[1] The main line of the railroad ran from Fort Worth through Wichita Falls, Childress, Amarillo, and Dalhart, to Texline, where it connected with the rails of parent company Colorado and Southern Railway, both of which became subsidiaries of the Burlington Route in 1908.

Dodge organized the Texas and Colorado Railway Improvement Company in 1881 to build and equip the FW&DC in return for $20,000 in stock and $20,000 in bonds for each mile of track laid.

In the same year, the FW&DC and the Denver and New Orleans Railroad Company, organized in Colorado, agreed to connect their systems at the Texas-New Mexico border.

[1] Construction began at Hodge Junction, just north of Fort Worth, on November 27, 1881, and by September 1882, Dodge had completed 110 mi (180 km) of track to Wichita Falls, Texas.

[1] In the first four decades of the 20th century, the FW&DC built or acquired a number of feeder lines in its territory, so that by 1940, the Burlington-owned system operated 1,031 mi (1,659 km) of main track in Texas in addition to the Burlington-Rock Island Railroad.

[1] In 1925, the FW&DC had extended service from Fort Worth to Dallas by acquiring trackage rights over the Rock Island Railroad between those cities.

However, by 1972, in the face of competition from interstate highway traffic and airlines, the Fort Worth and Denver owned 20 locomotives and 1,520 freight cars, but operated at a loss of $1,743,551.

The Fort Worth and Denver Railway's corporate existence came to an end when it was formally merged into Burlington Northern Railroad on December 31, 1982.