A Crossing of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway and the International & Great Northern Railroad
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Left: In this photo, Tower 23 sits diagonally across the diamond from the Union Depot at Milano where a crossing of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe (GC&SF) Railway and the International & Great Northern (I&GN) Railroad had existed since 1880. The Railroad Commission of Texas (RCT) authorized Tower 23 to begin operations on September 1, 1903, the same day that Tower 24 at Temple, 44 miles northwest of Milano, was commissioned. Temple was a major operations and maintenance base for Santa Fe, which designed and staffed both towers, managed their construction, and acquired the interlocking plants. Both towers were similar to Tower 19 built by Santa Fe and commissioned a few weeks earlier at Dallas. |
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The upper photo faces generally southwest down the I&GN
tracks toward Rockdale, with the Santa Fe tracks crossing horizontally
behind the tower and in front of the depot.
The lower photo (left)
from the opposite direction looks slightly east of due north toward the
diamond where people are gathered on the depot platform beside a southbound Santa Fe train. Both photos show a semaphore signal near the
tower and a connecting track behind the depot with railcars
present. Special thanks to Ken Stavinoha for providing these photos, the only two photos of the original Tower 23 found so far. They are undated, but their timeframe can be narrowed by the architecture of the depot. A new Union Depot (below) opened in 1914 with Tower 23's functions integrated with the facility. This narrows the date range of these photos to 1903 - 1914. |
| Above: This photo of the 1914 Milano Union Depot appears in Robert Pounds' book Santa Fe Depots, Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway (Santa Fe Railway Historical and Modeling Society, 2012; photo R. L. Crump / Priest Collection.) Tower 23's operations floor and interlocker controls were located in the tower-like structure atop the depot. Right: The May 10, 1913 issue of Railway and Engineering Review announced RCT's approval of a new union depot at Milano. |  |
The International Railroad was chartered in 1870 to
build a line from Texarkana to the southern border via Austin and San Antonio.
The railroad had common investors with the Cairo & Fulton (C&F) Railroad
which was building across Arkansas to connect with the St.
Louis & Iron Mountain Railway at the Missouri border. The idea was to establish a route from St. Louis that
would extend deep into Mexico (hence the International name) by way of
connection to the Mexican National Railway at Laredo. The International's construction commenced in 1871 at two
locations: in a northeast direction from Hearne and
in a southwest direction from Longview. Tracks of the friendly Texas & Pacific
(T&P) Railway were expected to be available to fill the gap between Longview and Texarkana. The
two
International construction crews built simultaneously toward a planned meeting
point: the town of
Palestine. The Hearne crew arrived in July, 1872,
the Longview crew in January, 1873.
With construction underway, the
International's management became interested in the idea of a merger with the
Houston & Great Northern (H&GN) Railroad which had begun building from
Houston toward Palestine in December, 1870. An
agreement was reached to merge the two companies to become the International and
Great Northern Railroad (I&GN) Railroad. The proposed merger required
approval of the Texas Legislature, which would need to pass a new railroad
charter for the I&GN. In the interim, the railroads began operating under a
combined management scheme with Herbert Melville "Hub" Hoxie functioning as
General Superintendent of both railroads. This necessitated moving the
International's headquarters
from Hearne to Houston in December, 1872 so that Hoxie could run both railroads
while awaiting merger approval from the Texas Legislature. In May, 1873, the H&GN's track gang reached Palestine, 151
miles north of Houston, connecting to the International's tracks.
In the summer of 1873, still awaiting a new I&GN railroad charter from the
Legislature, the International resumed construction from Hearne toward Austin. About twenty miles southwest of Hearne, the community of
Milano sprang up on land mostly owned by the International, but the precise
date of the founding is lost to history.
Rockdale, about eight miles beyond Milano, enjoyed newspaper publicity with a sale of town lots on September 3, 1873, but
no evidence of a lot sale at Milano has been found. It may
simply have been a tiny way-station started by settlers who liked the
area and found the railroad willing to sell land. Rails reached Rockdale on January 28,
1874, so the International's track-layers probably passed through Milano the
prior week.
