The new 94-mile (152 km) line was built to shorten the distance between the Texas towns of Nelleva, a small community on the north side of Navasota, and Mexia.
And while it was faster than the H&TC line via Hearne for through trains, the marginal increase in speed was insufficient to cover the costs of maintaining an additional route between the two endpoints.
In the end, it may have been SP's competition with the Texas and Pacific Railway between Texarkana and El Paso that finally doomed the Mexia-Nelleva Cutoff.
To improve the situation, SP opened the Dalsa Cutoff in 1914 between Hearne and Flatonia, shortening the route across Texas by 140 miles (226 km).
Most of this is part of Farm to Market Road 39, which is constructed atop the old right-of-way between Iola and Mexia, a distance of roughly 71 miles (114 km).
In 1977, five miles of the original cutoff route was rebuilt as a rail spur to serve the Texas Municipal Power Agency's Gibbons Creek Generating Plant south of Iola in Grimes County.