Texas Mexican Railway

19th century

Chartered in March 1875, the Corpus Christi, San Diego and Rio Grande Gauge Railroad built a 3 ft (914 mm) narrow-gauge line from Corpus Christi, Texas to Rancho Banquete, Texas between 1875 and 1877, and then on to San Diego, Texas by 1879. This 52-mile (84 km) line's main purpose was to take domestic sheep from Texas ranches to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and received some funding from Richard King and Mifflin Kenedy. In 1881, the line was sold to a syndicate that included William J. Palmer and it was given a new charter as the Texas Mexican Railway. Under this document, the line was built an additional 110 miles (180 km) to Laredo, Texas. While the charter also allowed for other lines which would have made a 1,400-mile (2,300 km) network, including one line from San Diego to the Sabine River with branch lines to Tyler, Galveston, San Antonio, Texas, and Sabine Pass, these expansions were never constructed. The small Galveston, Brazos and Colorado Railroad was purchased in 1881 for a connection to Galveston, but a line was never built between the two railroads.

In 1883 a bridge was built across the Rio Grande to Nuevo Laredo, making the Tex-Mex the first Mexico–United States rail connection. This granted rail access for all of Northern Mexico to the Port of Corpus Christi, devastating international commerce in Brownsville in the lower Rio Grande Valley, and its deep water port, Los Brazos de Santiago. This rail connection also devastated the commercial navigation of the Rio Grande, between Rio Grande City, Camargo (Mexico), Brownsville, and Los Brazos de Santiago, located adjacent to the mouth of the Rio Grande.

It was not until 1889 that the North American rail system connected Mexico with Canada. In 1910 an international rail bridge was completed in Brownsville, Texas and Matamoros, Tamaulipas, which is currently owned and operated by the Brownsville and Matamoros Bridge Company and operates as the Brownsville & Matamoros International Bridge, a joint venture of the Union Pacific and the Mexican government.

20th century

The Mexican government controlled the Tex-Mex from 1900 to 1982, when privatization made it part of Grupo TFM. The railway became 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge on July 17, 1902. In 1906 it bought the Texas Mexican Northern Railway, and in 1930, the San Diego and Gulf Railway. They also began operating a 19-mile (31 km) US government railroad from Corpus Christi to a naval air station in 1940.