| There is no certainty as to how Milano got its name. One theory says a proposed name, Milam City, was changed by the Post Office to Milano because there was already a Milam, Texas (Milano is in Milam County.) Yet, the name Milano was used on a May 5, 1874 Post Office application in the same handwriting that noted the town had "Fifty inhabitants with increasing population." Evidence that the town was named for Milano, Italy is also lacking. |
 Above: This snippet of Milano's May 5, 1874 Post Office application (National Archives) optimistically anticipates 500 residents. With county residents, it likely served that many at some point, but it does not appear that Milano's town population has ever reached 500. |
| Milano's application for a Post Office
in May, 1874 also stated that the railroad passing through the town was
the I&GN, but this was inaccurate. The merger had not been consummated
because the International's request
for construction subsidy bonds to be issued by the State had not been
approved. Claiming
corruption, the Texas Comptroller had refused to countersign and
register the bonds despite the State engineer's report that the work
covered by the bonds was of high quality and met the requirements of the
International's charter. As legal proceedings moved slowly, a lengthy
debate raged statewide. Much ink was spilled as to whether the bond
issuance was in accordance with state law, or instead constituted a
demand by the International for an unconstitutional subsidy. Legislators
are usually responsive to their constituents, and those constituents
didn't care about bond arguments; they
wanted railroads now! This was
certainly true in Austin, which had only a single rail line toward
Houston, and in San
Antonio, which had no rail lines at all. Right: The Galveston Daily News of March 26, 1875 reported that a compromise had been reached. The merger was approved shortly thereafter by the Legislature with the passing of a railroad charter bill for the I&GN that was signed into law by Gov. Richard Coke. Construction had been halted at Rockdale while politicians and journalists debated the International's bonds. It finally resumed on May 22, 1876, a year after the compromise had been accepted. Rails reached Austin on December 16, 1876, but the work stretched the I&GN's finances to the breaking point. On April 1, 1878, the company was forced into receivership and then sold at foreclosure on November 1, 1879. The buyers formed a new I&GN company under the original charter and management team. Construction was restarted from Austin toward San Antonio on May 31, 1880 and the tracks were completed into San Antonio on February 16, 1881. |
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In May, 1874, the C&F and the St. Louis & Iron Mountain had been reorganized and merged to create the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern (SLIM&S) Railway. The SLIM&S would eventually become part of rail baron Jay Gould's Missouri Pacific (MP) Railroad. MP was the railroad through which Gould planned to extend his rail empire into Texas, but he needed the SLIM&S for a connection back to St. Louis where MP was based. Gould recognized the value of the I&GN's planned track network which would, via Longview, connect the SLIM&S at Texarkana with Mexico and with three of Texas' most important cities: Houston, Austin and San Antonio. Gould also wanted to extend the I&GN from Houston into Galveston, Texas' major port and largest city. With this foresight, Gould developed a long term plan to capture control of the I&GN, which was quickly becoming Texas' largest railroad.
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Gould's plan involved
gaining leverage over the I&GN by controlling its access to Midwest markets. To
accomplish this, Gould needed both the T&P and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas (MK&T, "Katy") Railway
to be added to his empire. The Katy had bridged the Red River from Oklahoma into
Denison in 1872, providing a Texas gateway to
Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri. Gould took over the Katy simply by being elected its
President in December, 1879. Although he had virtually no ownership in
Katy stock (the stock was far too diluted to attempt a financial takeover) Gould had planted many allies into its management ranks over a period
of several years, and they successfully engineered his election. Gould
inaugurated his tenure as Katy President by leasing the Katy to MP in late 1880.
The lease arrangement used accounting methods to siphon Katy profits into MP
where Gould could benefit from his ownership. This was to the severe detriment of Katy
stockholders, who eventually held him accountable. Capturing the T&P was easier;
Gould took financial control in April, 1881 by personally funding its
construction between Fort Worth and El Paso. Gould's control of the Texarkana (SLIM&S) and Denison (Katy) rail gateways to the Midwest gave him leverage over the I&GN. [Other gateways to the north through Fort Worth and Paris did not yet exist.] Hemmed in by Gould railroads, the I&GN agreed to a swap for Katy stock in June, 1881. This resulted in the Katy owning the I&GN and Gould becoming I&GN President. The Katy was based in Kansas and lacked a Texas railroad charter. The Legislature had (in 1870) simply granted the Katy permission to bridge the Red River into Texas under its Kansas railroad charter. Fearing a lawsuit by the State for a potential violation of Texas' restrictive railroad ownership laws, Gould did not want the Katy's ownership of the I&GN known publicly. Gould finessed the financial details, going so far as to place all of the I&GN stock certificates secretly with a trusted party in Fort Worth so he could claim (if forced to do so) that the I&GN's true owner was a resident of Texas. To extract profits from the I&GN, Gould leased it to the Katy, ensuring that money flowed into MP (and Gould's pocket) through MP's lease of the Katy. Left: A full month before his acquisition of the I&GN, the Galveston Daily News of April 30, 1881 reported speculation by New York papers that discussions were being held to consolidate Gould's MP and Texas railroads, including the I&GN. The article was incorrect regarding Gould's ownership of the Katy. Gould was Katy President, but he lacked financial control, a fact he would experience firsthand when Katy's stockholders fired him in 1888. Yet, the Katy was eventually forced by the Legislature to sell the I&GN (in 1892) and Gould was the only bidder, attaining his original goal of owning the I&GN. |
In the early 1880s, Gould initiated an ambitious plan
to build MP tracks from Denison southward through
Fort Worth and Waco,
eventually turning east toward Houston. This was
blatantly illegal since both MP and the Katy lacked Texas railroad charters, but
his efforts remained unchallenged for several years -- "everyone wanted
railroads." MP received the publicity and had its name on depots while the Katy
held the actual title to new
MP track construction. Gould did not seek his own Texas railroad charter; it
would have been opposed vigorously by all Texas railroads and their numerous
allies in the Legislature. Instead, Gould's theory of getting around the charter
requirement began with the fact that the Katy had a legal presence
in Texas (at Denison.) Gould claimed his MP / Katy construction southward toward Mexico was
consistent with the requirements of the Katy's Kansas charter (which described a
route to the Rio Grande) and that the Kansas charter arguably had
been "accepted" by the Legislature. This rationale ultimately held no sway; MP was completely evicted from Texas when the Katy lease was broken
by the Texas Supreme Court in 1890. Prior to that time however, the MP / Katy
construction enterprise marched southward aggressively.
