Railroad Authority considers changes to make lines look more historic

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September 14, 2012

Railroad Authority considers changes to make lines look more historic

Faith Harper Jacksonville Daily Progress The Jacksonville Daily Progress Fri Sep 14, 2012, 09:10 AM CDT

JACKSONVILLE — Texas State Railroad Authority board members and the new management of the rail line discussed potential changes to operations at its first meeting since Iowa Pacific Holdings took over in August.

Steve Presley, chairman of the TSRA, said the group discussed potential changes to the brand image at its meeting Thursday morning.

“American Heritage (the former rail operator) has its way of doing their railroads and now Iowa Pacific has a different way of looking at it,” he said Thursday afternoon. “The focus changed a little. Iowa Pacific is ... much more historic-minded.”

Presley said the new company intends to repaint all or portions of its small steam engine number 201 to reflect its history. The engine was built in 1901 and ran on the former Texas and Pacific rail line under the number 316 until 1949, according to the company's website.

The new company logo also resembles the Texas and Pacific logo from long ago.

The Authority discussed funding, about $1.8 million, set aside to purchase a new train set. Presley said the TSRA and American Heritage were looking to purchase cars from the 1950s and '60s era to give the line some variety. Most of its current cars were built in the 1920s.

“The set we were looking at ... Iowa Pacific bought them before we could,” he said.

Presley said the set was purchased by Iowa Pacific's parent company, but that does not give the subsidiary the rights to use them. He said Iowa Pacific leaders would have to sit down and decide if the Texas State Railroad subsidiary could lease, trade out or be granted the trains, as well as how to reallocate the money set aside to purchase them.

In total, the TSRA has about $7 million in grant money to lend toward historic preservation projects.

“It's a new company and we want to focus the grants to focus on their goals,” Presley said.

Presley said the group discussed potentially adding a “historic preservation” fee to ticket prices. The proposed fee would go toward restoration projects the TSRA does not currently have grant funds to complete.

The fee was proposed when American Heritage operated the railroad, and has come up again under its new owner.

“We have a lot of old pieces in Rusk that are way beyond the money we have to restore them,” he said. There is no way to restore them under their current condition, and we wanted to look at ways to conserve them before they rotted away.”

Presley said he hopes once the fees are collected, he hopes historical groups and train enthusiasts, including the Texas State Railroad Society, would volunteer time to help complete projects.

Officials have not formally approved the measure and have not decided if it will come in the form of a ticket price percentage or a specific dollar amount.

Iowa Pacific General Manager Earl Knoob could not be reached by press time.

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Railroad Authority considers changes to make lines look more historic

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