<< BACK TO ARTICLES

PRESIDIO COUNTY – Many tri-county residents would rather the proposed La Entrada al Pacifico be a train route instead of a truck route. These rail proponents hope the trade corridor will use the former South Orient tracks between Presidio and Fort Stockton, but the railroad needs a $104-million rehabilitation.

In the 1990s, the South Orient Railroad Company wanted to abandon the dormant railroad, which has one of only eight rail crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border. The state wanted to preserve the tracks and right of way, so in 1999 legislators appropriated $6 million to the Texas Department of Transportation to buy the railroad.

In February 2001, TxDoT partnered with Texas Pacifico, a subsidiary of Mexican mining company Grupo México, to purchase the railroad for $9.5 million. Under their agreement, TxDoT became the railroad’s permanent owner and Texas Pacifico received a 40-year operating lease.

The lease agreement was a natural fit for Grupo México, which also owns Ferromex, the Mexican railroad that meets the old South Orient tracks in Presidio. The Ferromex-Texas Pacifico lines could offer shippers a rail passage from the Mexican port of Topolobampo through Presidio and onward to Fort Stockton and Fort Worth.

“They’re congested at El Paso, Eagle Pass, and Laredo, so it ought to be a golden opportunity to go through Presidio,” said Texas Pacifico chief operating officer Roy Williams.

But the railroad’s condition has kept the Texas Pacifico line from operating at its full potential, according to TxDoT spokesperson Mark Cross. Train speeds are limited by outdated rail sizes, defective ties, inadequate drainage, bridge problems, and overgrown vegetation along the tracks.

From San Angelo to Sulphur Junction trains can’t travel faster than 25 mph. Trains must slow to 10 mph from San Angelo Junction to San Angelo, Sulphur Junction to Alpine, and Paisano Junction to Presidio.

With limited speeds along 349 miles of the 381-mile railroad, it takes trains four days to travel from Presidio to San Angelo Junction. That has made it difficult for Texas Pacifico to attract customers.

“We have several prospects of people calling, but they want to see something more than a 10-mph railroad,” Williams said.

The railroad currently offers service once or twice a week between San Angelo Junction and Rankin, he said. But from Rankin to the border, service has dwindled since Texas Pacifico started offering it again in March 2005.

“We were only moving four or five cars per week, so we tapered back to about every other week. Then in summer and late fall we got to service as needed,” Williams said.

Now the company has no active shippers south of Rankin, with the last cross-border service offered in October 2006.

“Right now we’re losing money keeping the railroad in operation every month,” he said.

Texas Pacifico is paid by the carload, so having more customers would bring the company more money to invest in repairing the tracks. But with potential customers deterred by the tracks’ condition, the company faces a Catch 22.

At the time of the purchase, the company had plans to improve the railroad’s infrastructure.

“Texas Pacifico initially had a program, like a five-year deal,” Williams said. “The economics of it changed after 9/11.”

After September 11, falling copper prices and other world economic forces hurt parent company Grupo México and changed the rail subsidiary’s rehabilitation plans. To date, Texas Pacifico has invested $9 million in needed infrastructure repair.

TxDoT has also chipped in for the rehabilitation. In spring 2004, the agency received a $5.5-million federal earmark for the railroad. Later that year the agency installed 34,561 new crossties along a segment of the tracks from Paisano Junction to Presidio. A few thousand more ties were installed in Fort Stockton, where two highway-rail crossings were rehabilitated and another three crossings closed.

But track speeds need to be brought up to 45 mph for the railroad to be competitive, according to one TxDot Multimodal Section official. Both TxDoT and Texas Pacifico estimate $104 million will be needed to bring the entire railroad up to speed.

Where that funding will come from is itself a million-dollar question.

TxDoT officials did not provide an answer. Williams said his company might soon approve another $10 million for repairs, which would bring track speeds up to 25 mph except between Fort Stockton and Alpine. To fix the entire railroad though, he said, would take “somebody to invest in it or more federal funding.”

<< BACK TO ARTICLES