Gould's takeover
of the I&GN gave him tracks in Houston that extended northward to the Texarkana
gateway via the T&P's line out of Longview. As Gould was planning to reach Houston
with Katy tracks in a couple of years, he personally bought the Galveston, Houston and Henderson (GH&H)
Railroad on August 1, 1882 which ran between Galveston and Houston over the
original rail bridge off Galveston Island. Although Gould easily could have moved the
GH&H into the I&GN, he instead sold it to the Katy and the Katy promptly leased
it to the I&GN. This gave the I&GN access to
Galveston and would facilitate Katy access whenever its tracks reached Houston.
By the time Gould acquired the GH&H, it no longer had the only rail bridge off
Galveston Island. The Gulf,
Colorado & Santa Fe (GC&SF) Railway had initiated construction out of
Galveston in 1875, ostensibly headed for Colorado. In
reality, the rail line was mostly intended to provide a route -- any route
-- into Galveston that did not go through Houston. Galveston-bound freight was
sometimes (for both credible and nefarious reasons) diverted away from the GH&H and
placed on barges to be sent down Buffalo Bayou directly to ships in Galveston's
harbor. This was Houston's method of fighting against dock policies of the
Galveston Wharf Co. that were heavily biased in favor of Galveston shippers.
Starting with a new bridge over Galveston Bay,
the GC&SF's construction went west-northwest, remaining well south of Houston.
It reached
Arcola in 1877 and crossed the Brazos River into Richmond in 1879.
Unable to meet its obligations, the GC&SF went through foreclosure and was purchased
by its Treasurer, George Sealy, who reorganized the company under its original
charter. Construction resumed in early 1880 at
Rosenberg heading northwest toward Brenham,
which it reached in April. After a brief pause, construction continued, reaching Milano (November) and
Cameron
(December) later that year. Santa Fe commenced service as far as Belton on March 18,
1881, eight miles beyond the major construction camp it had established at Temple
Junction, named for the railroad's chief engineer, Bernard Temple. From
Temple (the Post Office dropped Junction) Santa Fe
built 128 miles
north to
Fort Worth, the line opening for service on December 20,
1881.
Main lines radiated out from Temple in three directions: to Galveston, to Fort
Worth, and to the northwest through Belton, Lampasas (1882), Brownwood
(1885) and San Angelo (1888.) Temple became a major operations and maintenance center while the
company remained headquartered in Galveston. The GC&SF was acquired by the
much larger Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe (AT&SF) Railway in 1887, but continued to
operate under its own name.
Santa Fe's 1880 construction from Brenham to
Temple passed about a mile and a half east of the settlement of Milano and
crossed the I&GN at a site known as Milano Junction to which the town migrated
over the years. The former settlement became known as Old Milano; it
was soon a ghost town and disappeared. On June 15, 1885, the
Postmaster at Milano submitted an updated application to relocate the Milano
Post Office to the junction, noting that the new distance to Rockdale was now ten
miles instead of nine miles. Although it
appears from Census data that the population of Milano has never reached 500
persons, the town gained outsized publicity in the early years because of its
railroad junction. The I&GN / Santa Fe crossing developed into an important
transfer point for passengers because the two railroads' service areas were
highly complimentary. It did not take long for the railroads to begin making
this point to the public.
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Left: Even as Santa Fe's tracks had yet to reach Belton, stray one-liners began to appear in newspaper columns proclaiming Milano Junction as the new time-saver for travel between Austin and Galveston, Texas' capital and Texas' largest city, respectively. (Austin Weekly Democratic Statesman, February 3, 1881) |
The above claim was simple: an Austin - Milano (I&GN)
and Milano - Galveston (Santa Fe) itinerary was faster than the
competing route on the Houston & Texas Central (H&TC) Railway,
which had a branch to Austin from the H&TC main line at Hempstead, northwest of
Houston. Taking the H&TC eastward out of Austin required a change of trains
at Hempstead followed by a change of railroads at Houston since the H&TC did not serve Galveston.
