WBT&S Trinity Depot & Offices

The Wobbly is a wonderful representation of most East Texas short lines from the boom of the 1880s to the Great Depression. Its story, like so many others, began with exuberant optimism and ended with abandonment following a long, slow decline and desperate struggle to keep it financially solvent. Today there's almost nothing left of this East Texas gem. This essay isn't intended to be an in-depth study of the WBT&S, but rather a concise history and a way to feature the media I have been able to locate over the years.

Let's begin with the name: Waco, Beaumont, Trinity, & Sabine Railway Company. This grandiose title is rather misleading. The railroad only touched one of its namesake cities: Trinity. The full scope of the company's ambitions were never realized. In fact, due to the shortage of money and traffic, the line fell into such disrepair that locals applied several colorful names stemming from the WBT&S acronym. These nicknames have lasted well beyond the railroad and serve as an enduring reminder of a colorful backwoods line and the communities it served.

Loggers along the route christened the line the “Wobbly, Bobbly, Turnover & Stop” because of its frequent derailments. That paints a rather vivid picture of what the railroad must have looked liked in its waning years! During prohibition days, bootleggers using the line gave it other nicknames, “Wine, Beer, Tequila & Shinny” and "Whiskey, Beer, Tobacco & Snuff." Housewives often called it the “Wash Board, Tub & Soap.” Still another sobriquet resulted from the train’s frequent delays:  “Won’t be Back Til Saturday." The final variations noted are, "Wobblety, Bobblety, Turnover & Stop" and "Wobble, Bobble, Turnover & Stop." Local historians seem to agree that the first and most commonly used moniker was, and is, “Wobbly, Bobbly, Turnover & Stop.” I will simply, and affectionately, refer to it as "The Wobbly" for this website.

 
The Trinity & Sabine Railway Company was chartered as a logging tram on September 28, 1881, in Trinity, Texas (Trinity County). It connected with the International & Great Northern in Trinity and was intended to run east to the Sabine River. It only got as far as Colmesneil. The principal place of business was Trinity. In 1882, the Trinity & Sabine became part of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company of Texas.   
 
The Beaumont & Great Northern Railroad was chartered on June 22, 1905, by lumber magnate William Carlisle. It also connected with the I&GN in Trinity and was intended to run southeast to Beaumont on the Texas-Louisiana border. It only reached Livingston, Texas about 33 miles east of Trinity, and fell into receivership early on (as so many railroads did in that era). In 1911, the B&GN was sold to the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad, joining its northern neighbor, the Trinity & Sabine.

In 1913, the MKT merged the two railroads into a single system with the permission of the Texas Legislature. Neither branch ever connected with the "Katy" system and it became known as the "Orphan Division." The Katy later fell on hard times herself and the combined railroad was divested and purchased by the newly created Waco, Beaumont, Trinity & Sabine Railway Company on April 8, 1924.  This new company was founded by Col. R. C. Duff, who hoped to extend the railroad to its intended cities of Waco and Beaumont and then on to the Sabine River.  The WBT&S fell into receivership in February of 1930 due to the Depression, but remained independent until the end of operations in 1961. This was the longest receivership of a railroad in Texas history.

The business office remained in Trinity and the WBT&S operated 48 miles from Weldon through Trinity to Livingston (the Beaumont Division) and 67 miles between Trinity and Colmesneil (the Trinity Division). It never reached any of the locations in its title save its point of origin: Trinity. The Wobbly ran through the counties of Trinity, Polk, Tyler and Houston.  The towns served included Colmesneil, Trinity, Mill Junction, Sequoyah, Barnes, Glendale, Groveton, Corrigan, Chester, Carlisle, Sebastopol, Pagoda, Onalaska, Pennell, Kickapoo, East Tempe, Vreeland, Blanchard, Luce, Livingston, West Livingston, Auburn, Weldon, and Kittrell.

Almost unbelievably, the Wobbly interchanged with 4 railroads at 5 locations! That's not bad for a railroad that served an area so sparsely populated. The International & Great Northern (later Missouri Pacific and then Union Pacific) interchanged with the WBT&S at its corporate headquarters in Trinity. The Groveton, Lufkin, & Northern was reached in Groveton (Groveton itself would make an interesting story sometime down the road). The Houston East & West Texas (known as "The Rabbit" and owned by SP, now UP) was interchanged with at Livingston and Corrigan on the Beaumont and Trinity Divisions respectively. And finally, the Texas & New Orleans (also owned by SP) was reached at Colmesneil. During this period, at its peak, the WBT&S operated 115.2 miles of standard gauge, weed-infested, ballast-free track through the thick piney woods of East Texas.
 

The Colmesneil section on the Trinity Division was the first to go in 1936. The traffic had all but dried up. 1940 saw the 6 miles between Kittrell and Weldon torn up. The 23 mile section from Luce to Livingston saw its last train in 1949.

Through the 1950's, the railroad hauled an 8-car train of tank cars from Trinity about 8 miles east to the mineral oil facility in Kittrell. This movement generally occurred every other day. Derailments were common, a way of life... and a constant reinforcement of the "Wobbly" moniker. Receiver and General Manager Thaxton Epperson worked with local merchants to have shipments coming into Trinity on the Missouri Pacific Railroad be consigned to the WBT&S. This scheme brought in some much-needed capital and the line to Kittrell received some desperately needed maintenance. However good this news might have been, it was not enough to stave off the inevitable. The end came swiftly and decisively, compliments of Uncle Sam.

The last operating engine on the Wobbly, Baldwin-built 2-6-2 #1, failed its ICC inspection in 1959 and the railroad shut down all operations that day. The oil field in Kittrell switched to trucks for a time and then shut down altogether when its sole buyer stopped purchasing. There was no money and no way to make money for the Wobbly. Poor ol' #1 rusted away in the Trinity yard until 1981 when she was rescued by the Moody Foundation and moved to the Galveston Railroad Museum. The GRM has done a superb job of cosmetically restoring and displaying the little locomotive. Today Wobbly #1 greets all visitors as they enter the museum grounds.

What remained of the WBT&S was torn up in 1961, except for the segment between the Missouri Pacific Junction on the Beaumont Division and the proposed waterline of the new Lake Livingston. The Trinity Chamber of Commerce purchased this section for a proposed tourist line.

In a private correspondence between Richard Keeling and Ralph Carlson in August of 1963, Mr. Keeling says that Mr. Epperson (the General Manager) spoke to him about the idea of creating a tourist railroad from Trinity to where Lake Livingston would be when the new dam was completed in 1969. Had the funds been available, Mr. Epperson's idea may have come to fruition. This tourist railroad would have cut through Camp Cullen and the Southern Baptist Encampment of Trinity Pines. What an intriguing thought it is that the Wobbly might have survived to take kids to summer camp and adults to a resort on Lake Livingston.

Alas, it wasn't meant to be. No money was available and the timing wasn't right for a tourist railroad. Historic aerial images show that the final rails on the Beaumont Division were removed outside of town by 1972. It was over. The final chapter had been written on what is arguably one of the most interesting and obscure railroads in the piney woods of East Texas. 

-Jason Rose (with assistance from Susan Madeley)