Death Trap On Buffalo Drive (Allen Parkway)

[Chi-Char-Hou-Dal]

This is too crazy - 1929 Sears Robuck Co I imagine they are referring to the now vacant lot former wharehouse on Dallas & Montrose?

 

 

Edited May 5, 2014 by Chi-Char-Hou-Dal

[IronTiger]

Yes, there was once a spur that went down that went down to Montrose and Dallas, though I believe the spur was still intact even into the 1990s. The bridge (and Allen Parkway) had probably been rebuilt though.

[mollusk]

That's even more fun than the RR underpass on old 71 near Smithville (even if it does have better sight lines).

[SpaceGhost]

IronTiger has got it. Info on this RR is hard to find because most of it was abandoned after different routes into Houston where built. The tl;dr version of it is that this spur was built to connect the GH&SA South Line to the Central Line. It was abandoned to about the intersection of Grant and Pacific in 1918 when the line through modern day Memorial park was built.

 

Maps

Full map of the line running from Washington to Almeda in 1913

 

Map of the north side of the line running from Washington to the end of the map. 1915

 

Same map above continued showing the line stopping at Grant and Pacific 1915 (not here that the line restarts South of the SARP RR).

 

Some other info

[WillowBend56]

There was a GH&SA line (part of the Southern Pacific) that ran through the Montrose area down to east of Hermann Park and paralleling the I&GN line to another GH&SA line at a location called Stella. A 1.7 mile segment in Montrose (excluding the northern section of it near Allen Parkway) was pulled up in 1918 because of residential development and the construction of a bypass line further west. The northern section that existed into the 1990s was called the Sears Lead. The segment south of Montrose to Stella was pulled up a decade or more after the 1.7 mile Montrose segment was abandoned.

Edited May 6, 2014 by WillowBend56

[IronTiger]

It even looks like the last of it was pulled around 2005, based on obvious scars from Google Earth (and it existed in 2002).

 

You can see at Memorial Heights and Washington, the railroad cut straight through the intersection, even going well into the southbound lane. This never saw much use as the southbound lane was opened in 2003, so it likely saw few, if any, rail traffic.

 

(On a related note, I doubt Westpark and Edloe, another "crazy crossing" seems to have built in the "spur years" and didn't have much in the way of rail traffic)

[Michelle C]

That's even more fun than the RR underpass on old 71 near Smithville (even if it does have better sight lines).

 

I live in Smithville and have seen some bad wrecks at that under pass. When the bypass was built around Smithville the under pass was done away with and is now a four lane overpass.

[mollusk]

I live in Smithville and have seen some bad wrecks at that under pass. When the bypass was built around Smithville the under pass was done away with and is now a four lane overpass.

 

I haven't gotten off the bypass to look (either I'm a hurry to get to Austin by a particular time, or tired on my way home... is the old thrill show still there on the now bypassed old route?

[Michelle C]

I haven't gotten off the bypass to look (either I'm a hurry to get to Austin by a particular time, or tired on my way home... is the old thrill show still there on the now bypassed old route?

 

The narrow underpass is no longer there. When the bypass was built it was done away with. Now we have a overpass that crosses the railroad tracks at the same location. If you take the old road through town, you still have the dog leg where third street intersects with Highway 95. I don't guess that will ever change. We still only have two traffic lights in town.

[mollusk]

Oh, OK - I get it now.  One silly narrow two lane underpass (kinda on a curve, too, IIRC) replaced with not one but two, four lane overpasses.  Pretty uptown - far more so than Afton Oaks.