The Fort Worth and Western Railroad is a Class III

short-line railroad :''Short Line is also one of the four railroads in the American version of the popular board game Monopoly, named after the Shore Fast Line, an interurban streetcar line.'' A shortline railroad is a small or mid-sized railroad company that opera ...

headquartered in

Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. According ...

. Operating only within the state of Texas, its main freight service route is between Carrollton, Fort Worth and Brownwood.

History

Much of the company's route originally belonged to the

Fort Worth and Rio Grande Railway The Fort Worth and Rio Grande Railway, chartered under the laws of Texas on June 1, 1885, was part of a plan conceived by Buckley Burton Paddock and other Fort Worth civic leaders to create a transcontinental route linking New York, Fort Worth ...

, which began construction from Fort Worth in 1886 and reached Brownwood in 1891. In 1901, the FW&RG was bought by the

Frisco Railway Frisco may refer to: Places in the United States *Frisco, Alabama, an unincorporated community *San Francisco, California, as a nickname *Frisco, Colorado, a home rule municipality **Frisco Historic Park – see Frisco Schoolhouse * Frisco, Idaho ...

, which sold it to the

Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, and S ...

in 1937. The Santa Fe sold the line to an affiliate of the South Orient Railroad in 1994. The FWWR began operations in 1988, with of track that it had bought from the

Burlington Northern The Burlington Northern Railroad was a United States-based railroad company formed from a merger of four major U.S. railroads. Burlington Northern operated between 1970 and 1996. Its historical lineage begins in the earliest days of railroadin ...

. By the mid-1990s, the railroad operated of track, the result of numerous minor acquisitions. In 1996, the FWWR more than doubled its total trackage with the lease of a route from

Dallas Area Rapid Transit Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) is a transit agency serving the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex of Texas. It operates buses, light rail, commuter rail, and high-occupancy vehicle lanes in Dallas and twelve of its suburbs. In , the system had a ...

, and in 1998 purchased of track from South Orient Railroad, now

Texas Pacifico Transportation Texas Pacifico Transportation Ltd. is a Class III railroad operating company in West Texas owned by Grupo México. The company operates over the South Orient Rail Line under a lease and operating agreement with the Texas Department of Transpor ...

. The FWWR leased two

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

properties, a

yard The yard (symbol: yd) is an English unit of length in both the British imperial and US customary systems of measurement equalling 3 feet or 36 inches. Since 1959 it has been by international agreement standardized as exactly 0.914 ...

and branch line, in 2002 and 2003 respectively.

Route

The FWWR operates a total of of track between Carro and Ricker, Texas, with branch lines from

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

to Gorman and from Cresson to Cleburne, as well as trackage rights in the

Fort Worth Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. According ...

area and between Ricker and San Angelo Junction, Texas. Since 2007, the railroad has been in the process of resurfacing its trackage, as well as installing new sidings and upgrading the route, eventually to allow speeds over the entire line.

Company

On December 27, 2010, Fort Worth and Western named Thomas Schlosser as president and CEO, who took over from Steven George, who had held the position since 2000; the company's vice president and

COO COO or coo may refer to: Business * Certificate of origin, used in international trade * Chief operating officer or chief operations officer, high-ranking corporate official * Concept of operations, used in Systems Engineering Management Process ...

is Richard Green. On August 19, 2015, Fort Worth and Western named Kevin Erasmus as president and CEO, who took over from Thomas Schlosser, who held the position since 2010. The company employs around 85 people. The company also operates the

Grapevine Vintage Railroad The Grapevine Vintage Railroad (GVRR) is an excursion and special event railroad in Grapevine, Texas, USA, that runs from the Main Street station in Grapevine to the Fort Worth Stockyards. GVRR is owned and operated by the City of Grapevine. His ...

, a tourist train that runs between downtown

Grapevine, Texas Grapevine is a city and suburb of Dallas and Fort Worth located in northeast Tarrant County, Texas, United States, with minor portions extending into Dallas County and Denton County. The city is located in the Mid-Cities suburban region between Da ...

and the

Fort Worth Stockyards The Fort Worth Stockyards is a historic district that is located in Fort Worth, Texas, north of the central business district. A portion encompassing much of the district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Fort Worth Sto ...

Fleet

As of January of 2019, the Fort Worth and Western's locomotive fleet (past and present) consists of the following:

References

External links

Fort Worth and Western Railroad
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fort Worth Western Railroad Texas railroads Switching and terminal railroads Spin-offs of the Burlington Northern Railroad Companies operating former Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway lines Companies operating former Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad lines Companies operating former Missouri Pacific Railroad lines Companies operating former St. Louis–San Francisco Railway lines Companies operating former St. Louis Southwestern Railway lines Railway companies established in 1988