Research: Tram & Railroad Database

Code: 32
Corporate Name: The Black Bayou Railroad
Folk Name:
Incorporated:
Ownership: Southern Lumber Company. Sold to Barber Lumber Company.
Years of Operation: 1904 to 1915
Track Type:
Standard Gauge Wooden Rails
Track Length: 15
Locations Served: Stanley, Rossman, Harburg Newton
Counties of Operation: From Louisiana into Newton County
Line Connections:
Track Information:
Tram Road Logging / Industrial Common Carrier Logging Camp
Equipment: 1911: one locomotive, one construction car, and twenty-six logging cars.
History: The Black Bayou Railroad was a logging tramroad belonging to Southern Lumber Company. It extended for a short distance into Texas. According to Reed, it was chartered and rechartered with the Texas Railroad Commission in 1904 and 1910. Black Bayou operated in both Louisiana and Texas. The Black Bayou Lumber succumbed to financial difficulties, and the road and its sawmill, at Myrtistown, Louisiana, were picked up by the Southern Lumber Company, which had apparently bought out the Barber Lumber Company sawmill at Ruliff, Texas, about ten miles west on the tracks from Myrtistown. By 1911, according to the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Southern Lumber Company had replaced the 35-pound steel tracks with 60-pound tracks leased from the Kansas City Southern Railway Company. The rolling stock consisted of one locomotive, one construction car, and twenty-six logging cars. The personnel were divided into a train crew, a section gang, and a construction gang. Both mills are on the Kansas City Southern, about ten miles apart. In 1911, the Black Bayou tramroad ran about seven miles westward from Myrtistown and crossed into Texas pineries. About eight miles of logging spurs jutted from the line into the woods. No mention is made that logs from the Black Bayou were shipped to the Ruliff mill, but the Kansas City Southern handled the moving of the rolling stock. The Hartburg Lumber Company operated three steam locomotives on its tram road. The No 1 was the former Barber Lumber Co #1, which earlier had operated on the Bernice Lumber Company's tram road, the Bernice and Northwestern Railway in Louisiana. Keeiling notes the tram road of Barber Lumber Company at Hartburg. [Hartburg Lumber eventually succeeded to the Barber Lumber sawmill plant]