Asherton & Gulf

Company History: Opened in 1909, the Asherton & Gulf ran 32 miles from the town of Asherton, Texas to a connection with Missouri Pacific’s San Antonio to Loredo mainline at a water stop called Bart. Bart ultimately grew into a small town called Artesia Wells. By 1921, the A&G fleet included two locomotives, one flat car, one gondola, a coach and a baggage/express car. Nearly all trains were mixed trains (which explains the lack of a caboose in the fleet.) A&G then acquired a Brill doodlebug to handle business on lighter days (which was most of the time.) Farm products, livestock, coal and lumber made up most of the freight traffic. In later years, it became known for shipping Bermuda onions. In 1926, Missouri Pacific bought the A&G under their Texas subsidiary New Orleans Texas & Mexico. The old A&G route was abandoned in 1958.

Successor/Parent History: The Missouri Pacific Railroad (reporting mark MP), commonly abbreviated MoPac, with nickname of The Mop, was one of the first railroads in the United States west of the Mississippi River. MoPac was a Class I railroad growing from dozens of predecessors and mergers, including the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway (SLIMS), Texas and Pacific Railway (TP), Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad (C&EI), St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway (SLBM), Kansas, Oklahoma and Gulf Railway (KO&G), Midland Valley Railroad (MV), San Antonio, Uvalde and Gulf Railroad (SAU&G), Gulf Coast Lines (GC), International-Great Northern Railroad (IGN), New Orleans, Texas and Mexico Railway (NOTM), Missouri-Illinois Railroad (MI), as well as the small Central Branch Railway (an early predecessor of MP in Kansas and south central Nebraska), and joint ventures such as the Alton and Southern Railroad (AS).

In 1967, the railroad operated 9,041 miles of road and 13,318 miles of track, not including DK&S, NO&LC, T&P and its subsidiaries, C&EI and Missouri-Illinois.

On January 8, 1980, the Union Pacific Railroad agreed to buy the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Lawsuits filed by competing railroads delayed approval of the merger until September 13, 1982. After the Supreme Court denied a trial to the Southern Pacific, the merger took effect on December 22, 1982. However, due to outstanding bonds of the Missouri Pacific, the merger with Union Pacific become official only on January 1, 1997.

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