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The Texas Transportation Museum
THOSE WHO HAVE FLOWN INTO SAN ANTONIO International Airport may have noticed a short railroad right-of-way that appears to go nowhere, as well as a station, water tank and yard as the plane makes its final de- scent. The rails glimmer as the sun hits them just right, and that can only mean that the tracks are active. For some, that quick glimpse may spike their curiosity enough to pick up the rental car and investigate. Upon arrival at the mystery location, the visitor may be intrigued by the sign along the road that declares “Train Rides.” That rail line seen from the jet belongs to
the Texas Transportation Museum, an insti- tution that has been preserving The Lone Star State’s road and rail history for half a century. There are fire trucks, tractors and early automobiles from a 1924 Model T to a 1963 Lincoln Continental. But the real at- traction is TTM’s operating railroad. The little-known museum got its start in
1964, organized to rescue a 1926 Baldwin 0-4-0 saddle-tank switcher that had been in storage at a local power plant. Thanks to dedicated volunteers, the museum has grown steadily over the years. Originally lo- cated at the Pearl Brewery in downtown San Antonio, the group moved to McAllister
Park in 1969, building an operating railroad from scratch on a brand new right of way. The full-scale railroad, called the Long-
horn & Western, is only about a third of a mile in length. Union Pacific is literally right across Wetmore Road from the grounds, yet there is no physical connection between the two. The museum’s tracks were built be- tween 1975 and 1991 using hand-me-down supplies donated by area railroads, includ- ing the Southern Pacific, Missouri Pacific, and Missouri-Kansas-Texas, all of which the transportation museum has outlived. The museum has two operating diesel lo- comotives, a low-slung RS-4-TC built by Baldwin in 1954 and designed for military overseas duty; and a GE 45-ton siderod cen- tercab built in 1942 for the US Air Force as its 7071. The Baldwin, No. 4035, painted in a simple black scheme similar to what it wore during its Army service, is the main power, handling most trains. The critter, which was recently rebuilt, was in primer in the spring of 2014, with plans to paint the lo- comotive into Air Force blue over the sum- mer. Other equipment open for inspection includes Baldwin 2-8-0 steam locomotive number 6, built in 1911 for the Moscow, Camden & San Augustine, an East Texas
w w w . t r a i n p a r t y . c o m 52 JULY-OCTOBER 2014 •
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