How it started
History
The railroad was built by the Colorado Valley Railway in 1897 as part of a planned service between the Colorado River at Colorado City, Texas and San Angelo. The northern terminus was later changed to Sweetwater, Texas. In 1909, the line became a part of the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway in Texas that ran from the Red River to the Rio Grande. In 1928, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway purchased the line. In 1992, ATSF transferred the right of way and fixed assets to South Orient Rural Rail Transportation District (an instrumentality of the State of Texas) and leased the line and the right to salvage to South Orient Railroad Company. In 1998, South Orient Railroad notified the STB of its intent to abandon the line. The State retained ownership of the line and the South Orient discontinued service. In 2001, the Texas Department of Transportation and Grupo México jointly purchased the line. They formed Texas Pacifico Transportation and began operations in 2004.
The line initially was rehabilitated from San Angelo Junction through San Angelo to Alpine. A $7 million federal FASTLANE grant funded rehabilitation of the remaining 72 miles to Presidio.
On February 29, 2008, the interchange traffic with Ferromex at Presidio was suspended following the Presidio–Ojinaga International Rail Bridge fire damage. Service over the repaired bridge awaits installation of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) inspection facility. It was reported in March 2024 that the Texas Transportation Commission had approved letting of a $33 million project for the inspection facility.
A presentation at the June 2026 Texas Rail Advocates conference showed that construction of the X-Ray inspection facility is well underway. Also, an associated CBP facility is being constructed 2 rail miles north of the bridge.
From Wikipedia’s article on Texas Pacifico Transportation, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2