Oscar Colquitt Bridge On Yale St.

[Ross]

17 hours ago, Purpledevil said:

So that rusty, old steel trestle sitting on wooden pylons next to Yale assists in the improvement of Buffalo Bayou's water quality and movement? Sorry, but I'm skeptical of the District's reasoning for allowing it to remain. Likely more about the cost involved in bringing it down. If that's the case, there should at least be some type of upkeep performed on it. Perhaps a good coating of silver paint on the steel, and a hearty weed wacking to get all of the overgrowth off of it. It would make a nice enough canvas for an artist, along the lines of what the 11th street post office looks like now.

It's there because it can't be removed without a complete study of the potential impacts on downstream flooding. That's the same reason it took years to remove the unused bridge over White Oak Bayou East of TC Jester. The study for that one was done as part of the bike trail project, I believe.

[IronTiger]

19 hours ago, Purpledevil said:

So that rusty, old steel trestle sitting on wooden pylons next to Yale assists in the improvement of Buffalo Bayou's water quality and movement? Sorry, but I'm skeptical of the District's reasoning for allowing it to remain. Likely more about the cost involved in bringing it down. If that's the case, there should at least be some type of upkeep performed on it. Perhaps a good coating of silver paint on the steel, and a hearty weed wacking to get all of the overgrowth off of it. It would make a nice enough canvas for an artist, along the lines of what the 11th street post office looks like now.

I would guess it's more of "who owns it" and the problems associated with that. It originally connected the MKT and SP lines (and probably serviced a business or two) and would likely be the responsibility of UP, though since the city got to use part of the MKT right of way for a bike path (or was it bought by TxDOT and then sub-leased to the city), it might be theirs. So is it the city? TxDOT? Union Pacific? A business that went under 15+ years ago? That might be the issue...

[Purpledevil]

14 minutes ago, IronTiger said:

I would guess it's more of "who owns it" and the problems associated with that. It originally connected the MKT and SP lines (and probably serviced a business or two) and would likely be the responsibility of UP, though since the city got to use part of the MKT right of way for a bike path (or was it bought by TxDOT and then sub-leased to the city), it might be theirs. So is it the city? TxDOT? Union Pacific? A business that went under 15+ years ago? That might be the issue...

 

14 minutes ago, IronTiger said:

I would guess it's more of "who owns it" and the problems associated with that. It originally connected the MKT and SP lines (and probably serviced a business or two) and would likely be the responsibility of UP, though since the city got to use part of the MKT right of way for a bike path (or was it bought by TxDOT and then sub-leased to the city), it might be theirs. So is it the city? TxDOT? Union Pacific? A business that went under 15+ years ago? That might be the issue...

We're about 20 feet west of the original topic of the Oscar Colquitt bridge, but hey...it's your thread.  

 

The M-K-T and SP lines did not connect at any point in the two lines existence. They ran parallel to one another for a few hundred yards west of Yale, then the SP spur crossed the Katy line as a diamond en route to Nicholson. Southern Pacific owned the trestle over White Oak Bayou, as it did the entire spur, and it had been abandoned and the switch cut off from the mainline prior to the UP/SP merger in 1996. Most of the right of way has apparently been bought up by the City, which allowed Nicholson to be widened between west 17th & 19th, while the bike trail paralleling Nicholson took up the rest. Where the Katy trail is currently, follows the original Katy line, not the SP line that ran about 20 or so feet directly south of what's now the east/westbound Katy bike trail. Where the SP line's ROW turned south just before Yale, then paralleled Yale crossing west 6th, 5th, and 4th, has all been taken in by private property now. The Katy Freeway feeder roads did not exist when the spur was still there, meaning TXDOT must've purchased the tract of ROW on each side of the overpass at some point, and then the Walmart property took the remainder of the spur up to where it switched into the northern mainline just east of Bonner, for the parking lot and adjacent business strips that front the Walmart building itself.

 

That leaves only the question of the trestle, which after Allison flooded White Oak bayou as badly as it did in 2001, had the wooden pylons removed from each side of the banks, leaving only the steel trestle and concrete pylons in the middle. Whoever is responsible for the bayou itself, is likely also the trestle's responsible caretaker. That may very well lie on the Bayou Preservation Society's doorstep, or it may be the COH, but I certainly don't know for sure. I can assure you that it is not the Union Pacific Railroad.

 

The SP spur served an industrial steel warehouse on West 25th at the northern terminus, a couple of small paper companies between 23rd and 24th, a warehouse on West 18th, and they used to store boxcars between West 19th and West 23rd on the doubled siding that was there. As kids, we used to play in those boxcars, as the railroad would leave the doors open on the cars most of the time, allowing trucks to pull alongside for unloading purposes.

