Texas Railroad History - Tower 69 - Celeste
A Crossing of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway and the
Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway
 |
Left:
This photo of Tower 69 appears to have been taken early in its
existence, but the photographer and date are unknown. The tower sat at a
crossing of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe (GC&SF, "Santa Fe") Railway
and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas (MK&T, "Katy") Railway in Celeste,
twelve miles northwest of Greenville. The tracks crossed in an X-pattern
with the tower east of the diamond. The long side of the tower was
parallel to the Santa Fe tracks which ran
on a northeast-southwest heading; the Katy crossed on a
northwest-southeast heading. The stairs were on the short side of the tower facing
the Katy. The diamond is barely visible at far
right, and the men are standing north of it in front of a handcar on the Santa Fe
tracks. For this east-northeast view, the camera sat in the west
quadrant of the diamond where a joint passenger station was built in the 1920s.
 References in the
Celeste Courier to "Katy
Tower" indicate that it was built and staffed by the Katy. The
vertical arrangement of the planks that comprise the exterior walls made
the tower similar to Tower 58 and Tower
61 built by the Katy. Tower 69 was built in 1907.
Right:
This photo was taken
inside Tower 69. The back of the photo reads "Chief White, Celeste RR
Tower". On December 18, 1953, the Celeste
Courier reported "George Gaskins
succeeds Chief White at the Katy Tower as second trick operator."
Celeste native Jerry Hunter provides these photos, credited at his request to The Mackie Don Babers Collection.
Jerry tells the story of meeting famed war hero and Hollywood actor Audie Murphy, a Celeste native, who came to Jerry's house to
see the sitter hired to watch Jerry after school; she had also been
Audie's sitter 15 years earlier. The next day Jerry took Audie to
elementary school for "Show & Tell" ! |
After the Missouri, Kansas & Texas (MK&T, "Katy")
Railway bridged the Red River in late 1872, it established a base of
operations in the new town of
Denison. There, it
connected to the Houston & Texas Central (H&TC) Railway which had
completed a lengthy route between
Houston and Denison
about the same time. The H&TC connection worked well; the dean of Texas rail
historians S. G. Reed described it as "practically a through line."
The Texas Legislature had passed a law in 1870 to incentivize the Katy to build
south across the Red River by allowing it to continue all the way to the Rio
Grande, a plan described in the Katy's Kansas railroad charter. The Katy remained at Denison,
however, choosing
to go no further into Texas. This was at least partly due to financial difficulties that
resulted in a short receivership.
Toward the end of the 1870s, investors saw
profitable opportunities in building rail lines out of Denison to serve as
feeder routes for the Katy. They were encouraged to do so by the Katy, and there
was at least a tacit understanding that the Katy would work cooperatively with
finished lines while considering potential acquisition. The first such
effort was chartered as the Denison & Southeastern (D&S) Railway in
1877. The goal of the D&S was to build from Denison to the town of
Greenville fifty miles
southeast. There, freight could be shipped to the major riverport of
Jefferson (and onward to New Orleans) over the East Line & Red River
(EL&RR) Railroad that had arrived in Greenville in 1876.
The D&S built as far as the new town of Whitewright in the spring of 1878, and an excursion train was
operated by the Katy in April for a town lot sale. While the D&S
paused its construction at Whitewright, another railroad, the Denison &
Pacific (D&P), was chartered that same month to build west from Denison.
The D&P eventually built 42 miles to
Gainesville, but by the
end of 1879, it had stopped operating.
 |
In January, 1880, a newspaper
report suggested that the D&S and the D&P had been acquired by a financial group
run by stock and bondholders of the Katy, presumably major investors who
intended to shore up the value of the railroads to make the combined enterprise
attractive for acquisition by the Katy. On March 11, 1880, the D&S acquired the
D&P, and twelve days later, the D&S modified its charter to authorize the
D&P's tracks westward from Denison. The charter revision also changed the
name of the combined enterprise to the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Extension
Railway. Under that name, the railroad completed construction from
Whitewright to Greenville during the remainder of 1880.
