T & P Railroad History
SERVICES PROVIDED BY THE T&P
Down through the years since the railroad spanned
the breadth of Texas, the Texas and Pacific had contin-
ued to help spearhead the growth and development of
West Texas and the Southwest. From that day a cen-
tury ago when Kelly and Beale pulled into Fort Worth,
the T&P had grown into a family of approximately 10,-
000 railroaders equipped with the tools and the skill
and the desire to make the Texas and Pacific's service
the finest in the field of transportation.
During the ensuing years, schedules were speeded up
to transport not only their patrons hut the necessities of
life-the commerce of the nation-to all parts of the
country and to our armed forces abroad.
Heavier rails were laid, more freight cars added to
meet increasing traffic demands, and many stations
were built anew or remodeled in the T&P's moderniza-
tion program. In West Texas, modern and attractive
new freight and passenger stations were constructed at
all points along the line. Faster and more convenient
schedules, radio and short-wave equipment for greater
train operating efficiency, and safer, more comfortable
and attractive coaches, diners and sleeping cars were
added.
J.T. Suggs, President, Texas and Pacific Railway
Company, says:
Never before in the history of the T&P have we
had such a wide variety of services to sell the buy-
ers of freight and passenger transportation. We
have rail, truck, truck-rail and piggyback services
for the shipping public; and family plan fares, spe-
cial group rates, time pay credit plan and thrifty
meals for coach and Pullman passengers. Never
before has the variety and the quality of our ser-
vices been better or the transportation capacity of
our railroad greater.
Perhaps no industry is more safety conscious than
the railroad. Although the Texas and Pacific had not
suffered a passenger fatality in well over a quarter of a
century of service, it was an active promoter of safety.
The public always was invited to its steady succession
of safety rallies up and down the lines. Motion pictures,
entertainment and refreshments were features of these
safety meetings. From the standpoint of safety, hus-
bands and fathers were assured their wives and chil-
dren were traveling the safest way on the T&P. While
the ever-increasing accident toll continued to mount on
the highways, it was just the opposite on the T&P rails.
Of all its improvements, one of the most important to
the Texas and Pacific and to the people in the South-
west was completed in April, 1952. That improvement
was the complete dieselization of all its passenger,
freight and yard services. The roaring, chugging steam
engines were gone - the T&P now boasted its comple-
ment of sleek and powerful streamliners - the diesel
locomotives. Its entire motive power was provided by
those powerful giants of the transportation world, and
the Texas and Pacific was one of the few major rail-
roads in the nation to claim this distinction.
This diesel power represented an investment of more
than $30,000,000. Besides providing the shippers and
patrons with the finest in rail transportation service,
the T&P's huge investments in improvements and bet-
terments reflected the railroad's confidence in the fu-
ture and the T&P's faith in the people of this great sec-
tion of the nation.
The passenger cars were air-conditioned. Beneath
streamlined turtle-backed roofs, the ceilings were low
and the view of the countryside was through wide pic-
ture windows of non-steaming safety glass. Light fix-
tures were fluorescent, and the interiors were finished
in a pleasing modern decor. The dining cars and the
chair cars were streamlined and repaired for the maxi-
mum in comfort, convenience and safety. Verna M. Ni-
coll, a tiny rate and division clerk in the passenger sec-
tion of the Auditor Revenues Department, transcribed
letters and reading material for the blind into Braille.
The T&P provided a wide selection of accommoda-
tions which appealed to women. These accommoda-
tions all had powder mirrors, hot and cold water, toilet,
soap and towels. All were equipped with inside lock
doors. Comfort was enhanced by the large beds, soft
seats, freshly laundered linens, individual lighting and
individually controlled air-condition switches.
The Bedroom suite in the sleeping cars provided four
sleeping berths and was appointed with lounge chairs
and divans, large wardrobe closets, private toilets and
lavatories. The Compartment provided sleeping quar-
ters for two and had full-length sofas, large lounge
chair and private toilets and lavatories. With connect-
ing bedrooms, a sliding partition could be folded back
and the space doubled. Women traveling with children
had special preference to Bedrooms and Bedroom
Suites. The Roomette had a big drop-type bed, ward-
robe closet, ample luggage space, and private toilet and
lavatory.
