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Missouri Kansas And Texas Railroad Company (MK&T)


gto250us

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Does anyone know when the old Missouri Kansas And Texas Railroad Company (MK&T) station was torn down? It stood at Collins Place and North Main. On the north bank of WhiteOak Bayou at Main Street. The old MKT Trestles across the White Oak, I think are still there.

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I've had an idea for a while of getting together old pictures from all over the city and trying to recapture the same shot from the exact spot where the picture was taken to show how things have changed, this would probably be a good one to start with...

I think that's an excellent idea. I love that kind of stuff.

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I've had an idea for a while of getting together old pictures from all over the city and trying to recapture the same shot from the exact spot where the picture was taken to show how things have changed, this would probably be a good one to start with...

There's already a book for that, called Houston Then & Now, available on Amazon NEW for $14.

LINK: http://www.amazon.com/Houston-Then-Now/dp/1592231373/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251848450&sr=8-1

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There's a newspaper article/ad on sale on Ebay for MKT Station Houston. It would not let me post the picture here.

I think I saw the same article on ebay. I really hate it when I see old books, magazines, and newspapers chopped up in an attempt to make more money off them. Here's a copy of the article(not from ebay):

3880141800_17874a8ed4_o.jpg

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There's already a book for that, called Houston Then & Now, available on Amazon NEW for $14.

LINK: http://www.amazon.com/Houston-Then-Now/dp/1592231373/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251848450&sr=8-1

Plus JR Gonzales has a continuing Then and Now feature in his Bayou City History blog in the Chron.

Bring it on kylejack; that kind of stuff is always interesting.

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The picture seems to be shot from the other side of a bayou, though, right? Isn't that a railroad bridge crossing a bayou on the right of the picture? Is that the remains of the railroad bridge that can still be seen?

Edit: The red arrow is where I propose that the photographer was, and the direction he shot. Sorry if that was unclear.

Edited by kylejack
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There does appear to be a bridge still there, crossing the bayou, under 1-10. I used maps.live.com and rotated the Birdseye view. The train station appears to be behind the top watermark on the original B&W photo. Notice the bend in Main St. The current parking lot does indeed appear to be the site where it once stood.

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Here we go, makes a lot more sense, thanks guys.

1947k.jpg

There's something in those old photos on Collins Place north of White Oak Bayou, but it's not the MKT station, unless another one was built after the 1914 structure was torn down in the late 50s.

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What's that big acordian looking think on top of the UHDT building in post #2?

I was wondering about that, as well. My First thought too, was that it was probably part of an a/c unit. What a great pic of UH - DT & train station. I got to see UH-DT recently. They did a good job of restoring it. The patio is awesome.

I could see bayou water flowing over that old bridge, at times. How interesting.

Edited by NenaE
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  • 5 months later...

I've been fascinated with the late MKT ever since I discovered an old ROW across from Memorial City Mall, but one thing that continues to confound me is MKT in the Heights: after it crosses Heights Blvd., it parallels 7th Street and cuts straight across 7th and Cortland, making two nasty railroad crossings at two ends of the intersection. While blurry aerial photos and the "property lines" on Google Maps confirm this (by the way, the house on the southwest side was built later) I just can't see this working out in 1990s Houston. (link)

1. Does anyone remember the strange/dangerous railroad crossings at Cortland and 7th? What were they like?

2. When exactly was the MKT abandoned/stripped?

3. Does anyone have any photos?

I mean, the whole thing looks just so surreal to me. I mean, just looking at Arlington Road, it's an extremely suburban-type area, and a railroad barreling through there just less than 15 years ago is...odd.

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I've been fascinated with the late MKT ever since I discovered an old ROW across from Memorial City Mall, but one thing that continues to confound me is MKT in the Heights: after it crosses Heights Blvd., it parallels 7th Street and cuts straight across 7th and Cortland, making two nasty railroad crossings at two ends of the intersection. While blurry aerial photos and the "property lines" on Google Maps confirm this (by the way, the house on the southwest side was built later) I just can't see this working out in 1990s Houston. (link)

1. Does anyone remember the strange/dangerous railroad crossings at Cortland and 7th? What were they like?

2. When exactly was the MKT abandoned/stripped?

3. Does anyone have any photos?

I mean, the whole thing looks just so surreal to me. I mean, just looking at Arlington Road, it's an extremely suburban-type area, and a railroad barreling through there just less than 15 years ago is...odd.

Iron Tiger, The Missouri-Kansas-Texas railroad had its Houston yard (the Eureka Yard) smack dab in the middle of the Heights (it could be easily seen from the Dhepard Drive/Durham Street overpasses) and was, in its time, a major economic source for that area. "Miss Katy", as many railfans refer to it, was pretty typical of railroads in Houston that often had its lines run right down the middle of streets in several neighborhoods (Texas and New Orleans aka Southern Pacific did the same thing in fifth ward) with several extremely dangerous crossings.