The above advertisement was published two years before Southern
Pacific (SP) acquired the
H&TC. SP was able to obtain trackage rights on the GH&H
into Galveston, but even then, the need to change trains twice out of
Austin would have remained the basic scenario for SP's route.
Santa Fe had the most to gain by advertising the
Milano Route. Though it was one of the major railroads in Texas, it did not
serve Austin, which generated passenger traffic greater than its size would
justify simply by being the state capital. Santa Fe did not serve San Antonio,
the second largest city in the state, nor did it reach the southern border for
connections into Mexico. The Milano Route
was important to Santa Fe markets north and west of Temple simply because the
I&GN route to Austin, San Antonio and Laredo was highly complementary to Santa Fe's network.
| Right: The Galveston Daily News of June 12, 1881 reported the construction of a "magnificent hotel" at Milano "immediately in the junction." There are no Sanborn Fire Insurance maps of Milano to prove the hotel was actually completed, but it was certainly an idea premised on the growing success of the Milano Route. And this was six months before Santa Fe's tracks reached Fort Worth. |  |
In the 1898 - 1902 timeframe, Santa Fe aggressively marketed the Milano Route with a newspaper campaign. Countless newspapers across the state carried advertisements on a daily or weekly basis. The ads uniformly listed W. S. Keenan, General Passenger Agent for Santa Fe in Galveston, as the sponsor / contact. Most of the time, the I&GN was also mentioned since it was a key component of the Milano Route.
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Left:
Galveston Daily News, June 6,
1895 The depot arrangement at Milano in the early years is undetermined. The I&GN may have built a depot in the 1870s at what ultimately became Old Milano. The reference to Milano Junction in advertisements for Austin - Galveston service a mere three months after Santa Fe built through Milano implies that the railroads collaborated on an early joint passenger station, or perhaps the I&GN began stopping at a Santa Fe depot near the crossing. It is doubtful, however, that any early depot could have been designed to anticipate Milano's rapid growth in transit passengers. By the mid 1890s, the facilities at Milano had become unsuitable for the volume of traffic being generated by the Milano Route, so much so that passengers had begun to "refuse to be routed" through Milano due to "present accommodations". This no doubt caused alarm to both railroads, and a new Milano Union Depot was planned and built, opening in 1899. This is undoubtedly the depot that appears in the photos at top of page. Pounds' book describes it as a "1899 22'x112' "L" frame board & batten passenger depot" but the early photos show the shape was more complex. Also incorrect (as the photos show) is the book's claim that an interlocking tower was built into the 1899 Union Depot (it was the 1914 depot.) Prior to 1902, only one interlocking tower existed in Texas, Tower A at Galveston. All others were commissioned by RCT after it gained authority under a new law that took effect in 1901. |
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Left: This area map of rail lines c.1900 shows
that railroads in Central Texas formed a loose grid of
north / south and east / west railroads (and some that did both!) The first of
these rail lines to be built was the Houston & Texas Central (H&TC) Railway's
route into Austin in 1871. The H&TC became owned by Southern Pacific (SP) in
1883. To the east, the H&TC's tracks connected to its main line running north out of
Houston through Hearne to Dallas
and
Denison. Another railroad closely affiliated with SP, the San Antonio & Aransas Pass (SA&AP) Railway, had a track network in south Texas serving San Antonio and Corpus Christi. SA&AP opened a northward extension from Yoakum to Waco in 1891, but by then, the railroad was bankrupt. SP acquired a significant SA&AP stockholding and assisted the SA&AP in emerging from receivership in 1892 by agreeing to back SA&AP construction bonds. The two railroads worked together closely, but SP was not permitted to control the SA&AP. They competed in several markets, hence SP control would violate Texas' railroad competition laws. An RCT investigation in 1903 forced SP to admit to unlawful control of the SA&AP, and they were assessed a severe financial sanction from RCT as a consequence. In 1914, SP opened a new line between Hearne and Giddings to facilitate a bypass of Houston for west coast traffic to / from north Texas. The SA&AP tracks from Giddings through West Point to Flatonia formed the southern part of the bypass. SP acquired the SA&AP legally in 1925. SP's long association with the SA&AP (both legal and illegal) may have contributed to RCT's decision not to require an interlocker at Giddings. All of the other crossings on this map involving two different railroads were ultimately interlocked with numbered towers commissioned by RCT, specifically: Tower 15 (Hearne), Tower 23 (Milano), Tower 24 (Temple), Tower 34 (Taylor), Tower 52 (Cameron), Tower 54 (Rockdale), Tower 91 (West Point), Tower 100 (Elgin), Tower 132 (McNeil), Tower 205 (Austin) and Tower 206 (San Marcos). |