 

I can't tell you how many times I got my butt whipped by my folks after Mrs. Cates, who lived on West 22nd, would call my mother and father griping that me and her grandson were playing down there on those dang train tracks again! One time, we were playing inside of one, when a switcher engine latched up to the row of boxcars and started pulling them off the siding and back towards the mainline. Talk about not knowing what to do; if we jumped off and ran we were busted for sure! The switchmen had no qualms with giving us kids the "what for" for playing around on their equipment. 

 

Good times...life was so much more simple in those days.

[IronTiger]

6 minutes ago, Purpledevil said:

 

We're about 20 feet west of the original topic of the Oscar Colquitt bridge, but hey...it's your thread.  

 

The M-K-T and SP lines did not connect at any point in the two lines existence. They ran parallel to one another for a few hundred yards west of Yale, then the SP spur crossed the Katy line as a diamond en route to Nicholson. Southern Pacific owned the trestle over White Oak Bayou, as it did the entire spur, and it had been abandoned and the switch cut off from the mainline prior to the UP/SP merger in 1996. Most of the right of way has apparently been bought up by the City, which allowed Nicholson to be widened between west 17th & 19th, while the bike trail paralleling Nicholson took up the rest. Where the Katy trail is currently, follows the original Katy line, not the SP line that ran about 20 or so feet directly south of what's now the east/westbound Katy bike trail. Where the SP line's ROW turned south just before Yale, then paralleled Yale crossing west 6th, 5th, and 4th, has all been taken in by private property now. The Katy Freeway feeder roads did not exist when the spur was still there, meaning TXDOT must've purchased the tract of ROW on each side of the overpass at some point, and then the Walmart property took the remainder of the spur up to where it switched into the northern mainline just east of Bonner, for the parking lot and adjacent business strips that front the Walmart building itself.

 

That leaves only the question of the trestle, which after Allison flooded White Oak bayou as badly as it did in 2001, had the wooden pylons removed from each side of the banks, leaving only the steel trestle and concrete pylons in the middle. Whoever is responsible for the bayou itself, is likely also the trestle's responsible caretaker. That may very well lie on the Bayou Preservation Society's doorstep, or it may be the COH, but I certainly don't know for sure. I can assure you that it is not the Union Pacific Railroad.

 

The SP spur served an industrial steel warehouse on West 25th at the northern terminus, a couple of small paper companies between 23rd and 24th, a warehouse on West 18th, and they used to store boxcars between West 19th and West 23rd on the doubled siding that was there. As kids, we used to play in those boxcars, as the railroad would leave the doors open on the cars most of the time, allowing trucks to pull alongside for unloading purposes.

 

I can't tell you how many times I got my butt whipped by my folks after Mrs. Cates, who lived on West 22nd, would call my mother and father griping that me and her grandson were playing down there on those dang train tracks again! One time, we were playing inside of one, when a switcher engine latched up to the row of boxcars and started pulling them off the siding and back towards the mainline. Talk about not knowing what to do; if we jumped off and ran we were busted for sure! The switchmen had no qualms with giving us kids the "what for" for playing around on their equipment. 

 

Good times...life was so much more simple in those days.

I know that the Katy Trail doesn't follow "exactly" the line, especially close to the beginning, and that there wasn't a way near the Eureka Yards for the SP (the one that paralleled 290 and Washington), but in the 2002 aerial shot in Google Earth, the earliest shot available that's clear, you can note that the spur is still connected and continued almost to Koehler as an active spur. Sometime around 2009 or 2010 all this was torn down and what was left of the spur was dismantled. Up until the Walmart redevelopment changed the area, the tracks could still be seen at Koehler, even though by 2002 the spur north had long been abandoned. In 1989 all this was still visible (but not '95) and it does indeed continue as a parallel track to the MKT, not a direct connection. It is here where a spur connects to the warehouses on 6th Street (the shape of the buildings still pay true to their railroad spur heritage). Following the line, at Waverly (just east of the railroad crossing), a north spur crosses the MKT and parallels Nicholson (this is now also a bike path). However, it continues to appear west (Waverly appears to have three tracks crossing it) and the line merges between Nicholson and Herkimer. This is also supported by the 1978 aerial. 

 

[SamHouston]

Loving this topic, but it's tough to follow. Anyone have a map/maps/schematic?

[Purpledevil]

In my head, yes. It's all mapped out, lol. Tiger, can you give him the Google earth view. I'm not technically inclined enough to make that attachment happen.

 

You are correct, a part of the SP spur indeed continued onto the warehouse on Waverly. The SP line and MKT line never had a switch between them, moving SP traffic onto the Katy line and vise versa. I thought that was what you had mentioned previously; I must've misunderstood.

