Waiting for the Texas Chief at White Rock Station (Suburban Dallas) Color Video

[CMStPnP]

White Rock station was a new suburban station built in Dallas on the new 50 mile Santa Fe passenger train cutoff from Denton that was built in the mid-1950's that allowed the Texas Chief to first enter Dallas than enter Fort Worth, TX instead of Fort Worth with a change of trains to Dallas.    So after opening it was marketed as the first direct Dallas to Chicago service by the Santa Fe.    The line also was built to accomodate and speed up frieght train transit times as well as gain more Dallas area freight customers it was not specifically for passenger trains (as some local railfans would like to believe it was only for the Texas Chief it may have been built primarily for the Texas Chief but the Santa Fe also wanted to improve freight routings as well).

This is a color video of passengers waiting at the station next to the newly built mainline (approx 50 miles long from Denton to Dallas).     Footage begins at mark 3:00.    Prior to that are flyovers of the newly built line with bridges etc.    While the line looks rural now, this is all residential housing or light industrial parks now, the Northern sprawl of Dallas now extends to approx 10-15 miles north of this point.

For those that live in or around Dallas now the location of the station is on Jupiter Road at the Jupiter Road RR Crossing,  just North of Northwest highway.    Station has been leveled and is just  a gravel pad now.    As you had closer to Highway 78 and at or about Highway 78 the line junctioned with what is now the KCS that parallels Highway 78 and took that line into Dallas.   Transit time from Dallas Union Station to this station via the passenger trains was approx 25-30 min.

Here is the video:

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth882244/

 

[Deggesty]

CMStPnP

White Rock station was a new suburban station built in Dallas on the new 50 mile Santa Fe passenger train cutoff from Denton that was built in the mid-1950's that allowed the Texas Chief to first enter Dallas than enter Fort Worth, TX instead of Fort Worth with a change of trains to Dallas.    So after opening it was marketed as the first direct Dallas to Chicago service by the Santa Fe.    The line also was built to accomodate and speed up frieght train transit times as well as gain more Dallas area freight customers it was not specifically for passenger trains (as some local railfans would like to believe it was only for the Texas Chief it may have been built primarily for the Texas Chief but the Santa Fe also wanted to improve freight routings as well).

This is a color video of passengers waiting at the station next to the newly built mainline (approx 50 miles long from Denton to Dallas).     Footage begins at mark 3:00.    Prior to that are flyovers of the newly built line with bridges etc.    While the line looks rural now, this is all residential housing or light industrial parks now, the Northern sprawl of Dallas now extends to approx 10-15 miles north of this point.

For those that live in or around Dallas now the location of the station is on Jupiter Road at the Jupiter Road RR Crossing,  just North of Northwest highway.    Station has been leveled and is just  a gravel pad now.    As you had closer to Highway 78 and at or about Highway 78 the line junctioned with what is now the KCS that parallels Highway 78 and took that line into Dallas.   Transit time from Dallas Union Station to this station via the passenger trains was approx 25-30 min.

Here is the video:

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth882244/

 

 

Looking at the map of the area, and also looking at the SFe timetables of the late fifties, I am constrained to make two corrections. First, the new line to Fort Worth left the original line  of the GC&SF at a place called "Metro" and "Dalton Jct", which is about 5 miles west of Denton. Second, the train that traversed this new line had the cars for Dallas only; the cars for South Texas continued on the original line down to Fort Worth and thence to Houston and Galveston. 

Otherwise, this appears to be an excellent report.

By late summer of 1968, the Santa Fe had discontinued the Dallas cars--I had a ticket coupon reading from Kansas City to Dallas--which the T&P honored from Fort Worth to Dallas.

[CMStPnP]

Deggesty

Second, the train that traversed this new line had the cars for Dallas only

A guy that lives down here gave a local presentation on North Texas Passenger Trains and he said one Christmas he rode the Texas Chief and said the Dallas Section had 23 cars.........which I thought was huge for a seperate section and wonder what the combined train was then?    Who knows maybe he counted wrong. 

He said the White Rock station was far too small for Holiday traffic surges.