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The new state law gave RCT authority over all
crossings of two or more railroads, tasking it to address crossing safety while
improving railroad operations. By law, all trains had to stop before
crossing another railroad at grade, often creating unnecessary delay and
wasting train momentum (and thus fuel and water) since most
of the time, the crossing was not occupied by another train. RCT soon began
mandating interlocking plants with appropriate signals and derails at
major crossings. An interlocker might have prevented a crash at Milano on Christmas Day, 1898. Right: Railway Gazette January 18, 1899 |
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A special order issued by RCT on June 5, 1902 required the I&GN and GC&SF to interlock their crossing at Milano by June 30, 1903. Santa Fe took the lead in managing the construction project, resulting in a building that closely resembled Tower 24 at Temple, which opened the same day, September 1, 1903. Milano's new interlocking was commissioned for operation by RCT as Tower 23 with a 19-function electrical interlocking plant built by the Taylor Signal Company. The functions were controlled using eighteen levers operated by personnel in the upper floor of the two-story tower. The plant and associated electronics were housed in the lower floor of the tower. Since a typical minimum interlocker required twelve functions (a home signal, distant signal and derail in each of the four directions) Tower 23's higher function count points to the presence of the exchange track behind the depot, and there may have been connectors in other quadrants by 1903.
Above: An Employee Timetable (ETT) issued by the I&GN on
January 14, 1906 provides an interesting snapshot of the I&GN's passenger
service through Milano. By this date, the I&GN was no longer showing
single-train service to / from Kansas City via Milano. All I&GN trains through
Milano stayed on I&GN rails in both directions. The ETT shows three passenger
trains and three freight trains in each direction. The passenger train markets
were St. Louis - Mexico, St. Louis - San Antonio, and Kansas City / North Texas -
Mexico. The northern endpoint on I&GN rails for the Kansas City train was at Hearne, the implication being
that the northern segment for this market was handled by the H&TC (SP) from
Hearne to Denison, and by the Katy from Denison to Kansas City. This routing competed
with Santa Fe's Kansas City service through Temple, Fort Worth and
Oklahoma City. Below: In the 1908
Official Guide of the Railways, Santa Fe
published a full page dedicated to its Chicago - Mexico City service schedule.
The giant title block at the top of the page listed Milano among the vastly
larger and more famous cities of Chicago, Mexico City, San Antonio and Laredo.
This was a recognition of the success Santa Fe had achieved in promoting the
Milano Route for Midwest service to / from Austin, San Antonio, Laredo and Mexico.
The Mexico City route was not single-train service -- Santa Fe's southbound
train continued to Houston and Galveston but transferred sleepers and other
passenger cars to the I&GN. Milano was tiny, but it was enjoying national fame thanks
to the railroads; travelers to and from Texas knew about Milano.
Within a decade of opening the 1899 Milano Union Depot, the facility was already beginning to show signs of strain due to the high numbers of passengers transiting the Milano Route. By 1913, the citizens of Milano were pushing for an even larger and more modern depot, and the railroads had agreed that yet another new union depot would be required. At a hearing held by RCT in February, 1913, the railroads submitted their plans for a new union depot that would include an integrated tower to replace Tower 23. The Tower 23 structure was less than ten years old, and it is unknown whether specific problems with the building motivated the change. It's possible that the railroads were taking a long-term view of the interlocking from an operations and maintenance (O&M) efficiency standpoint. At minimum, it was cheaper to maintain one building than two. Also, in a combined facility, a single telegraph operator could easily serve depot operations and the general public while handling train-related communications for the tower. Santa Fe had already built depots with integrated interlocking towers in 1904 at Morgan and McGregor. Both had electronic plants as did Tower 23, which Santa Fe preferred. It was much less expensive to re-engineer an electric interlocking compared to a mechanical interlocking because new wiring was inexpensive and could be connected to existing signals, switches and derails with ease.
