Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway
{{Short description|American railroad company}}
{{Other uses|Panhandle Railroad (disambiguation){{!}}Panhandle Railroad}}
{{Infobox rail
|railroad_name = Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway
|image = Littlefield Texas Train Station.jpg
|image_caption = Abandoned P&SF depot in Littlefield, Texas
|locale = New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas
|start_year = 1886
|end_year = 1965
|predecessor_line = Southern Kansas Railway Company of Texas
|successor_line = Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway
|gauge = {{Track gauge|ussg|allk=on}}
|hq_city = Amarillo, Texas
|website = [https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/eqp03 Handbook of Texas]
}}
The Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway (P&SF) was an American rail transport company that was a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (AT&SF), operating primarily in the Texas Panhandle.
History
Chartered November 2, 1886 as The Southern Kansas Railway Company of Texas, the railroad was originally created to handle the Texas portion of the line started by the Southern Kansas Railway Company, another AT&SF affiliate, from Kiowa, Kansas across what was then Indian Territory to the Texas border. The Texas company then completed the thirty miles from the state line to Canadian, Texas on September 12, 1887, and the seventy miles from Canadian to Panhandle City, Texas on January 15, 1888. The trackage of a connecting line, the Panhandle Railway Company, was acquired at a foreclosure sale in 1898, extending the line from Panhandle City to Washburn, Texas, which allowed connection by way of the Fort Worth and Denver Railway from Washburn to Amarillo, Texas. However, the Panhandle City to Washburn trackage was abandoned in 1908 when the railroad built its own line directly from Panhandle City to Amarillo. At that point, the company had 125 miles of track.
In June 1914, the railway was renamed the Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway (P&SF), and kept expanding. The company added twenty-six miles from Panhandle to Borger, Texas in 1926, and ten miles from White Deer, Texas to Skellytown, Texas in 1927.
Other trackage was added, either through construction, purchase, lease, or by acquisition of trackage rights. This included a rail line from Amarillo on to Pecos, Texas which passed through eastern New Mexico. Other AT&SF properties, like the South Plains and Santa Fe between Lubbock, Texas and Crosbyton, Texas, were operated by the company, while properties like the North Texas and Santa Fe (incorporated in Texas in 1916; completed 85 miles from Shattuck, Oklahoma to Spearman, Texas in 1920){{cite web|url= https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/north-texas-and-santa-fe-railway |title= The North Texas and Santa Fe Railway|publisher=Texas State Historical Society|accessdate=October 31, 2023}}{{cite web|url= https://digitalprairie.ok.gov/digital/collection/okresources/id/70286 |title= North Texas and Santa Fe Railway Company|publisher=Railroads of Oklahoma, June 6, 1870-April 1, 1978, pp.37-39 (accessed on Oklahoma DigitalPrairie |accessdate=October 31, 2023}} were leased to it.
In June 1928, the AT&SF purchased two affiliated companies: the Clinton and Oklahoma Western Railroad Company (COW), which had already completed a line from Clinton, Oklahoma to Strong City, Oklahoma{{cite web|url= https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=ST052 |title=Strong City|publisher=Oklahoma Historical Society|accessdate=October 12, 2021}} and was building west to the Oklahoma/Texas border, and the Clinton-Oklahoma-Western Railroad Company of Texas (COW-T), which was then completing the line from the border west through Hemphill County, Texas to terminate at Pampa in Gray County, Texas. The AT&SF leased the completed line to P&SF in 1931, and both COW and COW-T were merged into the P&SF in December 1948.{{cite web|url=https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/eqc13|title=Clinton-Oklahoma-Western Railroad|publisher=tshaonline.org|access-date=April 27, 2013}}
At the end of 1933 the P&SF operated 1,879 miles of track, being 166 miles owned and the rest leased or operated under trackage rights.
The P&SF was merged into its parent AT&SF on August 1, 1965.{{cite web |last1=Werner |first1=George C. |title=Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway |url=https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/panhandle-and-santa-fe-railway |website=Handbook of Texas |publisher=Texas State Historical Society |access-date=11 November 2020}}
At least some of this trackage has since been abandoned, including the Clinton-to-Strong City route which was abandoned around 1981.{{cite web|url= https://www.abandonedrails.com/clinton-oklahoma-and-western-railroad |title=The Clinton, Oklahoma and Western Railroad|publisher=Abandoned Rails|accessdate=October 12, 2021}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{Portal|Trains}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20100731221914/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/A/AT001.html Oklahoma Historical Society]
- [https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/eqp03 Texas State Historical Association]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20121024013411/http://www.library.okstate.edu/okmaps/ Oklahoma Digital Maps: Digital Collections of Oklahoma and Indian Territory]
- [https://www.ars.usda.gov/plains-area/lubbock-tx/cropping-systems-research-laboratory/wind-erosion-and-water-conservation-research/docs/llano/ Photos of West Texas and the Llano Estacado]
{{Clear}}
{{Former Class I}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Panhandle Santa Fe Railway}}
Category:Predecessors of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway
Category:Defunct Texas railroads
Category:Former Class I railroads in the United States
Category:Railway companies established in 1914
Category:Railway companies disestablished in 1965
Category:Defunct Oklahoma railroads