Tower 67: crossing of the
Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad and the Houston & Texas Central Railway
Tower 187: crossing of the Texas & New
Orleans Railroad and the Burlington - Rock Island Railroad
Above: The John
W Barriger III National Railroad Library supplies this image of Tower 67
taken by Barriger from the rear of his business car sometime in the 1930's or 40's. The view is to the
north along the Katy tracks toward Dallas. White
cross-bucks are visible for the Grand Ave. crossings of the Katy (near the
tower) and the T&NO (far right).
Settlement of the town of Waxahachie dates back to the 1840s. Although it had
been the county seat of Ellis County since 1850, Waxahachie was
bypassed when the Houston & Texas Central (H&TC) Railway built north through
Corsicana into Dallas in the early 1870s. This motivated community leaders to charter the
Waxahachie Tap Railroad to "tap" the H&TC line at Garrett, 12 miles east of
Waxahachie. Construction was completed in 1879, and within a year, the railroad
had been acquired by the H&TC. Soon, Ft. Worth interests sought to connect their
town with this line and by 1886, the Ft. Worth & New Orleans Railroad had
completed a line between Ft. Worth and Waxahachie, connecting to (and becoming
acquired by) the H&TC. The H&TC eventually came under the ownership of Southern
Pacific (SP), and was merged into SP's Texas & New Orleans (T&NO)
subsidiary in 1934 (hence, post-1934 references to Waxahachie use "T&NO" instead
of "H&TC".)
In 1886, the Dallas & Waco (D&W) Railroad was incorporated to build a line
for the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (MKT) Railroad, commonly known as the "Katy",
between Dallas and Hillsboro, where it would connect to the Katy main line
between Ft. Worth and Waco. The route for the D&W passed through Waxahachie in
1888, crossing the H&TC on the outskirts of town. By 1890, the connection to
the MKT at Hillsboro had been made, and MKT acquired the D&W shortly thereafter.
As traffic increased, the H&TC/MKT junction in Waxahachie became controlled by Tower 67,
authorized for operation by the Railroad Commission of Texas (RCT) on December
1, 1906.
In the early 1900s, B. F. Yoakum controlled both the
St. Louis - San Francisco Railway ("Frisco") and the Rock Island Lines. He also controlled a collection
of other railroad companies in south Texas known as the Gulf Coast
Lines. As the Frisco and Rock Island railroads built south into Texas from
Indian territory (Oklahoma), Yoakum sought a connection with his Gulf Coast
Lines by building a main line between Dallas and Houston. He accomplished this
by acquiring the charter of the Trinity and Brazos Valley (T&BV) Railway, a
small short line railroad operating between Mexia and
Cleburne. In 1907, he
built north and south from the town of Teague, reaching Waxahachie to the north
and Houston to the south. Yoakum stopped in Waxahachie rather than continuing
into Dallas because he was able to make a favorable trackage rights arrangement
into Dallas on the MKT line. The T&BV did not connect to the T&NO at Waxahachie,
but it did cross a T&NO spur, a crossing that was interlocked many years later
as Tower 187.
For several years,
the T&BV enjoyed great business carrying overhead traffic
between Dallas and Houston via Waxahachie. In 1914, Yoakum lost control of the
Frisco and Rock Island companies, and the T&BV went into a
long receivership lasting 16 years. When it ended in
1930, a new company, the Burlington - Rock Island
(B-RI) Railroad, was created to own and operate the ex-T&BV rail lines. B-RI was
owned jointly by Rock Island and by Burlington Northern through its subsidiary Ft. Worth &
Denver (FW&D) Railway. B-RI continued the MKT trackage rights
arrangement into Dallas that T&BV had used, and their connection to the Katy
became known as "BR-I Junction". In the late
1940s, an electrically operated capability was added to control the switch at BR-I junction
remotely where BR-I trains got on Katy tracks for the northward trip to Dallas,
and to permit southbound trains to proceed from Tate (the first
siding north of Waxahachie) to B-RI junction without train order
authority. In those days, Tower 67 was commonly known as Waxahachie Tower. Until the demise
of Rock Island in 1980, both Rock Island and FW&D shared operations over
the line, and the route was commonly known as the "Joint Texas Division"
(JTD). B-RI
was always a paper railroad -- it never owned any
rolling stock -- and it became absorbed into the Burlington System
when Rock Island went bankrupt.
In 1988, the Katy was
acquired and merged into Missouri Pacific (MP) by Union Pacific (UP), which had
acquired MP in 1982. MP quickly proceeded to pare back its newly acquired
Waxahachie - Hillsboro line by abandoning a 10-mile middle segment between Italy
and Nena in 1990. The tracks to Nena, 4.5 miles south of Hillsboro, were
retained to serve a local customer, while Italy continued to be served by trains
out of Hillsboro. The 18-mile Italy - Hillsboro segment was abandoned in 1992,
and the Waxahachie - Nena segment was abandoned in 2005. The Katy rails north of
Waxahachie to Dallas were sold to Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF), successor
to the Burlington System. The route into Dallas has been combined with the
former B-RI line from Waxahachie to Houston to form a continuous Dallas-Houston
BNSF main line. The T&NO also came under the ownership of UP, a result of UP's merger with Southern Pacific in 1996.
UP's ex-T&NO route
through Waxahachie remains operational.
Photos and commentary by Jim Cooper
Above: T&NO local freight No. 74
approaches Tower 67 in May, 1958. The train is returning from
Fort Worth to Ennis. Below:
Also in May, 1958, Texas Special No. 1 approaches Tower 67 on the Katy line. The
purpose of the "75" on the utility pole is unknown.
Jim Cooper explains Tower 67's operation...
