What do peanuts have to do with railroading? Just about everything if you’re working a Class 1, if slightly anemic, branch-turned-independent shortline in the heart of Texas country. Like most items in the state, native pride is strong, so it’s not much of a revelation to discover that our shortline subject is branded "Texas Central" as it meanders cross-country in agricultural real estate southwest from Dallas.

Seems that a few years ago the Katy was pulling up stakes on a long branch that was short on revenue, one of those characteristic lengthy map extensions that was shy of industry. At Gorman on that branch, peanuts are a key commodity providing a livelihood for the town whose station in life is advertised by its self-proclaimed title, "Peanut Capital of the Southwest."

Faced with the loss of the Katy and higher shipping costs on the highway, local interests banded together to form a small pike by purchasing a sections of the soon to be abandoned branch, and, of course keeping a connection with a larger road, in this instance the "Santa Fe. So, 24 miles of onetime Katy property were transformed into the Texas Central, maybe small in stature but every bit as wide as anybody else and with connections to the whole country. This is pure unadulterated shortline in all its best mannerisms; unhurried, relaxed and friendly.

Power-wise, the TC is a sometimes red, sometimes orange-nosed believer in small Alcos. You know, the kind that worked their innards out in the big city terminal before being salvaged to a shortline that discovered many a useful mile left, if only s little care was exercised.

Having been carved out of an agricultural branch the road is patterned after the straight and narrow, offering no aged-in-wood engine shed or crumbling roundhouse to shelter it’s small roster of Alco "chirp" power.

Matter of factly, what engine facilities there are consist of oil begrimed track just off the main highway that meanders through typical small-town America. Some might term it "20^th Century Primitive," others might call it intriguing, but when the TC reaches one of those mechanical milestones where a unit needs an overhaul they just pull of the engine cowl, hang out a canvas sheet for shade from sun or water and begin the doctoring.

It was a muggy late-summer afternoon when the Texas Central first came into view. Up till now it had only been some pen scratches on a map followed by a big question mark. The map said a railroad was at Dublin, still it was totally new if you hadn’t been there before and so whatever showed up offered a potential of surprise, always a pleasant emotion where shortlines are concerned.

Coming around a blind corner on the meandering highway, one first eyeballs a set of crossbucks, an intersecting duo of tracks and …Huh? " What in the heck is that thing anyway?"

Strange looking, on a second glance it turns out to be a pretty routine after all, but the first time you’ve ever seen one resting that way outside a bone yard. Standing bare, its machinery exposed is an Also switcher, but with elephant ears? No, not really, because the elephant ears turn out to be nothing more than a green canvas framed overhead like a pair of ‘ears’ on a UP ‘800’.

But never having seen a diesel locomotives prime mover overhauled in the open air, a few early misconceptions can only prove to be normal. Meanwhile, having paused to stare while in mid-road, a bunch of impatient Texans are honking their horns at that idiot with California plates.

As it turns out, what’s happening is an overhaul of the one-spot. Lacking any form of shelter for this task, TC improvises by draping a green canvas over the prime mover that’s being rebuilt. As we drive up alongside, the unit is sort of chug-a-lugging along and discreet inquiry determines its only been running about 30 minutes since its overhaul was completed, so there’s plenty of adjusting to do…a reply that satisfied some curiosity, since we never heard an Alco sounding like that before. Kind of loose and disjointed as if working the last mile. Good to know that it’s only temporary and that some heavy armed wrench work will cure the clattering.

Alongside the one-spot are two other Alcos, clearly in running condition and with shiny wheels. Across the highway, however, there’s a half-rusting unit ankle deep in weeds, probably the parts department. Later, the suspicion is confirmed, #2 is being cannibalized, the source of a mechanical transfusion to keep the other three going. Further back from the road stands a weather beaten caboose slowly disintegrating, its KATY herald still visible in broad type.

As a casual station stop on an ex-Katy branch, there really isn’t much room for Texas Central’s headquarters at Dublin. The road took over the local depot to serve business needs and trampled the weeds across the street to provide all the servicing it needed. You might call it functional, which means all that was required was an extra track or two to store diesel locomotives on. That way the train coming in with a load of cars for the Santa Fe can get by.

Mistaken for an engine shed of historical vintage – the road has none – is a small open-air wooden frame within spitting distance of the depot at Dublin. A closer glance determines that it’s a covered unloading pit for an ancient grain storage building, circa late 1800’s. This building itself is worth the price of admission, featuring carefully arched windows and fancy stone work looking down on the rural offerings of this Texas run shortline.

Running out of town over Texas Central track isn’t exactly an accreditation to main line thinking. It’s more casually an exercise in outback railroading. Just what you’d expect.

Nosing away from town, like about a hundred yards or so, trains face a rural panorama, but since it’s not wild west prototype Texas, rather more mid-west Texas there aren’t any longhorns or sagebrush to be seen, just farms. As the red Alco waddles lightly down a wrinkled track the highway comes meandering in to run parallel. With a few cars rocking mildly on the light ballasted roadbed a shortline’s flair for unhurried ops is well manifested.

It seems like there are a million miles of this kind of steel in the U.S., statistics of any lesser amount notwithstanding, as Texas Central trains work their way northwest between road and field. From one cab window the view’s an asphalt ribbon, from the other a series of plowed fields with an occasional bit of barbed wire marking some boundary. Every so often a weathered crossbuck elicits a plaintiff note from a diesel horn, though rarely is there a waiting car or dusty pickup truck to take note.

If you’re a devotee of shortline railroading and the casual, seemingly unorganized operations of some of them, you’ll thoroughly enjoy the TC.

On arrival at Gorman, the reason for Texas Central’s rebirth from an abandoned MKT segment is readily obvious, as a train moves down an alley between a cluster of buildings. A thin cloud of dust provides evidence that something’s working inside and indeed it is, the commercialization of the peanut. The scene is reminiscent of many Midwestern towns whole livelihood depends on agriculture and outwardly there’s little difference to pick from, except that here is peanuts and Texas, not Kansas and wheat.

At the opposite end of town TC rails just run out into flat dirt, marking the end of useful Katy track. There’s also a bright yellow depot at this point, long since sold off to finish its days as a feed store or warehouse, the still bearing unmistakable evidence of it rail heritage.

Having made its pilgrimage to the farthest reaches of its domain, pondered a bit over some switching chores and then rested a bit the Texas Central is ready to return home. In farewell a few blasts of an air horn reverberate down the packing shed alley, warning motorists on the few access roads that course between them. Then out to open farmland and a casual return to home base.

Trailing out back are a few loads of processed goobers carded with Santa Fe waybills, soon to be highwheeling down the high iron behind some blue and yellow jobs.

So it trails into limbo, another day of shortlining down in Texas. Still unlike the big carriers, there is a beginning and an end, as the ops only go on from morning to early evening. In this kind of situation there is no midnight goat, no warm smell of spent diesel fuel wafting over a blacked out landscape. It is orderly, it is routine and ever so relaxing to watch.

Some Texas outfits aren’t king sized after all, Hooray!