Austin Steam Train Association

The locomotive, Southern Pacific No. 786, had been donated to the City of Austin in 1956 as the Southern Pacific 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 Southern Pacific 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 (ASTA). Throughout ASTA’s history, the operating crews of all its trains have always been volunteers.

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