Rotted wood was the only thing holding the rails together, the San Angelo Standard Times reports. Now government entities have secured funds to put in new railroad ties, new railroad crossings, new rails and a new bridge, with construction having already begun near downtown San Angelo, Texas.

"The railroad crossings are part of the $1 million that we received from Congressman (Mike) Conaway's office," said E'Lisa Smetana, the San Angelo Metropolitan Planning Organization director. "The construction on the crossings will start Oct. 1, 2010, and be completed by Dec. 31, 2010."

Motorists can expect to see the crossings closed when the new concrete crossings are installed, and the company doing the work, Trac-Work, will coordinate with city emergency personnel to let them know what is closed and when, Smetana said.

The railway ties are being replaced by the Texas Department of Transportation, she said.

"It's going to make it go to where (trains) could only go 5 miles per hour to 25 miles per hour" coming through San Angelo, said David Wood, president of the Railway Museum of San Angelo.

Crews recently replaced track and ties where the line goes past the museum, which is in the old Santa Fe-Orient train depot at 703 S. Chadbourne St. Wood said federal regulations control the speed of trains based on the quality of the track.

It was taking trains two to three days, he said, to get from San Angelo to a junction near Coleman, less than 100 miles.

"They were going down as low as two to three miles an hour because parts were in such bad shape, and they didn't want to derail," Wood said.

He said trains might be able to go in a few hours to a location that once took them a few days.

Wood said that about a year ago, about one railroad tie out of every 20 was taken out. This time one out of every three or four railroad ties were removed. He said he saw the foreman spray-marking each tie by hand, signaling which ones he wanted out.

"Most of the ties that they're taking out are from 1955 or 1956. They have date nails," Wood said.

He said date nails were used up until about the 1970s so workers could tell whether a railroad tie had outlived its usefulness - after a 20-year life span, for instance. Wood said he didn't see the crew take out a single tie whole; all of them came out splintered and falling apart.

"Which is dangerous, because that's what holds the rails together," Wood said. "If they spread apart, they could have a derail."

Wood said that up until the 1920s, railroad maintenance was mostly manually done.

"In the old days they had a pick and shovel and some pry bars. They still use the same style pry bars. Basically, it was by hand. They would shove the ties back in by hand and use a funny looking hammer with a real long, skinny, pointed head to drive the spikes down with.

"With two men on either side, they would get into a rhythm and sing a chant or a rhythm. One would hit and pull back and go ‘bing, bing, bing' pretty quick," Wood said.