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Business View Magazine
Moving new product on one of west texas’ old rail lines
While it’s true that the railroads helped build the
American west - for years carrying goods and people
further and further athwart the U.S. heartland - the
fate of individual rail lines has not always been one of
continued growth and expansion. Take the 115-year-
old South Orient Line in Texas, whose tracks run about
400 miles from Presidio on the Mexican border to a
junction, just north of San Angelo. The line was origi-
nally built in 1900 by the Kansas, Mexico & Orient
Railway - the vision of one Arthur Stillwell of Kansas
City, who wanted to connect his mid-western town to
the trade routes of the Orient by way of Topolobampo,
Mexico, a small outpost on the Gulf of California.
Several times over the past century, the South Orient
was on the verge of extinction, as witnessed by the
number of times it changed hands. First, it was bought
by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe line; then by the
South Orient Rural Rail Transportation District in 1991,
when it became the South Orient Rail Road; and final-
ly, in 2001, the State of Texas bought the track and the
right of way, leasing it to Texas-Pacifico Transportation.
