street side. But there is on the opposite side. So that is where the main track should have been. However, if you look at an aerial view, you can see the building has been moved quite some distance from the actual tracks.
No, it wasn't moved. It doesn't look anything like a stub station, but that's what it was, served from a wye. Most lie across the stub ends of their tracks, giving all of them equal access to the station, not alongside like a through station. It's an oddball. This site... https://texashillcountry.com/railroads-hill-country/ ...says Lampassas was the end of the line for three years, during which time the town boomed because of its sulfur springs. Maybe the original plan was to extend the spur, but by the time they saved up the money to continue building the town was blocking the path.
Tracks in that town must have been severely rearranged. I can see where the yard in front of the depot once existed. Yet this "wye"/stub is quite far from the tracks of today. By chance do you know of an older map that better shows this relationship?
Not older than 1921, at least nothing readable. According to a 1954 timetable on streamliner memories, the Special didn't bother to back into the station by that time, but stopped at Radio Junction. It also looks like the line was extended after 1921 to serve an industry or two. I'm finding recent aerial views, but I can't seem to make head nor tails of them.
I found a map with street names. What looks like a wye in the 1921 aerial view isn't. You're right, the wye is far away. And I was wrong about the tracks being extended between 1921 and 1954. The station is at the end of the long curve at the stub end of the spur in the map above. No wonder the road didn't stop their passenger trains there any more. That's quite a detour for a flag stop.
Lampasas is a really nice town on the edge of the hill country. The tracks to the depot have long since been pulled. Hope screencaps from Google Earth are ok on this forum. If not, my bad. In the two screencaps you can see where the existing BNSF line is on the Northeast side of town and where the old depot is, including the old line that accessed it.
Thank you for confirming our guesswork. Do you have any idea if there was any kind of depot facility out at Radio Jct. where the trains made their flag stops?
There's a Proto48 blog with some great information on the Radio Jct site. It was basically a passenger shelter. Not knowing who owns the photos on the site, attached is a link to the Proto 48 blog with a photo and good written description. https://myp48.wordpress.com/2019/02/09/modeling-memories-of-lampasas-texas/
Thank you! I'm glad I asked! Interesting blog. "By the 1960s it was a flag stop for the California Special, Train 75 and 76, and the few times that I rode westbound to Lubbock the nighttime drill was: point the auto east and when you saw the locomotive headlight, flash the car lights and the engineer would stop." What a great country this was before we put the computers in charge.
Olive Street runs along the west side of the tracks on the east side of the old downtown. As Olive goes South it turns into Santa Fe Ln. I can recommend Storm Hamburgers on Highway 281 in Lampasas. Sorry but I never have looked for a station there in 40 years of going to San Antonio from Dallas using 67 and 281, no stress driving through Glen Rose, Hico, Lampasas and Marble Falls. Thanks for all the informative posts.
I grew up in Dallas and lived in the DFW area for a large portion of my life. Like you, I discovered Lampasas taking 67 / 281 to San Antonio on business instead of driving down I35. A MUCH nicer drive. Kind of off the subject...my wife and I have 50 pecan trees where we live in West Central Texas. She discovered that the San Sabe / Lampasas / Goldthwaite area is pecan central in Texas. I wonder if, back in the day (1950's and before), pecans were shipped out of that area via boxcar? That may be a small research project.
Hmmmm. Something such as this could help explain the stub terminal and the multi track yard which once existed in front of that depot.
San Saba County refers to it’s self as “ The Pecan Capital of the World.” I have a friend in the wholesale food business, he has told me his pecan buyers specify the type ( numerous varieties) of San Saba Pecan they want, they buy in increments of whole boxcars. It seems only natural their orders would come through Lampassas from a historical standpoint. Were pecans gathered in bags and then taken to a nearby ATSF freight station by truck? I model the ATSF in central and west Texas in the mid 1950’s. I have more 40’ box cars than anything else. Any pictures taken of bags of pecans being loaded into box cars?
No pecan loaded boxcar photos that I know of. The current pecan shipments are put in large white bags that are kind of tall and skinny. They are loaded in semi trailers. These bags probably hold 200 pounds or so each. Back in the day they were probably shipped in burlap bags, but I have no proof. My wife and one of here friends took a day trip to San Saba back in February to visit a couple of the large growers. Someone there might have an idea about shipping in the 1950's.
For much more accurate information see : Santa Fe Depots - Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway by Robert Pounds and Bill Childers, published by the SFRH&MS. I should have looked at this first, San Saba Freight Station was the loading point for the San Saba Pecan Co ( Chase Family) as well as by truck. I’m looking for pictures now. Originally by bag, now boxed with a liner. There are many small family pecan producers in the San Saba area as well as other parts of Texas and southern Oklahoma. Thanks Skyraider.
