Heart Of Texas

Company History: The HTR launched in January of 2013 to take over operation of the bankrupt Gulf Colorado & San Saba, who operated the former Santa Fe line from Lometa west to San Saba and Brady, in central Texas. Total length is about 68 miles. In May of 2013, the timber approach trestle to the line’s crossing of the Colorado River caught fire and was destroyed. (This is the Colorado River that runs from Lamesa, Texas southeast through Austin to the Gulf of Mexico at Bay City, not the Colorado River that starts in Granby, Colorado and runs southwest through the Grand Canyon, and forms the California-Arizona border.) The trestle has been rebuilt (concrete and steel this time) and the line reopened reportedly at the cost of $4 million. The new owners had high hopes for this line, moving frac sand from pits on the line to supply the region’s booming oil and gas drilling business. In 2016, Heart of Texas was purchased by the OmniTRAX family of shortlines and re-christened the Central Texas & Colorado River Railroad.

Successor/Parent History: OmniTRAX, Inc is one of North America’s largest private railroad and transportation management companies with interests in railroads, terminals, ports and industrial real estate. OmniTRAX operates a network of 21 regional and short line railroads that cover 12 states in the US and 3 provinces in Canada. The company’s railroads have interchanges with BNSF, CN, CSXT, NS & UP, and transport commodities within the Agricultural, Aggregate & Industrial Mineral, Energy, Food, Crude Oil, Chemical, Lumber, Metal, Petroleum and Plastic industries.

Brief History: The U.S. is a country of 50 states covering a vast swath of North America, with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii extending the nation’s presence into the Pacific Ocean. Major Atlantic Coast cities are New York, a global finance and culture center, and capital Washington, DC. Midwestern metropolis Chicago is known for influential architecture and on the west coast, Los Angeles' Hollywood is famed for filmmaking.