 

That spur was long abandoned before 2002. I haven't seen rail traffic on that SP spur since the 80's...maybe early, early 90's. Couldn't have been. The West 8th grade crossing was paved over in front of the elementary school due to the grade being made out of wood, which rotted and after being rolled over by all the school buses, became one hell of a mess to drive over before the city laid asphalt over it.

 

My God, how do I remember this worthless information after all this time, but can't tell you everything I did just yesterday?

 

Guess it's because I've always had a fascination with freight trains...just as I do with the radio dial. The Espee was my favorite line, the Katy a very close second. Loved those old red geeps on the Katy, and the always dirty as could be bloody nosed Espee & Cotton Belt power.

[IronTiger]

39 minutes ago, SamHouston said:

Loving this topic, but it's tough to follow. Anyone have a map/maps/schematic?

 

Download Google Earth (the actual application—the mobile version or the browser-embedded version won't work)

Navigate to Yale Street and Koehler Street, where the Walmart and other stores are.

Go to the image of the clock in the upper left corner and drag the slider from 2016 to 1978.

At this point, the image of the stores should disappear and be replaced with a rather fuzzy picture of how that part of town looked in the late 1970s.

Follow the railroad bridge north and everything should make sense, hopefully.

[Leonard]

Removing the trestle was listed in the Ainbinder (Walmart) 380 as a reimbursable item estimated at $30,000.  Obviously, it wasn't done.  

[Purpledevil]

So they whiffed at taking it down at what would end up as no out of pocket expense to them? Jesus, I hate Wal-Mart even more now. I didn't think that was humanly possible. 

[Purpledevil]

15 hours ago, Ross said:

It's there because it can't be removed without a complete study of the potential impacts on downstream flooding. That's the same reason it took years to remove the unused bridge over White Oak Bayou East of TC Jester. The study for that one was done as part of the bike trail project, I believe.

What impact? We're talking about a few concrete pylons sticking into the earth here, not a dam or a wall. The only thing that would be affected is that the trash and debris floating down White Oak would no longer get entangled around the base of it. Instead, it'd get caught up in 20 more feet on the Colquitt bridge.  There's the study; signed, sealed, and delivered...and it didn't cost thousands of taxpayer dollars to conduct it.

 

I swear, common sense doesn't run rampant within our elected officials community. 

[mollusk]

Removing an obstruction has an effect downstream.  The pylons may not be that big a deal - or they might - a hydrologist could tell us.  Regardless, the trestle structure on top of the pylons will also act as a dam and slow down water once it gets that high.  Speeding up an upstream drainage without a corresponding increase in downstream capacity means that those in the middle get flooded more frequently - for an up close and personal look, ask Meyerland.  FEMA and HCFCD now have regulations and a process that need to be followed to try to avoid that result, even if the result seems intuitive.

[Purpledevil]

Ok, I'll buy that. So, what happens then if we receive another huge deluge, resulting in White Oak topping its banks again while the Colquitt bridge's pylons and deck are being replaced during reconstruction? Wouldn't we experience the same perceived catastrophic result as we would if trestle next to it were to be removed? The bridge is supported by concrete pylons as well, which will require total replacement too, will they not?

 

I'm simply not following the logic as to how the bridge itself can be demolished for a total rebuild without any ill effects to bayou's water flow, yet the railroad trestle literally within a few feet of the same bridge requires an apparent mile of red tape to bring the unsightly and unnecessary structure down. 

[mollusk]

Bridge pylons aren't necessarily replaced during a rebuild, and a rebuild is a temporary situation regardless.

[Leonard]

did the water come over the bridge last week?  

 

the long time given to replace the bridge makes me think they will replace the pylons, but the low price makes me think they won't.  

[mollusk]

I didn't lay eyes on it, but I doubt it.  The water in the Heights was well below Allison levels, or even last year.

[Purpledevil]

13 hours ago, mollusk said:

Bridge pylons aren't necessarily replaced during a rebuild, and a rebuild is a temporary situation regardless.

Not necessarily, but they could very well be. The Heights bridges, if memory serves, were replaced as well as the deck. If, during the time it takes to replace the pylons during the rebuild of Yale's, we get another storm that stalls out over the Heights just like the one last week did over Cypress and north Houston, wouldn't we experience the exact same scenario feared with the removal of the trestle? The Oscar Colquitt bridge is a significantly wider structure than the trestle. I do not understand how the trestle could cause a massive uptick in flood potential downstream, if removed, yet there's apparently no cause for concern if a catastrophic flood were to occur during this project. This is Houston, after all, and when it rains, it sometimes really pours. Having grown up with White Oak bayou, I very well know just how bad that particular waterway can flood. I'm not following the thought processing difference between a rather narrow railroad trestle causing such fear of altering the amount of water flow, but not a 4 lane bridge mere feet to the east of it, while it's under construction.