The lounge car and diners afforded added travel
pleasures. In the lounges the ladies may have refresh-
ments, read the latest magazines (which T&P provides),
write letters, or just sit and enjoy the friendly atmos-
phere with fellow travelers. The dining cars offered the
best of foods . . . whether T&P's "Tasty 'n' Thrifty"
economy meal or the railroad's finest mutli-course din-
ner . . . amid the most attractive setting in the trans-
portation world. T&P diners served nearly 100,000 cups
of "Coffee-on-the-House" everyday ... at 10 a.m. and
3 p.m. ... compliments of the railroad.
Another service of the T&P was the educational tours
that were conducted for groups of school children to
points of interest on their lines. The educational tours
were discontinued at the outset of the Korean conflict
but were resumed on September 1, 1953. These tours
were designed to acquaint the children with the advan-
tages of train travel. Detailed information regarding
schedules and rates for tours were provided by the Pas-
senger Traffic Department upon request. Many of the
school children in Monahans rode the T&P as a class
from Monahans to Wickett or Pyote with their mothers
and friends picking them up at that destination. Max-
ine Casey Moore recalls going with a group to the
Texas Centennial in Dallas in 1936.
The T&P also provided humorous and interesting
services, sometimes knowingly and sometimes un-
knowingly. Scott "Moon" Garrison of Monahans re-
lated the services to the hoboes along the T&P lines:
Located on the north side of the railroad track in
the brush (200 yards west of the depot) was what
was known as "Hobo Jungle" where thirty or forty
hoboes built places where cold wouldn't hit them.
Once in a while one of these "gun-shooters" would
be on the train and the special agents on the train
would stop the train and unload him. The hoboes
always had "Mulligan Stew" going. How would
these hoboes operate? They would know which
houses to call on (by certain markings on the gate
posts). They'd pick up food from the townspeople
and always kept this stew pot going in "Hobo Jun-
gle."
Once in a while they'd (the townspeople) clean
out the jungle. Most of the time the T&P'd let them
ride the trains. The hoboes even had stoves in the
box cars. They went where they wanted to. During
the Depression they just lived in a traveling box-
car. Some of the hoboes were tough. An escaped
convict out of Oklahoma was taken off the train at
Wink.
Another employee of the railroad, Paul Frame, re-
lated another humorous incident:
While I was Agent for the T&P Railway and
Railway Express Agency at Barstow in about the
year 1924-5, we had a passenger-express train from
the west due at Barstow around 4 P.M. Every Fri-
day Charlie Dyer, who operated a grocery store in
Barstow, received quite a shipment of produce
from Crombie and Company, El Paso. After un-
loading this shipment on a four-wheeled baggage
truck, I pulled it in the clear of the train. The Ex-
press messenger, Bud Neeley, told me to pull up
another empty truck to the baggage car door, then
he told me to get my hatchet. As I came out the of-
fice door with the hatchet, I saw him unload a
large wooden shipping crate, about four feet
square onto the truck. When I handed him the
hatchet, he immediately started tearing into this
large box. After tearing off about a foot of boards,
I heard him say, "Come out of there." A young
man about nineteen or twenty years of age came
crawling out of the box. Neeley told me ever since
he left El Paso he had a funny feeling, like some-
one was watching him, said it finally got the best
of him and after leaving Pecos, he went up to this
box, kicked it and said, "What are you doing in
there?" And this young man answered him. The
train pulled out leaving the box and the boy with
me. I made him sit on the depot platform until I got
the sheriff, John Wade, down there and took
charge of the boy. It was learned later that he was
a deserter from the army. He got homesick and
talked two of his buddies to nail him up in the box
with a couple of bottles of soda pop and some or-
anges, and ship him to his parents in Fort Worth.
This was from Los Angeles. The army sent men af-
ter him and John Wade collected fifty dollars for
capturing him.
As a youngster Walter Burkholder of Barstow re-
called some of the entertainment the railroad unknow-
ingly provided him:
There used to be two trains a day, east and west,
one in the afternoon about one o'clock going one
way and about an hour later one going the other
way. They met at Toyab. The night train would
come through about one or two o'clock and we
used to catch the blinds and ride it to Pecos, run up
to Jim King's hamburger stand and eat a bowl of
chili for a dime and then run back to the station
and catch the blinds back to Barstow. The blinds
were between the engine and the baggage car.
Why one of us never got killed I'll never know. Six
or eight of us would be hanging on the blinds. Two
or three times a week, we'd go over and get us a
bowl of chili.