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Left Top: A report in the
San Antonio
Express of February 18, 1913 stated that the railroads' plans
for a new union depot at Milano were ordered by RCT to be submitted "to
the citizens of that place" for approval. Other news stories suggest
that it was the citizens of Milano that had initially petitioned RCT to
order the railroads to build a new union depot. However it transpired,
the railroads proceeded to develop architectural plans
which were the subject of the hearing. Left Bottom: The Rockdale Reporter and Messenger of Thursday, February 20, 1913, quoted good news reported by the Milano Gazette. That it would "really" be built suggests that doubt had been circulating among the citizens as to whether their push for a new depot would be successful. Right: The Rockdale Reporter and Messenger of May 15, 1913 quoted a Milano Gazette report that the plans for the new union depot had been approved by RCT, presumably with concurrence by Milano's citizens. |
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| Right: A new freight depot was built from the salvaged portions of the former union depot but it is unclear precisely where it was located. Aerial imagery shows a building in the west quadrant near where the original Tower 23 had stood, perhaps a dozen yards farther southeast, but it appears too small to have been a freight depot. It may have been an operations office. The article references "truck shipping sheds." This was a reference to "truck farms" from which table-ready vegetables were harvested and brought to the depot by truck. This was big business for Milano area farmers. (Rockdale Reporter and Messenger, November 16, 1916) |   |
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Left:
1915 Katy track chart of Milano (Ed Chambers collection) After the Texas Supreme Court broke MP's lease of the Katy, the Texas Legislature re-chartered the Katy in 1891, authorizing a subsidiary headquartered in state (at Denison) as required by Texas' railroad laws. By 1915, its Chief Engineer's office had relocated to Dallas and undertaken a project to draw track charts for junctions throughout Texas, even those like Milano that did not involve the Katy. This chart shows that by 1915, exchange tracks were present in all directions except east of the diamond where Tower 23 previously sat. The new Union Station was in the west quadrant (like all previous union depots) and there were three connecting tracks plus several sidings. The partly legible writing in the upper right corner says "To Valley J'ct'n & Palestine." Valley Junction was near Hearne where the I&GN main line crossed another I&GN line that opened between Fort Worth and Spring (near Houston) in 1902. This line plus the original Palestine - Houston line explains generally why there was no east connector at Milano. From points east of Milano, the I&GN had its own routes to Houston / Galveston; it did not need to interchange with Santa Fe. While Milano's west connector is known to have handled single-train service between San Antonio and Kansas City, it was undoubtedly used frequently for railcar interchange, both passenger cars (sleepers, etc.) and freight. The other two connectors were for freight operations, particularly the south quadrant which led to the Port of Galveston and was used for exports from points west of Milano. Locally, Milano became a major shipping point for vegetables from area truck farms. Quoting the Milano Gazette, the Rockdale Reporter and Messenger of June 6, 1912 discussed how northbound and eastbound trains at Milano were being "greatly delayed" by the extra time needed to load "immense shipments" of crops. In addition to the usual vegetables, "...berries and fruits of all kinds are now being shipped." |
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Left:
The "Old G. C. & S. F. Ry. Embankment" on this 1919 topographic map of
the northwest outskirts of Milano shows that by then, Santa Fe had
rebuilt the grade to straighten the tracks, replacing two sharp curves
over the span of 1.2 miles. The date this reconstruction occurred has
not been determined. The line change improved arrival and departure
schedules for Santa Fe trains. Right: This 1960 aerial image ((c) historicaerials.com) clearly shows the former grade at least four decades after the line change. |
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By the end of 1923, Tower 23's function count had increased to 22. RCT's Annual Report issued at the end of 1928 reported 20 functions for Tower 23, and the function count remained at that number through the end of 1930 (after which RCT stopped reporting interlocker parameters annually.) RCT documentation from 1916 confirms, as expected, that Santa Fe was responsible for staffing Tower 23. The recurring O&M expenses were shared between Santa Fe and the I&GN, but the split has not been determined (likely close to 50/50.) Because the crossing existed long before the 1901 law that gave RCT authority over crossing safety, the railroads would have been required to split the capital expense for Tower 23 evenly.
Above: This excerpt from a
table published in the January, 1926 edition of
Railway Signaling and Communications reveals that at least a portion
of the Milano interlocking was rebuilt in 1925. The interlocking layout was
designated as "Station" type since the tower was part of Milano Union Depot. How
the changes incorporated by this rebuild related to the overall function of the
plant is undetermined. Into the 1920s, RCT had kept a tight reign on interlocker
changes, but the Federal Transportation Act of 1920 gave wide authority to the
Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to manage all aspects of railroading (since
all major railroads operated interstate.) Railroads began to seek ICC approval
for most interlocking changes because they were within the ICC's jurisdiction. RCT became dependent upon the railroads for updates to the
parameters of each interlocking plant, and this occurred annually near the end
of the year. It was not uncommon to find that a railroad's office that
handled
this reporting to RCT did not always stay up to date on changed information at all of
the company's interlocked crossings nor maintain accurate records thereof. There's a
chance that this 1925 rebuild accounted
for the reduction to 20 functions reported in 1928.
