Research: Tram & Railroad Database

Code: 4
Corporate Name: Peach River & Gulf Railway Company
Folk Name:
Incorporated:
Ownership: Peach River Lumber Company, subdivision of Miller-Vidor Lumber Company
Years of Operation: 1902 to 1912
Track Type:
Standard Gauge Wooden Rails
Track Length: Ca. 15
Locations Served: Beaumont Jefferson
Counties of Operation: Montgomery
Line Connections:
Track Information:
Tram Road Logging / Industrial Common Carrier Logging Camp
Equipment: 1906: eight miles standard-gauge track, three locomotives, and thirty-five cars. 1910: fifteen miles of track, three locomotives, thirty freight cars, and one coach
History: A sixteen-mile tram road built by the Peach River Lumber Company about 1902, this company tram served as an interstate common carrier from 1904 to 1908, although it was not recognized as such by the Texas Railroad Commission. Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe laid the thirty-five and forty pound tracks for Miller-Vidor Lumber. Miller-Vidor Lumber Company chartered, in 1904, the Peach River & Gulf Ry Co. to build a 150-mile rail line from Beaumont to a connection in Walker County with the International & Great Northern. The total trackage never exceeded twenty miles. In 1906, the American Lumberman reported that the Peach River & Gulf had eight miles of standard gauge tracks, three locomotives, and thirty-five cars. By 1910, the Peach River & Gulf had some fifteen miles of track with ten employees. Although a maintenance staff was located at Timber, the railway's clerical and executive staff were located at Beaumont in the offices of the Galveston, Beaumont& Northwestern Railway, another Miller-Vidor logging tram railway. In 1910, the I. C. C. reported that Peach River & Gulf's rolling stock included three locomotives, thirty freight cars, and one coach. With two train crews and one track crew, the railway company ran a daily train with a passenger coach. Because no passenger revenues were submitted as part of its total revenue operating cost, apparently the company did not charge passenger fares. The entire revenue devolved from the railway's moving of the Miller-Vidor lumber and timber loads. The company tapline continued to serve Miller-Vidor and Timber until the timber cut out, about 1912. The railway equipment was either shipped to one of the other two Miller-Vidor taplines, the Galveston, Beaumont & Northwestern or the Riverside & Gulf, or it may have been sold off to other companies.