Another thing we used to do for entertainment
was to watch the circus come to town. Back in
those early days (1916) the Barnum and Bailey Cir-
cus would travel by train and go from El Paso to
Abilene. This was too far for them to travel, and
they always had to stop at Monahans for water
and exercise. We used to catch a local. Some of the
boys would catch local box cars and go down to
Monahans to watch them unload the elephants,
horses, camels, and take the sides off the cages of
the wild animals. We'd get to see a circus of our
own-free. Then we'd catch the local and ride
back.
James Milton Frame of Ruidoso, New Mexico, came
to this area in 1889 with his brother, W.L. "Sport".
Frame, who came as Agent for the T&P. The depot
that time was a very small affair, with an old box car
for a freight house. His brother was an expert telegra-
pher and taught J.M. telegraphy. He worked in Midland
for several years and returned to Monahans in 1893
His son, Paul, was born in Monahans in 1900 and gives
us some insight as to the work here:
As little history of Monahans as I remember and
as my parents, Mr. and Mrs. J.M. Frame, have told
me I'll try to relate to you. My uncle, "Sport"
Frame came in 1888 from Kimbolton, Ohio, and
went to work nights as a telegrapher. The next
year his family and ours moved to Monahans. My
father also started studying telegraphy. In those
days in order to study telegraphy you had to hang
around a depot, but to do this you had to work for
the Agents, doing all the flunkey work. One agent
at Odessa was in the coal business and my father
had to unload coal from a coal car in order to have
the privilege of staying in the depot to study teleg-
raphy. After having qualified, he was sent to Mid-
land to work nights, twelve hours a day then. This,
of course, was the old Texas and Pacific Railway.
He later was agent at Metz, Monahans, Allamore,
Odessa and Pecos. After having worked for the
T&P for twenty-seven years, he moved to New
Mexico to work for the old El Paso and Southwest-
em Railroad. When I went to work for the T&P, I
went to work on the same job my dad did, both at
nights, but mine was only for eight hours and his
was for twelve hours. I went to work on the third
trick-twelve midnight till eight o'clock.
The young people were great at playing pranks,
such as hanging dummies where the porter on the
night passenger train would step right against it
and report a hanging at Monahans when the train
got to Odessa, or take a poor dirty bum and strip
him in the depot and scrub him down with 20 Mule
Team Borax, then buy him new clothes.
The Texas and Pacific was not content with running
a line from Fort Worth to El Paso, but they became in-
terested in initiating "short" lines to service the terri-
tory leading to the main line. One of these short lines to
be added was the Texas-New Mexico Railway Com-
pany which was chartered on November 17, 1927, and
opened in 1928. It extended from Monahans to Loving-
ton, N.M., but only 37~ miles of the line are in Texas.
The service on this road consisted of a mixed train
daily each way, and the schedule carried a unique note
"subject to delay account freight connections."
This was one of the longest new road construction
projects completed by the T&P since the turn of the
century. 123 miles in length from Monahans to Loving-
ton, the construction was undertaken when develop-
ment of the country to the north made it apparent that
a rail outlet was necessary. At first there was some
rivalry and controversy as to whether the new branch go
northward from Pyote or from Monahans, but it was
decided that Monahans was the logical place for this
intersection, and in November, 1928, construction fi-
nally got under way.
One train and engine crew, a crew of civil engineers,
and some 200 laborers started to work. One usually
thinks of 1928 as modern days of all normal conven-
iences. Such was not the case with this Texas-New
Mexico job. The road was constructed through country
for the most part unpopulated, and it was necessary to
provide bunk and dining cars for the crews and labor-
ers.
Meals for the train crew were provided by them-
selves, cooked over a two-burner oil stove and served
cowboy style. The bath problem was solved by the use
of the engineer's cab as a bathhouse where there was
plenty of cold water in zero weather. Working hours
were set at 14 to 16 hours per day in order to complete
the road into Wink and Kermit on time. On New Year's
Eve, 1928, the road was completed into Wink and the
occasion was celebrated with a banquet. At Kermit
there was a two day celebration. After completing the
railroad to the New Mexico line, it was delayed one
year. Later it was built into Lovington, a distance of 113
miles. The service on this road met the immediate
needs of the developing oilfields.
