Texas State Railroad
Heritage railroad in east-central Texas
The Texas State Railroad (reporting mark TSR), also referred to as the Lone Star and Eastern Railroad, is a historic 25 mi (40 km) heritage railroad between Rusk and Palestine, Texas. Built by inmates, it was founded in 1883 by the state of Texas to haul raw materials for a smelter at the prison at Rusk. Regular service on the line was ended in 1921. The state leased the line to private companies until 1969, then turned it over to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in 1972. In 2007, the railroad was transferred to the Texas State Railroad Authority and is now operating as a scenic tourist line. It is currently operated on a limited, year-round schedule. Today, the railroad has a total of five steam locomotives (two of which are operational) and three diesel locomotives in their roster. The schedule of the railroad allows visitors to ride trains pulled by these locomotives between the park's Victorian-style depots in Palestine and Rusk and through the Piney Woods forests of East Texas. The Texas Legislature designated the Texas State Railroad as the official Railroad of Texas in 2003.
History
The start of the railroad dates back to 1883, with the completion of the Rusk Penitentiary in Rusk, Texas.
“Texas State Railroad” enters the record as heritage railroad in east-central Texas. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Texas, State and Railroad can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7708088. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1883, 1921, 1969 and 1972.
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This entry incorporates text from “Texas State Railroad” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.