Texas Railroad History - Tower 136 - Pampa

A Panhandle & Santa Fe Interlocker at Pampa

 


Above: Facing southwest, railroad executive John W Barriger III took this photo from the rear platform of his business car in May, 1940 as his train proceeded eastbound on Panhandle & Santa Fe tracks at Pampa. Visible at far left is a Santa Fe standard interlocker cabin which might have housed some of the electronics for the Tower 136 interlocker. The controls for the Tower 136 interlocker are known to have been located in one of the Santa Fe depots at right, either the freight station in the foreground or the passenger station behind it. Below: A mile and half farther east, Barriger took this photo and subsequently annotated the slide to note the track to Clinton, Oklahoma that departed Pampa at the east end of Santa Fe's double track. The interlocker cabin near the center of the image undoubtedly hosted Tower 136 electronics. (photos courtesy John W Barriger III National Railroad Library)

In the early 1880s, numerous large cattle ranches were founded in the Texas Panhandle. Much of the investment came from Scotland and England in the form of syndicates created to acquire land and operate beef companies. These investments were inspired by the 1881 publication of The Beef Bonanza; Or How to Get Rich on the Plains by James Brisbin, vice-president of the National Cattle and Horse Grower’s Association. Among many others, syndicates operating in the Panhandle included the Texas Land and Cattle Co. (Dundee, Scotland), the Prairie Cattle Co. (Edinburgh, Scotland), the Matador Land and Cattle Co. (Dundee, Scotland), the Cedar Valley Land and Cattle Co. (London, England), the Hansford Land and Cattle Co. (Dundee, Scotland), the Francklyn Land and Cattle Co. (London, England), and the Capitol Freehold Land and Investment Co. (London, England), so named in 1884 because it would develop the enormous XIT Ranch on land granted by the Texas Legislature for the construction of the new Capitol building in Austin. The burgeoning cattle industry would be an excellent source of rail traffic and would stimulate growth in population and commerce, hence the railroads built lines into the Panhandle. The first to do so was the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe (AT&SF, "Santa Fe") Railway through its subsidiary, the Southern Kansas Railroad (SKR.) The SKR had been established to lay tracks in southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma to provide access to the major cattle processing facilities at Kansas City. Expanding into Texas required compliance with Texas railroad ownership laws, so a Texas subsidiary, the Southern Kansas Railway of Texas, was chartered in 1886. It had to be headquartered in Texas, so the nearest major city, Fort Worth, was selected though it was hundreds of miles from the Panhandle. The SKR crossed into Texas and bridged the Canadian River in the summer of 1887 near the town of Canadian, which had been laid out three months earlier on the south bank.

Forty-four miles farther southwest, the SKR founded a station in the late summer of 1887 near Red Deer Creek on land owned by the Francklyn Land and Cattle Co. Initially called Glasgow, the name was changed to Sutton, but that name was rejected by the Post Office due to potential confusion with Sutton County in southwest Texas. The SKR then asked George Tyng to choose a name. Tyng was the manager of the White Deer Land Trust which had acquired title to the land when the Francklyn syndicate went bankrupt. Tyng had traveled extensively through South America, experience that led him to choose the name Pampa because the Panhandle grasslands reminded him of the Pampas Plain in southeastern Argentina. Pampa grew as the county seat of Gray County, becoming a major ranching center amidst the vast plains of the eastern Panhandle.

Left
: This Post Office "location paper" for Pampa shows that the town name had been adopted by September, 1892. (National Archives)

The SKR's construction through Pampa continued another twenty-seven miles southwest, terminating in Carson County where a town was founded. Rather than Carson City as originally envisioned, the railroad chose Panhandle City. The town began to grow; Amarillo had not yet been founded and there were no other towns nearby. At the time, a rail line from Fort Worth to the Panhandle was under construction by the Fort Worth & Denver City Railroad ("FW&DC", but usually just "FW&D" -- "City" was formally dropped in 1951.) The FW&D had agreed to intersect the SKR, but the crossing failed to materialize when the FW&D passed fifteen miles south of Panhandle City. To bridge the gap between Panhandle City and the FW&D, enterprising Fort Worth investors founded the Panhandle Railway. By April, 1888, it was operating to Washburn, a new settlement on the FW&D. As Amarillo grew to become the major commercial center in the Panhandle, the Panhandle Railway became an important link for the SKR to reach Amarillo via Washburn and trackage rights on the FW&D.

