AUSTIN STEAM TRAIN ASSOCIATION

The mission of the Austin Steam Train Association is to preserve, interpret and re-create the first-hand experience of historic steam railroading for the enjoyment and edification of today’s families and the generations to come.

Central Texas’ popular excursion railroad grew from the happy confluence of an historic steam locomotive and an historic rail line, after the two both became the property of the citizens of Austin.

The locomotive, Southern Pacific No. 786, had been donated to the city in 1956 as the SP was retiring its steam fleet in favor of diesel power, and she was put on static display in downtown Austin’s Brush Square. Twenty years later, the SP ended its operations in the Austin area and sold the city 167 miles of its track from Giddings through Austin and into the Hill Country to Burnet, Llano and Marble Falls.

A number of local rail aficionados, led by businessman and private-railcar enthusiast Arthur U. Boone, saw the possibilities of bringing together the city’s steam engine and the city’s new railroad into an authentic re-creation of historic passenger railroading in Central Texas, and they incorporated in 1989 as the non-profit Austin Steam Train Association.

After seven years and 60,000 miles of service, the 786 was sidelined in 1999 for a repair which turned into a complete overhaul of the locomotive, which is nearing completion but still under way. Passenger operations, of course, went on uninterrupted with diesel-electric locomotives, first borrowed from ASTA’s freight-hauling partners on the line and then with the acquisition of the A&TC’s own diesel, the 1960 Alco-built No. 442, which has reliably powered almost all of ASTA’s trains ever since.