The Rock Island line ran south from Winnfield to Packton and was once part of the Rock's mainline to Eunice, LA, to the south. It paralleled the adjacent Louisiana & Arkansas Railroad (a subsidiary of Kansas City Southern), which also visited Winnfield and Packton. Located at Packton was "L&A Junction", where the Rock Island connected with the L&A (formerly Louisiana Midland) and enjoyed trackage rights on the L&A south to Alexandria. When the trackage rights on the L&A were extended northwards to Winnfield, this line was abandoned.


The Rock Island was in the process of being built to Alexandria and had actualy made it south several 100 ft past packton accross the Pacton Alaxandria rd and Caskie branch when trackage rights were secured to Alexandria. The Rock island stoped work on the Alex line backed up about 2 miles and built a line crossing US167 and entering Packton across the pond. The Rock Island rails running out into the pond were never pulled up and the switch was used for storage up intil the 90s when it was removed. The tracks into the pond are still in place.

Old maps show a town called Wirand at the dead end which we think may have been a mill. Old newspaper reports also talk of 2 other mills on this line north of Packton. Locals tell of a large hole in the ground that you can fall into which might have been a well that caved in.

From the ELDORADO TO PACKTON (RI SUBDIV 39) 1916 maps See here. They show dates abandoned and town names

This is telling me that the the spur from The Rock to L&A at packton was removed in 1926 and that the line from the spur to the dead end was removed in 1925. And the line from winnfield to the point where the spure started was removed in 1927. Its also telling me that a Mallett station sign was 3.43 miles S of Winnfield near the existing curve in the KSC railroad. This area is on private land and has no usable road to it.

It also gives info on the Depot as "Winnfield, retired 28' x 62' depot, replaced with 10' x 41' car body depot" and puts the Switch to the Tremont & Gulf RR a few feet past the depot. This looks to be the switch that runs into the Center st.

It also says the L&A switch was removed but it was not. The Rock switch was in place until sometime in the late 90s. The sidding was used for storage and in the 80s they parked oil cars on it and trucks made connections to them leaking oil all over the ground. I do not know if they were loading or unloading. The sidding had a yellow derailer bolted to it to stop any cars from roling back onto the tracks. After removal of the switch the rails still lead out into the pond where I used to fish when I was little. This is now private property owned by the Warrens. W.A. Warren ran the Packton depot when it was in operation.

The ROW is known to locals as the tram and in winnfield is used for several streets one of which is Tram rd.

Above is the end of the line that was to go to Alex. It just ends in the woods and you can see where the drag line was digging.