In 1899, the SKR used FW&D trackage rights to connect at Amarillo with the Pecos & Northern Texas (P&NT) Railway. The P&NT had been founded by well-known railroad developer James J. Hagerman to be the Texas portion of a line he was building to Amarillo from Roswell, New Mexico. Hagerman's Pecos Valley Railroad had not proved successful, and this led him to realize that the proper outlet for southeast New Mexico cattle and crops was Kansas City which he would reach by building to Amarillo and connecting with Santa Fe. Hagerman's efforts were assisted by Santa Fe, which then acquired the P&NT (and the associated New Mexico railroads) in 1901. The P&NT would become a key part of a major project Santa Fe was planning that would improve their route network for west coast traffic. This project, the Belen Cutoff, was completed in 1908 to provide a shortcut for Kansas City / west coast traffic across eastern New Mexico. From the main line at Belen, south of Albuquerque, the Cutoff proceeded east to a P&NT connection at Farwell, Texas on the New Mexico state line. West coast traffic began moving between Kansas City and Belen via Amarillo and Farwell instead of the original route via Lamar, Colorado and Raton Pass on the New Mexico / Colorado border. The Raton Pass route became a secondary freight line but continued to carry Santa Fe's transcontinental passenger service.

The opening of the Belen Cutoff coincided with Santa Fe commencing operations on a new track extension from Panhandle City to Amarillo. Pecos Valley traffic destined for Kansas City had been making the jog from Amarillo to Washburn to Panhandle City since 1899 using the FW&D and the Panhandle Railway. The track from Washburn to Panhandle City was inadequately constructed to support the substantial increase in traffic that the Cutoff would bring, so the SKR built directly into Amarillo from Panhandle City and abandoned the Panhandle Railway. This resulted in the 1908 closure of Tower 48 where the Panhandle Railway crossed the Chicago, Rock Island & Gulf (CRI&G). In 1914, the SKR's name was changed to the Panhandle & Santa Fe (P&SF) Railway and all of Santa Fe's Panhandle tracks were consolidated into it. By then, the SKR had expanded into the southern Panhandle with a branch line from Canyon south to Plainview and Lubbock. The service into Lubbock allowed Santa Fe to make a connection to a line of its Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe subsidiary that went southeast to Galveston via Sweetwater and Temple.

The 1910 discovery of oil and gas in the Texas Panhandle led to significant volumes of heavy traffic through Amarillo, much of it carried by Santa Fe. In the 1920s, Santa Fe installed a second main track between Canyon and Pampa to improve traffic flow through Amarillo.

Right
: The Amarillo Sunday News-Globe of January 12, 1930 discussed the impact of the region's oil boom on the railroad.
Left: This excerpt from the March 26, 1927 issue of Railway Age is taken from a lengthy article about Santa Fe's oil and gas traffic in the Panhandle. Note that the interlocking (Tower 75) at Amarillo was not "being installed"; it had opened in 1908 but presumably was undergoing expansion to support the double track.  
Right: The April, 1927 edition of Railway Signaling carried this news item regarding Santa Fe's recent purchase of signals and "other material" for installation in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. Signals were to be installed along the 44 miles of single track between Canadian and Pampa, and on 27 miles of double track between Pampa and Panhandle ("City" had been dropped.)

To manage the transition between single and double track lines at Canyon and Pampa, Santa Fe installed interlockers at both locations. At Canyon, Tower 135 was commissioned by the Railroad Commission of Texas (RCT) on December 9, 1927 followed soon thereafter by Tower 136 at Pampa on May 8, 1928. The location of Tower 136 was officially recorded by RCT as "P&SF Yards", but with only nine functions, it is unlikely that any yard tracks were involved in the interlocking, at least at the outset. By contrast, Tower 135 at Canyon had 33 functions because it also managed the junction of the P&SF branch line to Lubbock and some nearby yard sidings. According to notes in the Tower 136 file in the RCT interlocker archives maintained at DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, the interlocker at Pampa was an electronic plant located at the "east end of double track" controlled by a "table type interlocking machine in depot."

Above: Pampa Morning Post, August 14, 1931, discussing FW&D construction                                                           Above: rail lines in the east central Panhandle c.1933

As Pampa grew to become an important county seat in the Panhandle, additional railroads became interested in serving it. In 1927, the Clinton-Oklahoma-Western Railway was chartered to build west into Pampa from the Oklahoma border as the Texas portion of a line back to Clinton, Oklahoma built by the Clinton & Oklahoma Western Railroad. Santa Fe acquired both the Texas and Oklahoma railroads while the line was still being built. Construction into Pampa was completed in 1929. The line between Pampa and Clinton became known as the P&SF Clinton District, part of the Plains Division. The tracks entered Pampa on the northeast edge of town and connected into the P&SF main line.