 

Maybe it's just the way it's coming off with regards to intent of my posts on this particular matter. Sometimes, it's hard to judge intent from what one reads, not knowing the author's tone nor mindset. I'm certainly not attempting to be argumentative, only wishing for education in the rationale of what makes one bridge destruction differ from the other.

 

Leonard: White Oak's water flow did not reach the deck of either Yale nor Heights Blvd bridges. My neighbor is a manager at the Sprouts right there, and they were wide open for business all day, with no major flooding in the immediate area. It was bad, but as mollusk duly noted, not near as bad as Allison.

 

At least not there. People in Greenspoint, Willowbrook, Katy, & Cy-Fair would most likely disagree with that statement. I personally worked in the Greenspoint area for over 20 years, and have never witnessed what Greens Bayou did to the immediate area like it did last week before. That was most assuredly the worst flooding in GP that I've ever personally seen. The video on KTRK and KRIV simply blew me away. North Belt, Hardy, and the North Freeway always flood in a heavy rain event, but to see Imperial Valley, Benmar, and Greens Rd. turned into absolute canals had me completely awestruck.

[Visitor]

Well it's closed now, and traffic as expected, is pretty horrendous in this area.  Hopefully as the months roll on and people alter their routes it will subside.  I need to head over to Heights/Koehler and see if they put in any type of traffic control since there isn't a permanent light there. 

[Visitor]

11 hours ago, Leonard said:

did the water come over the bridge last week?  

 

the long time given to replace the bridge makes me think they will replace the pylons, but the low price makes me think they won't.  

 

Nope, was about a foot below it. 

[SamHouston]

When I came through the Yale intersection (EB I-10 frontage road, continuing to a left/north at Heights) mid afternoon it was a flashing red as they were monkeying with some temporary signals.

 

So do we think this will be the new norm? Or are they configuring it for a two-way signal? I've been getting off at Yale the last few years and am reconsidering the olde Studemont u-turn.

[h8s]

@Leonard and Purlpledevil,

 

When I drove to work on 4/18 around 9 or 10 AM I saw the bayou flowing over the deck of the Heights bridges and was forced to drive over the Yale bridge. Luckily the Yale bridge was left open even though that was the original date it was supposed to be closed.

[IronTiger]

20 minutes ago, h8s said:

@Leonard and Purlpledevil,

 

When I drove to work on 4/18 around 9 or 10 AM I saw the bayou flowing over the deck of the Heights bridges and was forced to drive over the Yale bridge. Luckily the Yale bridge was left open even though that was the original date it was supposed to be closed.

Yeah, when I went to Yale Street on a Tuesday (by that time the waters had largely subsided, and the depressed part of I-10 was perfectly dry), the bridge had a lane closed off but seemed to be open at least northbound.

[Leonard]

Thanks h8s and Iron Tiger.  Was wondering if the bridge was left open because they couldn't start working on it or what.  Wondering how many weeks delay was built into the long schedule or if it's already one week behind.  

 

 

[Visitor]

Snapped a quick pic yesterday.  Slowly getting there. Also making headway on the hike and bike trail extension.

[Leonard]

Thanks for the pics, Visitor.  I would love a piece of that railing for my yard.

 

[HoustonMidtown]

Where does the bike trail go - does it connect to the section by Studemont/I-10 ?

[Visitor]

29 minutes ago, HoustonMidtown said:

Where does the bike trail go - does it connect to the section by Studemont/I-10 ?

Yes it does.  Here is a map of the extension:

 

http://theleadernews.com/new-two-mile-piece-of-white-oak-bayou-greenway-under-construction/

[Visitor]

Moving along...

[HoustonMidtown]

On 6/6/2016 at 3:51 PM, Visitor said:

Yes it does.  Here is a map of the extension:

 

 

I found the new trail yesterday - had to go "off-road" a bit as it's still under construction !!  I actually rode down the section in your pics you just posted

[Visitor]

I'm ready for it to be done, both the trail and the bridge.  How much of the trail would you say is paved so far?

[HoustonMidtown]

6 minutes ago, Visitor said:

I'm ready for it to be done, both the trail and the bridge.  How much of the trail would you say is paved so far?

The connector piece to the Heights bike trail isn't done yet (that's where I went off-road) and I couldn't get past Yale as they were working on the bridge and trail and had it all blocked off - there was a small patch in between those two points that wasn't done also