Texas & New Orleans

Company History: The T&NO was chartered in 1856 as the Sabine & Galveston Bay Railroad & Lumber Company but adopted the T&NO name three years later after their goals had changed to linking New Orleans with Houston. They built a 5’6” gauge line between Houston and Orange, Texas before progress was halted first by the Civil War, then by the washout of the Trinity River Bridge which was followed by receivership and sale. In 1876, full operations resumed and the line was standard-gauged. New Orleans was finally reached in 1880. Southern Pacific bought control of T&NO in 1881 as part of a program to acquire smaller lines in Texas. Under SP ownership, T&NO merged other lines and built new ones, culminating in the 1934 mass consolidation of all of Southern Pacific’s subsidiaries east of El Paso. The following railroads were merged into Texas & New Orleans that year: Dayton-Goose Creek Rwy.; Franklin & Abbeville; Galveston Harrisburg & San Antonio; Houston & Shreveport; Houston & Texas Central; Houston East & West Texas; Iberia & Vermillion; Lake Charles & Northern; Louisiana Western; Morgan’s Louisiana & Texas Railroad & Steamship Company; San Antonio & Aransas Pass; and Texas Midland. The result was a 3,713 mile T&NO – the new largest railroad in Texas. While T&NO reporting marks were used, Southern Pacific or Southern Pacific Lines got top billing on tenders and rolling stock. In the diesel age, locomotives wore SP style paint. If you can’t quite find the small T&NO reporting marks on their diesels, just look at the road number. Number 2 through 725 on the SP system belong to Texas & New Orleans. In November of 1961, T&NO was finally merged into Southern Pacific.

Successor/Parent History: The Southern Pacific Transportation Company (reporting mark SP), earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually called the Southern Pacific or (from the railroad's initials) Espee, was an American Class I railroad. It was absorbed in 1988 by the company that controlled the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad and eight years later became part of the Union Pacific Railroad.

The railroad was founded as a land holding company in 1865, later acquiring the Central Pacific Railroad by lease. By 1900 the Southern Pacific Company was a major railroad system incorporating many smaller companies, such as the Texas and New Orleans Railroad and Morgan's Louisiana and Texas Railroad. It extended from New Orleans through Texas to El Paso, across New Mexico and through Tucson, to Los Angeles, through most of California, including San Francisco and Sacramento. Central Pacific lines extended east across Nevada to Ogden, Utah, and reached north through Oregon to Portland. Other subsidiaries eventually included the St. Louis Southwestern Railway (Cotton Belt), the Northwestern Pacific Railroad at 328 miles (528 km), the 1,331 miles (2,142 km) Southern Pacific Railroad of Mexico, and a variety of 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge routes.

In 1929 SP/T&NO operated 13848 route-miles not including Cotton Belt, whose purchase of the Golden State Route circa 1980 nearly doubled its size to 3,085 miles (4,965 km), bringing total SP/SSW mileage to around 13,508 miles (21,739 km).

By the 1980s route mileage had dropped to 10,423 miles (16,774 km), mainly due to the pruning of branch lines. In 1988 the Southern Pacific was taken over by D&RGW parent Rio Grande Industries. The combined railroad kept the Southern Pacific name due to its brand recognition in the railroad industry and with customers of both constituent railroads. Along with the addition of the SPCSL Corporation route from Chicago to St. Louis, the total length of the D&RGW/SP/SSW system was 15,959 miles (25,684 km).

By 1996 years of financial problems had dropped SP's mileage to 13,715 miles (22,072 km), and it was taken over by the Union Pacific Railroad.

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