Steve Goen presentation at Allen library a few years ago documents with hundreds of photos the boom and decay of passenger trains in North Texas.
I recently found a youtube of a two hours long presentation, and there are others on the same subject for most of Texas.
Here are the links:
North Texas
https://youtu.be/wj4k8qDAB8I?si=d-QO_DCs4b86tg8C
MoPac
https://youtu.be/vfsIFOL9e74?si=pWSBci5Zk6YoB4as
Dallas-Houston
https://youtu.be/StDEieSeDA4?si=rFoxooNUXC7i6zeV
The last video is less than 30 minutes long, I would set aside an evening to watch the first two.
To start the discussion, the photos are amazing. By the mid 1950s, all the railroads but one in Texas wanted to eliminate passenger trains. The last train company that tried to keep them running was Santa Fe. Eventually, Santa Fe also joined Amtrak and got out of the passenger train business.
While the others blamed the loss of mail contracts, they were still running mail on their passenger trains up to the last passenger train. Except Santa Fe, which even ran passenger trains, unsuccessfully as it turn out, after losing the mail contracts.
Realize, today there are no passenger trains between Dallas and Houston. Burlington and Rock Island at one time ran two round trip trains per day, and Southern Pacific ran three round trip trains per day, although the "Owl" only had one chair car with a dozen or so mail cars.
Yes, up to 7 round trip passenger trains per day directly between Dallas and Houston.