Fort Worth and Denver Railway

Fort Worth and Denver Railway

The Fort Worth and Denver City's Colorado Special rolls through the Texas Panhandle, 1929.
Overview
Headquarters	Fort Worth, Texas
Reporting mark	FWD
Locale	Texas
Dates of operation	1881–1982
Successor	Burlington Northern Railroad
Technical
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge

The Fort Worth and Denver Railway (reporting mark FWD), nicknamed "the Denver Road," was a class I American railroad company that operated in the northern part of Texas from 1881 to 1982, and had a profound influence on the early settlement and economic development of the region.

The Fort Worth and Denver City Railway Company (FW&DC) was chartered by the Texas Legislature on May 26, 1873. On August 7, 1951, the company changed its name to the Fort Worth and Denver Railway Company (FW&D).^[1]

The main line of the railroad ran from Fort Worth through Wichita Falls, Childress, Amarillo, and Dalhart, to Texline, where it connected with the rails of parent company Colorado and Southern Railway, both of which became subsidiaries of the Burlington Route in 1908.

At the end of 1970, FW&D operated 1,201 mi (1,933 km) of road on 1,577 mi (2,538 km) of track; that year it reported 1493 million ton-miles of revenue freight. (Those totals may or may not include the former Burlington-Rock Island Railroad.) In 1980, operated mileage had dropped to 1181, but freight was 7732 million ton-miles.