Research: Tram & Railroad Database

Code: 22
Corporate Name: Sabine & Northern Railway Company
Folk Name:
Incorporated:
Ownership: Peavy-Moore Lumber Company. Sabine Tram Company.
Years of Operation: 1899-1921
Track Type:
Standard Gauge Wooden Rails
Track Length: Eight
Locations Served: Deweyville (Newton)
Counties of Operation: Newton
Line Connections:
Track Information:
Tram Road Logging / Industrial Common Carrier Logging Camp
Equipment: 1906: Three miles of track and five locomotives. 1912: One locomotive, one flat car, and a caboose. The Sabine Tram Company rented a locomotive and seventy logs to the Sabine & Northern. Kirby inventory: Five locomotives, eight-three log cars, two McGiffert Log Loaders and Skidders and one four-line skidder, forty mules and horses, a “Good main line and all new bridges on same.” Keeling: narrow and standard gauge with seven road locomotives on eight miles of track
History: The Smyth Brothers founded The Sabine Tram Company in 1889 after disposing of their Eagle Mill in Beaumont. Their sawmill at Deweyville began operations in 1899. Deweyville was about one and one-half miles north of Ruliff, a point on the Kansas City Southern railroad in southern Newton County. The mill, just north of town on the Sabine River, was connected to the Kansas City Southern system at Ruliff by its tap-line, the Sabine & Northern Railway Company, which ran eastward to DeQuincey, then north to Smyth Junction, Juanita, and Blewitt, in Louisiana. This tap-line was constructed in 1899 jointly by the Sabine Tram Company and the Texarkana & Fort Smith, a part of the Kansas City Southern system. Sabine Tram furnished the right of way, did the grading, and provided the ties, while the Texarkana & Fort Smith supplied and laid the steel. The logging tram road itself in 1906 consisted of three miles of tracks and five locomotives. The Southern Industrial and Lumber Review in March 1909 reported that Sabine Tram Company was going to extend its tram road by six miles to connect with the Jasper & Eastern (Santa Fe) at Merryville in Louisiana. The Interstate Commerce Commission reported in 1912 that the Sabine Tram Company held approximately 60,000 acres of timberlands in Texas and around 23,000 acres in Louisiana. Mills reported were “the mill at Deweyville” (which had been operating “since 1899”) and a mill at Juanita, Louisiana, where Sabine Tram employed about 100 men in 1908. The 1 1/2 mile tap from Deweyville to Rulif was built in 1899 and used only for moving logs and lumber. Equipment consisted of one locomotive, one flat car, and a caboose. The parent company owned another locomotive and seventy log cars, which it rented to its tapline. The company railroad was incorporated in 1906 [incorrect] in order to legal divisions from the Kaycee. The few passengers carried were not charged fares. Peavy-Moore Lumber Company bought the Deweyville sawmill facility and tapline in 1919. A list of the company's physical inventory, located in the Kirby files at Stephen F. Austin State University, that the “Tram department” had logging stock that included five locomotives, eight-three log cars; two McGiffert Log Loaders and Skidders and one four-line skidder, forty mules and horses, a “Good main line and all new bridges on same.” Rails were constructed on thirty to fifty-pound steel. The Ruliff to Deweyville road was abandoned in 1921.