One of the railroad contracting firms who was in-
strumental in building the T&NM was Allbands and
Davis, a firm composed of R.E. Davis and I.L. Allhands
of Dallas. Mr. Allhands says in a letter dated April 1,
1960, to Mrs. D.M. Parmelee:
Our first introduction to your western country
was better than 40 years ago. It was during a time
when we were busy on highway and railroad con-
struction in three or four states, that an harrassing
attack of "oil fever" struck us. Long before most
men positively knew that treasures of oil waited
beneath that desert country, E.P. Turner, (former
General Passenger Agent of the Texas & Pacific
Railroad) and E.L. Stratton, both of Dallas, had
fired us with enthusiasm of its oil possibilities.
Through them we invested several thousand dol-
lars in lease spreads, but we were ahead of our
time, for those leases lapsed long before oil was
discovered. An entry in my diary for March 4th,
1920, tells of our getting off the train in Pecos that
morning ... Before long Mr. C.E. Mitchell, chief
engineer of the Texas and Pacific, was sending out
invitations calling for bids on a 35 mile railroad ex-
tension from Monahans to this booming city of
Wink. And so it was that several contractors got
off the train at Monahans, September 25, 1928, a
party composed of Perch Hill and his partner Wil-
son, Roll Johnston, George McCall, G.T. Moore,
R.E. Davis and J.L. Alihands.
We were met by engineers M.L. Ford and G.L.
Davis. Their only conveyance was a Ford truck
with a bed. In fact, such an outfit was about the
only thing that could traverse that sandy waste-
land. We all stood up in that truck bed and headed
up a row of white stakes where lizards scuttled
and where pack rats did not have much to pack.
The firm of Allhands and Davis were low bid-
ders on this extension which was to be a rush job,
for there was oil to haul out and material to move
in. The writer looked after our work out of Joplin,
Missouri, office and my partner, R.E. Davis, spent
90 frenzied days crowding our mule teams in an
endeavor to keep the grading out of the way of the
tracklayers.
"Moon" Scott Garrison says that he came to Mona-
hans in December, 1927, and worked as cashier at the
T&P Railroad. At that time there was no T&NM as we
came to know it later. He worked three months as cash-
ier and then went to work for Shell Oil Company, but
soon he came back to T&P as switcher while working
for Shell. On November 28, 1928, he went to work for
the T&NM Railroad:
I was on a work train going as far as Cheyenne
or the draw between Kermit and Jal, just 1~ miles
this side of the state line. Cheyenne had lots of rail-
road workers. We got "hung up" eight miles out.
For a long time we had to open the wire gate and
then shut it A rancher stopped us from laying
track. He had a 30-30 and ordered us not to cross
his fence until we got an injunction His neighbor
reached for his 30-30. They were fixin' to move a
herd across the track.
When the T&NM was first built from here to
Wink, we had two trains daily to carry freight. Be-
fore the T&NM was built, more freight was set off
at Pyote than at any other point between El Paso
and Dallas. When the spur went out of here, freight
went by rail. Before that, we had fifteen or twenty
wagon loads of pipe at a time. We just had an old
dirt road to travel on. Monahans was more cen-
trally located for the spur. They were figuring on it
going through to Clovis. It went to Lovington.
When I came to Monahans in 1927, I slept three
nights on my desk in the depot before I could get a
room. Then I got a room from Mary and Sam
Keithley. "Happy" Cockrum, Tom Wilson, and E.L
Camel were brakemen on the T&NM. Bill Barnell
and "Puss" Taylor worked some.
The T&NM train is still running (1979). The
Christmas before I retired in 1977, we came in with
166 cars and three engines. Once we ran to Jal with
thirteen cars of clay when they had a "wild" well.
Every truck around here was hauling clay, too.
Lovington was a big stock loading center. They
had cattle cargo which would come to Monahans
to be put on a train going east. We would pull off
our engine, put a T&P engine and caboose on and
away they'd go. I'd ride in the "box" (caboose) to
see if dirt was flying or if we'd get a "hot box" or
watch the train going around the curve.
If you worked sixteen hours, you had to be off
ten hours. Sixteen hours was "hog saw"-the
length of time the crew would work. They'd send
out a "dogcatcher" if we had to have a relief crew.
We'd tie up on fifteen hours and 59 minutes be-
cause we could go back to work in eight hours.
We bad a train wreck about nine miles out of
Hobbs near the Sun Camp. The track just kicked
under the train. Then we had another one coming
around a curve out of Cheyenne in which the cars
overturned. Then Jesse Casey sideswiped a bunch
of cars at Jal. The crew that started working on the
T&NM were Walt Hamlin, engineer, and Kim
Terry, conductor.