Southward trains activated a light on the panel and rang a
bell in the tower upon passing the south end of the passing track
at Sterrett (the second passing track north of Waxahachie); northward
Katy trains announced themselves in the same way at the north
end of the passing track at Nelson (the first passing track South
of Waxahachie on the Katy), and northward BR-I trains at the north
end of the passing track at Bardwell (the first passing track
south of Waxahachie on the BR-I). T&NO trains activated the
light and bell about 2 miles east and west of the tower.
The crossing was protected by derails on
the main tracks in all four directions and from the transfer track onto the main
lines. In order to give a clear signal for any movement, the derails appropriate
for the movement permitted by the clear signal must be closed and locked in
place and derails for conflicting movements must be open. When a clear signal
was displayed for a movement on a particular route, a clear signal could not be
given for any other movement. That conflicting routes could not be cleared at
the same time was insured by a system of rods moving with the levers operating
the derails, locks, and signals that functioned much like a lock and key in that
parts would not fit mechanically to permit improper or conflicting routes.
The tower was a 24-hour train order office on both the MKT
and the T&NO. Although there were also three tricks (shifts)
of train order operators at the BR-I depot in Waxahachie that copied
most of the orders for BR-I trains, occasionally BR-I trains would
be given orders at Waxahachie Tower. Both the tower and the BR-I
depot handled Western Union messages at nights and on weekends
when the downtown Western Union office was closed. Intra-company
messages for both the Katy and the T&NO depots passed through
the tower. In the late 1940s and early 1950s between 20 and 30
trains, including 14 passenger trains, were handled daily. During
the wheat rush in early summer the traffic was heavier. The tower
was replaced by an automatic system in 1958 at which time the
train order office was moved to the Katy depot just south of downtown
Waxahachie. (From The Clearance Card,
December 1994, Southwest Railroad Historical Society, used with permission)
Above left: Operator Davis is lining up a
route for an oncoming
train. The view is south down the
Katy. The pendulum for the office
clock can be seen above the
time-release clock (upon which a coat is hung).
If a proceed signal
was improperly displayed, a new route could not be aligned
until
45 seconds elapsed after starting the time release. This seemed
like a
long time when an engine is sitting at the home signal
blowing its whistle. Above right: Tower 67 operator
F. J. Davis entertains Richard Cooper, son of Jim Cooper, in December, 1957.
Tower 67 Site (Jim King, January 2008)
Above: View to the northwest along the T&NO. The switch beside the
block signal is for the connecting track to the Katy. The
equipment hut to the left appears to be the same one as in the second Jim Cooper photo above. Compare the small black hole
at the
top center of the side of the hut. Below: View to the north along the Katy. The tower was near the utility pole at
right.
Sometime in the 1890s, National Compress Co. built a cotton compress in
downtown Waxahachie near the Katy depot. The compress is visible on the 1898
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Waxahachie, served by spur tracks
from both the Katy and the H&TC. The Katy spur was relatively short since the
main line was close by, but the H&TC spur needed nearly a mile of track to reach
the compress. When the T&BV built into Waxahachie in 1907, it crossed the H&TC
spur at grade. As an uncontrolled crossing of two different railroads, all trains would have
been required to come to a complete stop. However, since virtually all B-RI
trains would have stopped at the depot less than a half mile from the crossing, this may
not have created much additional delay. It is also possible that the crossing
was within the "yard limits" of the B-RI, and other operational
procedures applied. Whatever the case, the crossing was not interlocked for three decades.
Sometime after H&TC was merged into the T&NO in 1934, Tower 187 was established to control the B-RI crossing of the T&NO
spur to National Compress. It was most likely a remote-controlled interlocker,
with controls perhaps located at the B-RI passenger depot. The specific impetus for
establishing an interlocker at this crossing after 30+ years of operation is
unknown.
However, beginning with Tower
182 at Prosser in 1936, several interlockers involving the T&NO were
established at "minor" crossings, including Tower 186,
a similar situation in Sherman where a T&NO spur crossed a Frisco main line.
Perhaps T&NO had embarked on a project to improve operations and safety
throughout their system.
Satellite Map, Waxahachie Area
Above: This Sanborn Fire Insurance Index Map of Waxahachie has been annotated
to show the railroads, towers
and junctions
in Waxahachie as of the 1940s. Below: This 1925 Sanborn Map shows National Compress Co. served by two rail
spurs. To the left (south) of the Compress
along Matthews St., the H&TC spur is visible ending short of S. Flat St. To the
right (north) of the Compress,
the Katy spur
crosses S. Flat St. heading toward the Katy main line. The T&BV main line is
located to the right of
the Katy
spur, passing along side the City Water Works and the J. T. Andrews & Sons Gin
Co.
Images of Waxahachie from 2008, Click to
Enlarge
(Jim King photos)
 |
 |
 |
| Rails are visible where the T&NO spur to National Compress crossed Jefferson at the Getzendaner St. intersection. | With the abandonment of the Katy, there's no longer a junction at BRI Jct. The Katy depot is visible in the distance. | The Katy passenger depot sits abandoned. |
 |
 |
 |
| The B-RI passenger depot is used as an office by The Nay Co., a construction firm focused on grain receiving, handling and processing facilities. | A BNSF freight idles next to the abandoned Katy spur on the north side of the former National Compress site. | On Mathews St., the T&NO spur was along the south side of the National Compress facility, now a warehouse site. |
Google Street View images, May 2018
Above: Much has changed at
the Katy depot since 2008. The depot restoration project was completed in
November, 2010 and a caboose was acquired in 2011 for display in front. When the
caboose restoration was completed, a Grand Opening celebration was held on May
26, 2018. Below: The corporate
headquarters for The Nay Company is in
the former B-RI depot. The company has used this facility since 1963. A major
renovation was performed in 2008.