Left: "Extension"
stock certificate (University of Texas at Arlington Libraries Digital
Gallery, hat tip Chris Gerald)
The sudden move by investors
to acquire and merge the two railroads and complete the tracks to
Greenville was in response to rail baron Jay Gould becoming President of
the Katy in December, 1879; the
investors were likely acting at his behest. Gould would be expanding the Katy
deep into Texas and he needed a route from Denison to Greenville to
fulfill his larger plan. Years earlier, the opening of the Katy's
bridge over the Red River had motivated Gould to begin
infiltrating Katy management with his henchmen. Katy stock was too
diluted and insufficiently traded for Gould to buy a
controlling interest, his usual playbook. His alternate approach took
longer but achieved much the same result, culminating when his loyalists
were able to have him named President of the Katy. It was one month
later that investors began consolidating the D&S and D&P. |
Gould had chosen the Katy because he wanted to control
its Red River bridge, a choke
point for movements between Texas and the Midwest. The other choke point for
such traffic was Texarkana where Gould was working
to control the main line to St. Louis by taking a 30% ownership interest in the
St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern (SLIM&S) Railway. In December,
1880, Gould arranged to lease the SLIM&S to Missouri
Pacific (MP), a St. Louis-based railroad he controlled with a major
ownership position. That same month, Gould leased the Katy to MP. The terms of
the Katy's lease were onerous, enabling Gould to siphon Katy profits into MP for his benefit and to the detriment of Katy
stockholders. Gould intended to acquire and consolidate Texas and Midwest
holdings under the MP banner, maximizing his financial benefit and simplifying
his managerial efforts.
Since MP did not have a Texas railroad charter
nor a Texas headquarters, Gould assigned all Texas track ownership to the Katy
for compliance with Texas law. Although the 1870 law authorized the Katy to
build southward in Texas, the Katy had not complied with an 1876 amendment to
the Texas Constitution requiring railroads owning tracks in Texas to have their
headquarters in state. Gould had ignored this requirement -- the last thing he
wanted was to give jurisdiction to the Texas Attorney General to make surprise
inspections of the Katy's books.
 |
All of Gould's maneuvers in this timeframe were part of his larger
plan to capture a much
bigger prize, the International & Great Northern (I&GN) Railroad.
It had begun as two railroads: the International planning to
build from Texarkana to Laredo, and the Houston & Great Northern
expecting to reach the Red River from Houston. The International chose
to start in Longview from which the Texas & Pacific (T&P) Railway
provided "friendly" access to Texarkana for the SLIM&S connection to St.
Louis. The H&GN started in Houston and
built northward through east Texas. The two railroads intersected at Palestine
and decided to merge. The railroads got a head start on operating as a
merged company by naming Herbert M. "Hub" Hoxie to be General
Superintendent of both railroads. After a delay of three years, the I&GN
charter was finally granted by the Legislature in 1875, but I&GN ads
had been appearing in Texas newspapers the entire time.
With its planned
track network and the major cities it would serve, the I&GN was destined
to become the largest railroad in Texas. It already had a main line from
Houston to Palestine, and at Palestine, another main line went northeast
to
Longview and southwest to Austin. It would be a
formidable competitor to Gould, hence his desire to acquire it rather
than fight it. The I&GN planned to continue to
San Antonio and Laredo, but it became temporarily stuck
at Austin in 1876 due to financial issues.
Immediately after the Katy's
Red River bridge had opened in 1872, the I&GN had begun building a branch to Denison to
provide competition to H&TC for Denison - Houston traffic. [The
construction crews were from the H&GN; all of the International's crews
were working on the line to Austin.] By starting
the branch
on the main
line at Zavalla (later renamed Troup) the tracks would proceed northwest in more
or less a straight line all the way to Denison. Construction commenced
in 1873 and initially proceeded to the important east Texas town of Tyler.
From there, track-laying continued northwest to
the new town of
Mineola. The T&P, extending its main line from Longview to
Dallas, reached Mineola about the same time in the
summer of 1873. The financial problems that ultimately forced the I&GN
to stop building at Austin were already apparent and curtailed any further effort to continue
the branch beyond Mineola.