Soon after 1928 Monahans began to feel the begin-
ning of the oil boom that came to Ward County in the
ensuing years. Bert Morris, another employee of the
T&NM, gives us another insight on these developments
as he rode the line:
After the depression I went to work on the Texas
and New Mexico. Things had begun to pick up
somewhat. In fact, it was not unusual for us to
bring in from 100 to 150 cars from Lovington and
put them in the yard here in Monahans. Very sel-
dom we worked under sixteen hours a day. There
was a lot of building going on up that way and a lot
of oil being shipped out. A little extra boom came
along, and the T&P built a bunch of these loading
racks and shipped the oil by rail. That was about
the time the Permian Basin was being drilled. The
Keystone was about the hottest spot about that
time. It seems like I remember that you could get
up on top of that train at night and you could see
nothing but a string of lights on the oil rigs all the
way from Eunice to Crane. It was just something
else, that's all. Then the T&P was really on a boom.
The New Mexico oil was shipped in by car and at
that time they had seven "dodgers" running out of
Monahans. They would take as many cars as they
could take up Duoro hill (in Ector County), put
them in the yard there, and come back and get an-
other load. From Duoro hill, one engine could pull
as many as two engines could pull up the hill, This
lasted until the oil companies got their pipe lines
completed. Mr. Fred Gispon was the agent for the
T&P at that time.
As a young boy Jesse Casey worked in the office of
R.E. Davis of the construction firm that built the T&NM
Railroad.
He says.'
In 1919 we moved to Wickett which was Aroya
at that time. When I graduated from high school, I
went to work on the T&NM Railroad. I helped to
build this railroad, first hauling cross ties with a
model T Ford truck. Then I got a job as office boy
for Mr. Ruben Davis who was Vice-President and
General Manager of T&NM. I was on the work
train as brakeman laying the rails for several
months. Then I was promoted to conductor, and in
1941 I moved to El Paso where I retired from Texas
and Pacific in 1974. I remember the two huge
wooden water tanks just west of the highway
crossing that goes north. Every train stopped here
for water which was pumped from a hand dug
well, now abandoned, and where the little steel
building called the depot now is. (1979)
Another service th T&P provided was the T&P Motor
Transport which was started in Monahans in 1935.
Andy Anderson and his wife Gladys opened their
home to the truck drivers. The first truck foreman was
Nile Cook. The T&P Railway bought a mail permit to
Lovington. This was the beginning of the truck run into
Dallas and on into Louisiana. This trucking business
developed into carrying merchandise that was uni
loaded at points along the main line-Big Spring, Mid-
land, Odessa, Monahans-and trucked out in all direc-
tions north and south of the railroad to nearby towns.
B.D. Martin worked for this short line for 35 years;
George Paylor for over 40 years. Holt Eastland says:
I went to work for the T&P Motor Transport in
1937 and worked both in Big Spring and Monahans
for about six years before I went to work for the
Cabot Company in Wickett. We trucked merchan-
dise from the towns along the main line to the area
towns north and south of the railroad. When I
came to Monahans, I ran the mail route to Loving-
ton since at that time the T&NM only carried
freight. During the war it carried passengers.
AND THEN
On March 22, 1967, this beautiful era of passenger
service passed into oblivion. On this day the Texas and
Pacific Railway ended passenger train service for Fort
Worth to El Paso. On this day the last two trains, one
heading for Fort Worth and the other to El Paso, passed
each other for the last time. This marked the first time
Monahans had been without passenger service in more
than 65 years. Commercial airlines and super-highways
helped to kill passenger train service to West Texas.
The eastbound train, No.26, pulled out of Monahans at
4:30 A.M. and was to terminate its last run in Fort
Worth about 1 P.M. The westbound train, No.27, de-
parted at 7 A.M. for El Paso and was due there about
seven hours later. At the end, T&P usually had one day
coach on each train. For years the line had four trains
complete with pullmans, dining cars, and a lounge. In
1963 the line dropped sleepers on two of the four trains.
And the next year, two Texas Eagles were discontinued.
Later, the other pullman cars were eliminated.
T&P cited continued financial deficit operations as reasons
for each action.
Courtesy: Ward County 1887-1977 Historical Archives.
Last Updated: August 04, 1998