68 
Transactions Texas Academy of Science. — 1906. 
This sum was to be returned when twenty-five miles of the road 
were completed. 
Grading was commenced some fifteen or twenty miles south of 
Beaumont with the purpose of making Sabine Pass the terminus. 
The road between these two places was completed in 1861. The $50,- 
000 deposit was never made. 
30. Aransas Bailway. 
The Aransas Railroad was another fiasco of the times. The com- 
pany was chartered in 1852 for the purpose of constructing turn- 
pikes from Aransas Bay to Goliad. 40 In 1858 it was changed from 
a turnpike to a railroad company. 41 
The idea was soon conceived of turning this pigmy road into a 
trans-continental line. The company allied itself with a corporation 
organized in Washington City, and acting under a franchise from the 
Supreme Government of Mexico, the Washington company purposed 
to extend the Aransas road through Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. 
This constituted the so-called Central Transit Railroad. 
How much of this magnificent scheme was realized? In 1858 a 
roadbed was opened across Live Oak peninsula near Aransas. In 
1859 the grading across the shallow water separating the main land 
from deep water of Aransas Bay was completed; and these six or 
seven miles of embankment was all that ever materialized of the 
great Central Transit Railroad. 
NOTES. 
*Act of January 22, 1858, “Laws of Texas,” Vol. 4, p. 529. This act amended 
the act of 1856 so as to allow companies to receive loans on the five miles of 
road after the completion of the first twenty-five miles. 
^Published statements to the stockholders of the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos & 
Colorado Railroad on the condition of the company for the years 1858 and 1860. 
The entire equipment of the company consisted on the 1st of April, 1860, of 
six locomotives, three first-class passenger cars, two second-class passenger cars, 
mail and baggage cars, sixty-one platform and twenty box freight cars, and ten 
hand and rubble cars. 
3 The general account stood on April 1, 1860, as follows: 
Construction accounts including profit and loss . . . $932,360 05 
Interest . 132,699 25 
Expense . 286,950 61 
Equipment . 102,831 75 
Suspense account 3,456 43 $1,458,298 12 
Land of Harrisburg $151,014 60 
Land near Columbus, 1380 acres post oak. ........ 3,124 83 154,139 43 
Due from sundry parties in suspense 5,556 45 
Sundry balances, assets 12,602 48 
$1,630,596 48 
