Research: Tram & Railroad Database

Code: 8
Corporate Name: Groveton, Lufkin, & Northern Railway Company
Folk Name:
Incorporated:
Ownership: Trinity County Lumber Company, Joyce Lumber Company and other lumber industry interests. Earlier Texas Northerrn Railway Company.
Years of Operation: 1890 to 1932
Track Type:
Standard Gauge Wooden Rails
Track Length: Thirty-six
Locations Served: Groveton (Trinity)
Counties of Operation: Trinity, Angelina
Line Connections: Trinity & Sabine at Trinity
Track Information:
Tram Road Logging / Industrial Common Carrier Logging Camp
Equipment: 1906: Seven locomotives, eighty cars, and two steam loaders moving over thirty-five miles of track. 1910: One locomotive, a passenger coach, a combination car, eight box cars, and twenty-one flat cars. Keeling: four rod locomotives and thirty-six miles of trck 1890: 7.5 miles of track
History: The genesis of this road was probably the Groveton, Kickapoo & Gulf Railroad Company, an 7.5-mile tram road owned by the Trinity County Lumber Company in 1890. Eventually it expanded into a twenty-one mile narrow-gauge tram road of Trinity County Lumber Company from Groveton to the pineries of the south. A regular-gauge road to Vair was built in 1900, where it connected with the Texas & Southeastern of Southern Pine Lumber Company, in order to find a better outlet for its products. The original name was to be the North & South Railway Company, but was changed three months later to the Groveton, Lufkin, & Northern Railroad. Connecting with the Texas Southeastern provided connections with the Cotton Belt in Lufkin. The railway company also had trackage rights over the Missouri, Kansas, & Texas line, which had been the old Waco, Beaumont, Trinity & Sabine. At first, logging was done with animals and wagons. The tram engines soon came, however, working on a narrow gauge track. Roy Dudley, who worked as a bookkeeper and paymaster at the mill until it closed, recalled that the tram road was heavily used for logging, “using spur lines, skidders, and loaders.” “Doelee” was the first logging camp to send in timber by rail, recalled Willie A. Burch, a distance of about six or seven miles south of Groveton. The road crossed the dam between two lakes. Two steam engines plied the narrow gauge track. When the track was changed to standard gauge, the old locomotives were retired to a spur and sat rusting and resting there for many years until sold for scrap metal. Eventually, the mill worked as many as seven or eight engines. Number 8 blew up at Lacey Switch one afternoon late as it returned to Groveton; Edd Norsworth, the engineer, and Brac Sheppered, the fireman, both died. In 1906, noted the American Lumberman, the rolling stock included seven locomotives, eighty cars, and two steam loaders moving over thirty-five miles of track. The manager was W. F. N. Davis. The tapline was incorporated in 1908. In 1910, according to the Interstate Commerce Commission, rolling stock consisted of one locomotive, a passenger coach, a combination car, eight box cars, and twenty-one flat cars. Approximately twenty miles of unincorporated logging tram roads carried logs to to the tapline connection about a mile from Groveton, then over the tapline to the mill. In that year, the railroad carried a diverse load. It received more than $12,000 from its daily mixed-train service, as well as about $1,200 from express and mail. About seventy-five percent of its more than 52,000 tons in loggage in 1910 was carried in the interest of its parent company, the Trinity River Lumber Company. Another 8,175 tons of non-loggage freight was carried that year, of which 2,422 tons consisted of outbound merchandise and agricultural products. Lumber had been its reason for existence, and the lack of lumber was the cause for its end. The last log at Atmar had been sawn on December 31, 1930. The nearby timber had been cut out. Trucking timber was less expensive. Although some of the smaller towns protested the railway company's request to the ICC to shut down, the Groveton to Vair line was closed in 1932. Strapac's work notes that the Groveton Lufkin and Northern Railway, the short line of the Trinity County Lumber Company, operated at least four steam locomotives. The company owned its tracks for 22.4 miles from Groveton to Vair. It had trackage rights on the Texas and Southeastern from Vair to Lufkin, on the Eastern Texas [probably means the Louisiana and Texas] from Lufkin to Huntington (later leased to the St Louis Southwestern, and on the Texas and New Orleans from Prestridge to Rockland. Keeling noted that the company ran four rod locomotives over the thirty-five miles of track. Organized in July 1907, it ran was abandoned in 1932. The same company also owned the Tremont & Gulf.