The Waco, Beaumont, Trinity and Sabine Railroad grew from earlier lines beginning on September 28, 1881, when the Trinity and Sabine Railway Company was chartered as a logging tram connecting with the International and Great Northern Railroad, intended to run east to the Sabine River but extending only as far as Colmesneil. In 1882, it became part of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway Company of Texas. In 1905, lumber magnate William Carlisle chartered the Beaumont and Great Northern Railroad to connect with the International and Great Northern, planning to run southeast to Beaumont but reaching only Livingston, 33 miles east of Trinity. In 1911, that line was sold to the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, which merged the two railroads into a single system two years later. The Waco, Beaumont Trinity and Sabine Railway Company, founded by Col. R.C. Duff, purchased the line on April 8, 1924, with Trinity as its hub and corporate offices, though it never reached any of the places in its title except Trinity. At its peak, it operated 115.2 miles of standard gauge, ballast-free track through the east Texas Piney Woods in Trinity, Polk, Tyler, and Houston counties, carrying passengers, freight, and mail each day while moving timber, pulpwood, tomatoes, vehicles, and later oil from the nearby Kittrell Oil Field to market. Loggers along the route nicknamed it "Wobbly, Bobbly, Turnover and Stop" because of frequent derailments caused by quickly laid tracks. The railroad was abandoned in 1961, and its offices and depot in Trinity were torn down in 1968-69. Engine #1, an oil-burning Prairie type locomotive built in 1920 by Baldwin Locomotive Works, operated on its tracks, and Galveston philanthropist Mary Moody Northen later funded its restoration for display at the Galveston Railroad Museum. It was a major transportation link in the region and one of Texas's most interesting yet obscure railroads.