Gulf & Interstate

On September 15, 1903, the Beaumont correspondant for the Galveston Daily News reported that the G&I would run "a through train to Bolivar Point on <the 16th> for the first time when passengers can be transferred by ferry" to Galveston, but that regular traffic would not begin for a spell yet. >9-15-03.<

This announcement set the Galveston Business League scrambling to arrange a gala welcome for the first train. However, after it was discovered that the train would be carrying only railroad officials, the party was postponed until the inaguration of regular service, which it was believed would be about October 26.

Nevertheless, the News announced the great day of the sixteenth with an elaborate headline:

A WELCOME ARRIVAL

THE FIRST REGULAR TRAIN BRING-

ING PASSENGERS FROM BEAU-

MONT COMING OVER THE

GULF & INTERSTATE ROAD

Will Receive a Befitting Welcome.

Addresses and Gay Decorations.

Ships Will Fire Bombs.

>9-16-03.<

People gathered on the wharf, watching for an engine's smoke on Bolivar. "Those interested in the election of a new Pope in Rome did not more anxiously watch for the smoke to issue from the Sistine Chapel," asserted the News the following morning. The headline that day was ominous:

NO TRAIN YET

Interstate Train, Reported to Have

Left Beaumont Yesterday, Did

Not Reach Bolivar

>9-17-03.<

Apparantly, it had vanished from the face of the Earth. The News uttered no word on the matter until the 19th, when the Beaumont correspondant reported: "Manager Featherstone of the Gulf & Interstate has not yet taken out a search warrant to find the train which a local paper and a Houston paper lost for him, but, on the contrary, states that the train has been leaving here every morning on time and returning on time. It goes to the lighthouse, and is doing nicely and has been." The last mile from the lighthouse to the pier was not yet completed. >9-19-03.<

Another reporter hunted up Judge Campbell, who expressed regret over the misunderstanding. He also stated "that passengers are now being carried as far south as High Island, and when the train is scheduled to come over to the lighthouse with material and there are passengers...who wish to purchase tickets for that point...they are accommodated." >0-19-03.<

On the morning of September 23, Featherstone drove the last spike in the reconstructed railroad, "and while it was not made of silver or gold it would probably serve in a more durable capacity of uniting the Queen City of the Neches and the great seaport of the Southwest to such close commercial relations that the profit of one will be the gain of the other." >9-24-03.<

The train, the same one consisting of Nos. 4, 2, and 1, ran all the way into Galveston the next day. Free rides were offered to the passengers who had been stranded three years and sixteen days before. Several accepted. The train wheeled into Port Bolivar ahead of schedule. The tug New Brunswick was at the time temporarily decommissioned, so the Charles Clarke moved the barge Jefferson and its cargo to Pier #18 in Galveston. Once waterbourne, Featherstone, Campbell, and others raised their glasses to the future. This apparantly was the only celebration of the line's rebirth. There was no tooting of whistles or ringing of bells or brass band disturbance," said the News. "The few citizens gathered on the wharf...were as silent as Pall Bearers attending the internment of the historic railroad property>" Perhaps they were tired of waiting. >9-25-03.<

The Business League moved its celebration to greet the first excursion train when it arrived on the 27th. Regular mixed train service began on October 1. >9-24-03. Poor's.<

In the late Thirties, most of the traffic on the line consisted of empty cars bound from Galveston to Beaumont and into the forests and cotton fields to the northeast. Loaded, these cars returned only as far as the strapping young ports of Beaumont, Orange, and Port Arthur. In neither direction did these cars add to the Port Bolivar branch's revenues. >660<

Another large source of traffic was the flow of rice, cotton, iron and steel articles, lumber, and other commodities between Galveston and points in the eastern and southeastern states. This traffic moved over the G&I-S when the train ran, three days per week. On alternate days, it moved via Silsbee. >666<

As time passed, it became increasingly apparant that both types of traffic could be better handled via Silsbee than by the slow, expensive to operate, fifteen-car-capacity barge. Just about the only traffic that really belonged to the line was the rice grown north of High Island. >665<

The staples of traffic from the peninsula, melons and vegetables, and livestock, amounted respectively to 25 and 103 carloads in the six years of 1935-1940. No shipments of either were made in 1940. Passenger traffic declined from 83 persons in 1935 to 3 each in 1939 and 1940. >663<

All traffic on the line was now handled by a standard locomotive, the doodlebug having been transferred. The engine, trailed by freight cars and a 38-seat combine, departed Port Bolivar Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and returned from Beaumont the following days. Nothing ran on Sundays. >661<

Out of pocket operating losses west of High Island ammounted to $27,500 annually. >667<

Highway transportation was eating away at local traffic. T. S. C. Motor Freight Lines operated daily between Galveston and Beaumont via Houston, but would operate on the peninsula when needed. The Coastal Coaches, Inc. ran buses on the coast route four times daily in each direction. This company also held the mail contract. >661<

The railroad was laid with #66, #75, and #85 rail, rolled in various years from 1885 to 1904. All of it would need replacement by about 1950, in keeping with the Santa Fe's policy of replacing brach line rail after fifty years. Even if this deadline were extended, the line would soon need extensive rebuilding since maintainance had been neglected during the Depression. This rebuilding would include the wharfs, which had been severely damaged by salt water insects and neglect. The tugs and barges were also aging. >661-662<

On March 1, 1941, the G&I-S and operators applied to the Interstate Commerce Commission for permission to abandon the 26.7 miles west of High Island and the ferry. Galveston and the Texas Railroad Commission raised objections and the ICC called a hearing for late Fall. >659<

The TRC maintained that the company had overestimated the cost of repairing the line, but that testimony was disprooved. It was claimed that rates between Galveston and Beaumont would rise if the line was abandoned, but the ICC had previously held that maintainance of low rates was no reason for requiring the continued operation of an unprofitable line. It was urged to divert traffic from the Silsbee route to the G&I-S, but again there was a precedent. the ICC claiming it had no power to force traffic over a particular route. >666-667<

In early 1941, Southwestern Rice Mills, Inc. purchased Galveston's major rice mill with the specific intent of serving the area north of High Island. During the year, Southwestern had bought most of the rice crop along the line. The proposed abandonment would have made Southwestern's plan impractical, and a protest was filed with the ICC. The ICC decided that the mill could survive on rice from other areas and that the growers along the line could be adequetly served by mills to the east. >665-666<

The abandonment was opposed by labor unions because an agent, a section foreman, three section laborers, and ten tug and barge employees would be displaced. Trainmen would not lose any wages because of special arrangements, but would lose an annual total of $2,900 worth of overtime switching at the Point. The ICC had previously held that it held no athority to compel protection for employees and so held again. >668-669<

Interests from New York approached the GCSF with a proposal to buy the line for operation. The section up for abandonment, replied the Santa Fe, could be had for its approximate salvage value and the rest could go for $25,000 to $30,000 per mile. Because other railroad properties were involved in the proposal, the ICC decided not to require sale of the peninsula segment to these interests. The matter was left to the Santa Fe and to the investors. >668<

On December 12, 1941, the ICC decided that public convenience and necessity did not require the continued operation of the Gulf and Inter-State Railway west of High Island. >659<