Edward S. Hughes had been a part of the formation of the railroad from the beginning and was a signer of its charter in 1906. A Princeton graduate, he came to Texas from North Carolina in 1882 and settled in the new town of Abilene. With F. W. James and son Henry James, he was involved in the creation of the Wichita Valley and Abilene & Northern Railroads while also operating a wholesale hardware business that served a large part of west Texas.  In 1913, he succeeded Gen. F. W. James as President of the RS&P and served in that office until 1933, when he became Chairman of the Board.
        Horace O. Wooten was not a part of the group that formed the RS&P, but he got involved early on and was instrumental in its survival and long-term success as an independent railroad.  Born in Tyler in 1865, he moved with his family to west Texas when he was fourteen and lived on a farm for six years near what would become Abilene before returning to Tyler to study and become a bookkeeper.  He moved back to Abilene in 1888, married in 1889, and opened a grain store the following year.
        His business prospered, and after eight years, he established a wholesale grocery business that soon became the largest in west Texas.  He threw in his lot with the RS&P in 1908.  He became its Vice President in 1912 and remained so until 1933, when he succeeded Hughes as President, an office he then held until his death in 1947.

The Panama Canal Crisis  
   

       The RS&P suffered a major financial crisis when the Panama Canal was completed in 1914.  For the first time, the canal’s opening allowed transcontinental shipments by water instead of by rail, and, like many other railroads, the RS&P took a major hit.  When initial efforts to drum up new business failed, Wooten was advised to sell his interest in the railroad for what he could get.  But he had some $200,000 invested and couldn’t afford to withdraw without also endangering his wholesale grocery business, so he took his name off the grocery company payroll and for the next seven years concentrated all his energies into saving the RS&P. 
      In 1911, three years earlier, the completion of the Santa Fe line to Snyder had opened up a direct route from the RS&P to California, and Wooten had taken immediate advantage of it for his wholesale grocery business by buying California produce and shipping it back to west Texas via the Santa Fe and RS&P. 
      Now, with the threat to the continued existence of the RS&P, he made repeated trips to California to meet with leaders of the produce shipping industry, many whom he already knew from his grocery business, promising them improved efficiency and shipping times on fruits and vegetables bound for the southern states.  At the same time, he worked with the Santa Fe and Texas & Pacific railways and got them to agree to allow the RS&P certain divisions on business it secured so that the produce shippers, as well as shippers of other commodities, would use the RS&P as a bridge between the Santa Fe at Snyder and the Texas & Pacific at Roscoe.
      With Wooten making the deals with the suppliers, the arrangement was profitable for all three railroads—and produce shippers profited by getting California fruits and vegetables to the Memphis and New Orleans markets in five days, something they hadn’t been able to do or count on otherwise.  Once these arrangements were in place, shippers of other products also made deals with the RS&P to arrange and carry out their shipping.
      Over time, this practice of securing business was extended to other cities, and, unlike with other short lines, became the mainstay of the railroad’s operation.  In a few years, the RS&P had gone from crisis to a firm financial footing with 80% of its revenues from this bridge traffic.

World War I and Nationalization of the RS&P

       During World War I, the RS&P, like the majority of U. S. railroads, was nationalized.  The U. S. entered the war in April 1917, and in an effort to increase wartime efficiency, the government created the Railroad Administration and took over operation of the nation’s railroads.

       In January 1918, the RS&P forwarded to all its officers and employees a special bulletin containing a patriotic message from the nation’s Director General of Railroads, W. G. McAdoo:

     The supreme interests of the nation have compelled the drafting of a great army of our best young men and sending them to the bloody fields of France to fight for the lives and liberties of those who stay at home. The sacrifices we are exacting of these noble American boys call to us who stay at home with an irresistible appeal to support them with our most unselfish labor and effort in the work we must do if our armies are to save America from the serious dangers that confront her.  Upon the railroads rests a grave responsibility for the success of the war.  The railroads cannot be efficiently operated without the wholehearted and loyal support of everyone in the service from the highest to the lowest.

    I earnestly appeal to you to apply yourselves with new devotion and energy to your work, to keep trains moving. . . so that our soldiers and sailors may want for nothing which will enable them to fight the enemy to a standstill and win a glorious victory for united America.

McAdoo’s appeal was accompanied by similar sentiments expressed by the company’s officers: President Ed S. Hughes, Vice President H. O. Wooten, and Assistant General Manager W. S. James.

        The war was over in November 1918, and in March 1920, the government returned the railroads to their owners and compensated them for the use of their property.

Growth and Progress of the RS&P

      The RS&P grew steadily in the following years and over time established itself as one of the most profitable short lines in the nation. It purchased its first locomotive from the T&P in 1907, the old 1881 wood-burner that had been converted to coal.  In 1908, it added a second, newer and better locomotive, and in 1916, a third, both coal-burning steam engines.   It also built and maintained a roundhouse and a steam engine repair shop, both in Roscoe.
      For the year ending in June 1911, the company reported a gross income of $86,863 and a net income after taxes of $34,175.  In 1916, it purchased a third locomotive and a third passenger car and had an overall value of $538,000.  By 1927 its overall value had grown to $1,700,565 with eighty percent of its revenues from bridge traffic.  It purchased a fourth locomotive in 1929 and in 1931 had four locomotives, one freight car, and three passenger cars, with annual earnings of $210,101.
      Throughout the depression, the railroad did well and was a bright spot for the area economy, continuing to grow and provide employment in difficult times.  By 1938 it had 55 employees and handled 5,700 cars a year.  It also played a major role in the Scurry County oil booms of the 1920s, late 1940s and early 1950s by transporting necessary oil field equipment.
      With the coming of the highways, however, the large cattle shipments it made from Fluvanna diminished as more and more livestock were moved in trucks.  Passenger service also diminished to almost nothing, so in December 1941, after 31 years of service, the runs to Fluvanna were discontinued.  The following year the track between there and Snyder was taken up and the rail sold for scrap metal to aid in the war, much of it winding up as shrapnel.
      During World War II, the RS&P did its part in the war effort just as it had during the First World War, moving military supplies, equipment, and munitions.  One incident that occurred in that time deserves mention.  An RS&P train that was hauling seventeen carloads of bombs hit a soft drink truck at a crossing, killing the driver and causing the truck to overturn and catch fire.  Calvin Clifton, the brakeman, risked his life to throw sand on the fire to avert the danger of a major explosion.
      Passenger service to Snyder was discontinued in 1953, but by then the railroad had 70 full-time employees and had modernized by retiring the old steam locomotives and buying two new diesel engines, one in 1949 and the other in 1953.  It also replaced 22 miles of the old lighter rails with new, heavier ones.  By 1953 the freight traffic had grown to about 14,000 cars annually, and by 1959 the number was up to 20,000.

Chapter 4