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Far Left: An
update to the Milano interlocking was reported in the June, 1941 edition
of Railway Signaling. The
changes included removal of two main track derails "to conform to ...
recommended practice." Studies had shown that main track derails caused
more problems than they prevented, and RCT stopped requiring them in
1930. Near Left: The January, 1959 issue of Railway Signaling and Communications contained this table showing that Milano's interlocking had been rebuilt in 1958. Four of the six home signals would have been for the main tracks. The other two probably related to the west connector. |
Jay Gould died in 1892 and his son George became
President of the I&GN and the T&P. Ten years later, the I&GN opened the
aforementioned route between Fort Worth and Spring through Valley Junction. Fort
Worth had become a major gateway for freight from the Plains and Mountain West
states heading for export at Galveston. The I&GN wanted to compete with
Santa Fe and SP, each of which already provided service in the Fort Worth -
Galveston market. The I&GN used rapid construction techniques for the new line
which proved to be poorly executed resulting
in a frequency of major accidents that rose to unacceptable levels. Poor
signaling was also to blame. This drew
the ire of RCT and ultimately helped send the I&GN into bankruptcy in 1908. In
1911, a new I&GN company was organized to take over the assets and operations of
the old company, with the Gould family still in charge. In early 1914, the I&GN
again returned to receivership. Another new company, slightly renamed as the
International - Great Northern (I-GN) Railroad, was formed in 1922 to acquire the
I&GN out of foreclosure, at which point the Gould family was no longer involved.
MP and the T&P likewise gained independence from the Gould family, in 1917.
Freed from Gould control, MP wanted to acquire both the I&GN and the T&P as a means of re-entering the Texas market through the
Texarkana connection. In 1918, MP began to purchase T&P stock on the open market
with an eye toward acquiring a controlling interest. By 1930, MP owned a majority stock interest in the T&P but
did not take operational control. When the I-GN came out of receivership in
1922, MP tried to buy it, but the
sale was nixed by the ICC. Undeterred, MP
helped the New Orleans, Texas & Mexico (NOT&M) Railway buy the I-GN
simply to keep it out of the hands of adversarial railroads.
The ICC approved the NOT&M's purchase of the I-GN in 1924, and then allowed MP to
buy the NOT&M on January 1, 1925. This gave MP the I-GN plus several
railroads that comprised the NOT&M -- a sudden and massive presence for MP in
Texas, particularly along the Gulf Coast centered at Houston where the NOT&M
railroads had been competing with SP's line between Houston and New Orleans.
In 1933, MP went into a lengthy receivership which also compelled receivership for the I-GN. Operating for more than two decades under court
supervision, MP finally emerged from bankruptcy in 1956. MP dissolved the I-GN
at that time and integrated its operations under the MP name. All this time, the T&P and MP
had cooperated extensively in a relationship that remained essentially unchanged into
the 1970s. In 1976, MP finally exercised its ownership control over the T&P by
dissolving the company and merging its assets into MP.
 |
  Left: The Rockdale Reporter and Messenger of Thursday, March 13, 1952 reported that Milano Union Depot had been totally destroyed by fire two days earlier. Presumably the "recently installed signal equipment" that was consumed by the fire pertained to the interlocker and related communications. The fate of the Tower 23 interlocking plant, any residual functional capability, and how the crossing was managed in the immediate aftermath of the fire has not been determined. The story incorrectly reported that the depot opened in 1915 instead of 1914. Above Left: In 1954, a new brick passenger depot (R. J. McKay photo, 1973) opened at Milano, much smaller than the depot that burned. By the early 1950s, commercial air travel had begun to impact railroad passenger traffic, and Milano surely experienced this decline. Milano had a tiny population, hence the passenger depot had always been sized for connecting passengers. Such traffic had fallen as airlines provided a faster way to travel between the Midwest and Austin / San Antonio / Laredo / Mexico City. Note the white placard with black letters "23" present on the roofline showing that the interlocking had been reconstituted inside the new depot. Above Right: This 1989 photo by Tom Kline shows that a white "23" placard was also attached to a different side of the roofline of Milano's brick passenger depot. The depot closed in 1982, by which time the interlocking had been converted to an automatic plant. |
In the early 1970s, Amtrak
passenger trains began to pass through Milano. Amtrak was created to take over inter-city passenger service from most
U.S. railroads. In 1973, Amtrak began running the Inter-American between Fort Worth and Laredo,
extending it the following year
with a St. Louis - Fort Worth segment using the T&P's Texarkana - Fort Worth
tracks. South from Fort Worth, the Inter-American
went to Temple on Santa Fe's main line, but Cleburne
was the only town of any size on this route. The obvious path out of Fort Worth with
a vastly
larger population would
have been to use the Katy's tracks from Fort Worth to Temple via
Hillsboro and Waco, but Amtrak refused to
do so. The Katy tracks were in poor shape, not suitable for passenger
service, and Amtrak did not want to pay for the required upgrades which the Katy
had insisted.