In 1929, the FW&D chartered the Fort Worth & Denver Northern Railroad to build to Pampa from the FW&D main line at Childress. The route from Childress went due north to Shamrock and then northwest to Pampa through oil rich areas. The line opened in 1932, 110 miles long. The FW&D connected to a siding across from the P&SF depots. There was no need to interlock this connection since it did not intersect the P&SF main line; it was only used for railcar interchanges on a siding.

Right: This excerpt from a Santa Fe Plains Division employee timetable dated June 11, 1939 shows that by then, the Clinton District connection near the "East end double track" of the P&SF main line had been incorporated into the interlocking. Although Tower 136 was commissioned a year before the Clinton track was completed into Pampa, Santa Fe's planning most likely accounted for this connection in the interlocking design. A crossover between the two main tracks and sidings in each direction were all controlled by the interlocker. Whether any of these had been part of the original 9-function interlocking is undetermined.

While oil, gas and agriculture led to substantial track expansion in the Panhandle in the decades of the 1920s and 1930s, the tracks could not all be sustained long term. On the map above, all of the Rock Island (CRI&G) tracks have been abandoned. The Santa Fe lines remain operational except for the branch out of Morse, the branch to Skellytown, and the Clinton District, which was abandoned in the early 1980s. The branch from Panhandle (City) to the massive petrochemical complex at Borger is now operated by the Panhandle Northern Railroad. Only a short segment of the Santa Fe / Rock Island shared track east of Etter remains intact, now operated by the Texas North Western Railroad to provide switching at various industrial sites. The FW&D main line through Amarillo remains active, but in 1970, the line out of Pampa was abandoned to Wellington, 27 miles south of Shamrock. The remaining 31 miles from Wellington to Childress was abandoned in 1992. The Santa Fe and FW&D tracks are now owned by Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF), successor to both railroads.


Left: This annotated Google Map satellite view shows the FW&D route into Pampa curving west and then northwest to make a connection with the P&SF. The short segment across W. Brown St. remains intact to serve a grain silo but all other FW&D tracks have been abandoned.

Below:  The FW&D combo passenger and freight depot was served by a passenger lead and two freight leads as shown on this 1939 update to the Sanborn Fire Insurance map of Pampa.
               
Below Left: The FW&D depot in Pampa remains standing, but its current use is unknown. This view is of the passenger side of the building. The other side fronts S. Russell St. (photo (c) Ron Reiring.) Below Right: A locomotive, perhaps with a couple of passenger cars behind it, has backed into the depot lead of the FW&D passenger station. (Jeff Ford collection)

 
Above Left: satellite view of the FW&D depot in Pampa (Google Earth, May, 2023) Above Right: This view of the street side of the FW&D depot was captured by Google Street View from S. Russell St. in February, 2023. The building's use is unknown but it appears to be well maintained. Below Left: The tracks of the former FW&D connection to the P&SF remain intact...but... Below Right: ...they appear to be out of service to the grain storage facility. Both images were taken from W. Brown St. by Google Street View in July, 2023.
 

 
Above: Two views of the Santa Fe depot at Pampa (courtesy Evan Werkema): left, looking north across the tracks ((c) Doyle Davis, May, 1999), and right, looking southwest down the tracks ((c) James Babcock, c.1955) Below: Both depot buildings remain standing and are used by BNSF. Note that the freight depot requires concrete steps for entry but the passenger depot does not. There's a reason...  (Google Street View, Feb. 2023)

     
Above: In May, 2023, Google Street View captured this view of the P&SF passenger station and freight depot looking across the tracks from E. Tyng Ave. Note that the tracks appear elevated and the windows of the freight depot (at right) are not at the same elevation as the windows of the passenger depot. Evan Werkema explains ...
"In the 1950's, the tracks in front of the Pampa, TX depot were elevated as part of a grade-separation project for a nearby street. The freight room of the depot was raised to the new track level, but the passenger and office portions remained at their original elevation, resulting in an odd split-level appearance." Although only a small portion of the passenger depot is visible in the photo at top of page, it is enough to show that in 1940, the window elevations of the two buildings were the same.

 
Above: This Google Street View from May, 2023 looks northeast from the Highway 171 overpass on the northeast side of Pampa. At left, a westbound BNSF intermodal train approaches Pampa. The track at right curving to a due east heading is a remnant of the Clinton District to Oklahoma. Approximately three miles of track remains in service, mostly used for railcar storage. Below Left: A red sign at the 12 Road grade crossing marks the current end of the former Clinton District. Orange track stops are visible on the other side of the road. Below Right: This view westward along the former Clinton District from the 12 Road grade crossing shows flat cars stored nearly to the end of track.
 

 

 
Last Revised: 11/4/2024 JGK - Contact the Texas Interlocking Towers Page.