Miss Katy was a railroad that had, quite literally, became a pale shadow barely keeping out of bankruptcy in her later years...the rolling stock and rails showed this. She was partially owned by the Missouri Pacific (MoPac) in her final years. When MoPac was merged with the Union Pacific in 1988, Miss Katy ceased to be, her flag fell, and was gone with scarcly a word and very quickly. Her rolling stock was repainted or sent to the cutters torch.

The line from Eureka down I-10 was used by the Union Pacific up until I think the mid 1990's and then was abandoned. It ultimately became part of the I-10 expansion.

It you check YouTube, there are several videos on there showing Miss Katy in operation. Several were taken in the Heights back in the day. There are many photos of her on-line, as well.

Miss Katy was my favorite railroad. I still miss her and her "John Deere" colored equipment.

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It you check YouTube, there are several videos on there showing Miss Katy in operation. Several were taken in the Heights back in the day. There are many photos of her on-line, as well.

Miss Katy was my favorite railroad. I still miss her and her "John Deere" colored equipment.

Here's the MKT blasting down the track at Barker-Cypress Rd.

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Yes, but that's impossible. The train is seen going past an office building in an open area (what is "Park 10"?), a small railroad crossing, and then under a road underpass. Where would that be...?

Like JLWM said, it's at Barker Cypress. Park 10 is the large business complex there. I think you may have missed the very opening of the video.

Key to your question was the date....1985

That entire area out I-10 west is very different now.

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Like JLWM said, it's at Barker Cypress. Park 10 is the large business complex there. I think you may have missed the very opening of the video.

Key to your question was the date....1985

That entire area out I-10 west is very different now.

Boy how I remember that MKT line running through the Heights. One of the slowest trains I have ever witnessed. They ran through the Heights at about 5mph, or at least it seemed. The Hike and Bike Trail that runs through there now is exactly the ROW for the old line from N. Shepherd to Houston Avenue. It ran parrallel with 7th until it curved at Cortlandt, at which point it ran straight ahead past White Oak and then on across the Studewood bridge. In 1989 I was there when 2 trains collided head on to each other at that very spot. I was at an old school friend's house visiting when we heard the most God awful "boom". He lived at 10th and Heights in those apartments across the street from the Heights Food Store. (7-11 at that time) We heard it like it was right outside, and went to look. I remember telling Anthony that the train wasn't moving down there on the Katy, and that I bet it was a collision. Sure enough it was. One was coming into the Eureka Yard from DT and the other leaving Eureka heading for town. Somehow, communications between the dispatcher and the two trains got lost and hey met at the curve, ended up derailing 5 cars, and one of those boxcars actually ran into the corner of the house on the left of the track (now trail). It was shortly after that accident that UP decided to abandoned the old Katy line in favor of the SP line a few miles south that basically ran the same route, just without all of the curves. That track did a lot of stranges twists and turns. At Taylor (where Sawyer Heights is now) the track ran directly down the side of the street with the tracks basically in the front yard of those homes along the street. It then crossed Houston Ave, then under 45 along the old Moore Paper Company on Quitman and then through downtown. The old bridge north of downtown, next to the SP line is still there, although abandoned and in bad repair. The Katy continued on north of downtown, under US 59 and dumped out just east of the Union Station, crossing Texas Avenue, Dowling, St. Charles, etc. it then turned to the west (a right hand turn) across McKinney and continued west under 45 and beyond. There are still many remnants of the old Katy line along the way. Tower 13 at far west end of the yard is one of the oldest established towers in Houston, as I recall. Did you know that the bridge over Shepherd that ends just before Merchants Park was built specifically for the MKT? Now that the track is gone, there is no reason whatsoever for that bridge to exist, but of course with the MKT switching from Eureka across Shepherd in the 70's, Shepherd was backed up clear to I-10 on some occassions, while the train went back and forth switching cars. IIRC, the bridge over shepherd was built in 1982. The MKT line had several wig wags on it that are nearly non existent now. Example of that would be the St. Charles crossing, and the McKee St. crossing. It seems like Houston Ave. had wig wags at one time, but were changed to the old elevated warning lights with the cross hatch elevated as well. Those were there until just before MKT sold out to UP, at which time they were changed to the newer type warning signals. Up until about 2 years ago, the original 1950's warning lights were still there at the entrance of the yard and Cottage Grove on Kansas St. Those have now been replaced with the new LED warning lights. One of those Youtube pics show the crossings at Kansas St. with the old 50's style warning lights.

Park 10 is indeed at Bark. Cypress and Katy Fwy. It used to look the way it did on the youtube video for many years, that is until the expansion of the Katy Freeway and deletion of Old Katy Road. Now that whole area is drastically different. It doesn't even resemble the Katy Freeway of my younger years.

Oh, and the bridges you are referring to used to be there along I-10. Mason, Fry, Barker Cypress all used to go over I-10 instead of under. This way those streets were never affected by the freeway or the slow moving trains. They were all demo'ed for the Katy expansion.

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