At
Temple, the normal route would be to
go south to Taylor on the Katy's tracks and turn southwest on MP's I-GN route from Taylor to Laredo. Again, Amtrak determined the Katy tracks
were unacceptable. Even though Amtrak would be paying a
recurring fee for the rights to use this 39-mile segment, the Katy had insisted that Amtrak pay
for the track upgrades required for passenger service, including construction of
a connecting track at Temple to facilitate transitioning between the Santa Fe
and Katy rail
lines.
Amtrak refused to spend the money, opting instead to stay on Santa Fe's tracks
to Milano and then turn west toward Taylor on MP's tracks at Tower 23 (via the
west quadrant connecting track.) A Texas Monthly article in August,
1974 did not have good things to say about Amtrak's route choice for the
Inter-American ...
Austin lies southwest of Temple, but the baffled, homeless Inter-American proceeds southeast toward Galveston for 44 miles until it finally hits the MoPac tracks about an hour later at Milano (pop. 380). At this point it is exactly four miles closer to Austin than it had been in Temple. Reaching Milano it creeps and jerks indecisively through high grass and empty fields. Said one passenger: “If you didn’t know the damn thing was on tracks, you’d think it had gotten lost.”
Milano was not a scheduled passenger stop for Amtrak, but the Inter-American passing regularly through the east connecting track controlled by Tower 23 may have provided the impetus to automate the interlocker; this appears to have occurred in 1973. Santa Fe's June, 1973 Employee Timetable (ETT) gives no indication that Tower 23 had been automated, but the October, 1973 ETT has an asterisk next to the Milano entry in a table of Speed Regulations - Railroad Crossings At Grade. The asterisk leads to the following notation:
At Brenham and Milano, if controlled signal governing movement over railroad crossing is in stop position, communicate with control station. If authorized to pass stop signal, before proceeding a member of crew must go to control box at crossing and follow instructions therein.
Automatic interlockers usually have a pair of control boxes to enable a train crewmember from either railroad to override the signal that's restricting his train's movement, as this notation describes. In an ETT dated January, 1975, Santa Fe began explicitly describing the interlocker at Milano as Automatic. The interlocking upgrade was surely appropriate; by this time there were numerous automated plants in use at Santa Fe crossings around the state. Amtrak and the Katy continued negotiating, and with the help of local governments, reached an agreement for Amtrak to upgrade and use the line from Temple to Taylor. On October 26, 1975, the Inter-American began using the Katy's tracks between Temple and Taylor, no longer passing through Milano.
 Left
and Above:
This ICC order issued June 5, 1978 authorized Amtrak to use the west
quadrant exchange track at Milano to reroute its passenger trains
between Temple and Taylor. The Katy tracks between the two towns were
temporarily out of service due to a major derailment. |
Below: This equipment
cabinet at the Milano crossing was lettered for its contents, the
automatic interlocking plant that replaced Tower 23's manually-operated
plant. (Jim King photo, 2005)
 |
In October, 1979, the Inter-American began carrying the remnants of Amtrak's Lone Star, which had been a Chicago - Houston route. At Temple, Houston-bound cars were separated from the Inter-American and pulled to Houston by an Amtrak locomotive via Milano, Brenham and Rosenberg. In October, 1981, the Inter-American name was retired, the train becoming the Texas Eagle. The Temple - Houston and San Antonio - Laredo segments were eliminated, hence Milano ceased to see Amtrak trains except for the rare reroute caused by track disruptions.
Above Left: In
August, 1975, Gary Morris photographed a southbound Inter-American
moving onto the west connecting track toward the MP rails to Taylor.
Above
Right: Google Earth satellite
imagery from 2024 shows that none of the connecting tracks remain intact
at Milano.
The diamond at Milano continues to see substantial traffic, the two railroads being Union Pacific (UP) and Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF.) MP was acquired by UP in 1982 and was merged fully into UP in 1997. The former I-GN route through Milano is now part of a UP main line between St. Louis and Laredo, just as originally envisioned. In 1965, the GC&SF became fully merged into AT&SF, and thirty years later, AT&SF merged with Burlington Northern to form BNSF. The former GC&SF route through Milano is now a BNSF main line between Galveston and Temple, extending northward through Fort Worth and Oklahoma City into Kansas.
Above Left: Milano's automatic
interlocking cabinet is seen in full sitting to the left of the cabin it
replaced, which likely dates to the original conversion in the early 1970s. The
utility pole near the center of the image appears to host the control boxes
needed for manually overriding the interlocker when necessary. The view is to
the south; the cabins are in the south quadrant of the diamond.
Above Right: This photo was
taken from the west quadrant at Milano showing BNSF #4329 leading ATSF #8712
southeast toward Caldwell and Brenham. (both photos, Jim King, 2005)