Gould took control of the T&P in the
summer of 1880, and with the SLIM&S leased to MP, he effectively
controlled the I&GN's route from Longview to St. Louis. Since he also
controlled the Red River bridge at Denison, the I&GN was boxed in. It
capitulated to Gould in June, 1881 in a swap for Katy stock. Gould
had already directed the Katy to build from Greenville to Mineola; the
line
was finished that same month. The only missing piece in a Gould-all-the-way route from Denison to
Houston was the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Extension Railway between
Denison and Greenville. He directed the Katy to acquire it in November,
1881. |
In 1886, the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe (GC&SF) Railway began
building from Dallas to
Paris, a town several miles south of the Red
River midway between Denison and Texarkana. The GC&SF anticipated that the
new line
would need to cross the Katy somewhere between Whitewright and Greenville. The only settlement along
the Katy tracks in this vicinity was Kingston, a town
founded in 1880 when rails had first been laid through the area by "the Extension".
In January, 1886, the Galveston Daily News
reported that engineers hired by the GC&SF were surveying the route to Paris in
the vicinity of Kingston. Since junctions of two railroads typically stimulated significant commerce, the
GC&SF proceeded to demand a bonus from Kingston. The rationale was simple; when building through a place
like Kingston, the railroad's opportunity for revenue from lot sales was nil
because the land was already developed. Crossing the Katy elsewhere on a large
tract of undeveloped land would offer a greater revenue opportunity because the railroad
could profit from founding a town and selling lots. When the citizens of
Kingston refused to pay the bonus, the GC&SF bought land and routed its line across the Katy three miles
northwest of Kingston. The location became the town of Celeste, named
for the daughter of prominent Galveston businessman and GC&SF investor Peter J.
Willis.
Above Left: A "railroad meeting" in Kingston led to a
standard offer to the GC&SF for depot grounds and a right-of-way (ROW) through town. That the
cash incentive was a meager $500 suggests that the townsfolk somehow believed
they had leverage. (Dallas Morning News, April 9, 1886)
Above Center: Instead of
accepting Kingston's offer, the GC&SF chose to cross on undeveloped land three
miles north of Kingston. This article from the
Dallas Morning News of April 18, 1886 quoted the
Greenville Banner describing the surveyors'
work as a crossing of MP tracks. The Katy had been leased to MP since December, 1880 and
the press complied with Gould's insistence that all activity associated with the
Katy be attributed to MP.
Above Right: About a year after the surveyors had marked
the crossing and months after the tracks had been laid, a town lot sale was held
at the new town of Celeste (Galveston Daily News,
March 29, 1887.) Records in the National Archives show that the "new postoffice,
Alliance" referenced in the Greenville Banner
article was renamed "Bradburn" in September, 1886 and then changed to "Celeste"
shortly thereafter.
Kingston could have made a much better offer, but
according to an eyewitness, the prevailing mood among the local farmers was to
resist the GC&SF's demands. The April, 1948 issue of the Katy employees' magazine (officially M-K-T Employes'
[sic] Magazine) had a story about the founding of Celeste due to
Kingston's refusal to pay an adequate bonus. The article quoted an interview
with Ira England who had been involved with making the decision 62 years earlier:
"There was some excitement about the matter
at the time," recalled Ira Murton England, eighty-six year old Tennessee
pioneer, who settled on a farm near Celeste in 1873. "Farmers around
Kingston held a mass meeting to talk over the problem. I was present at
the meeting myself. Tom Culver, who owned much of the land east of the
Katy tracks around Kingston, led the farmers in their action to refuse
the railroad. Culver was a success in his business. What he said was
good enough for the other farmers."
Ten years later,
Kingston's fate had been decided.
"They
began selling real estate and other property in Kingston for less than
they paid for it," England said. "Most of the town's eight-hundred
persons just disappeared. Most of them came to Celeste, and a few went
to other places unaware that they were killing Kingston."
By 1914, Celeste was about three times the size of Kingston.
Celeste's population peaked at around a thousand residents in the mid 1920s, but
dwindled quickly during the Depression. In 1924, future war hero and Hollywood actor Audie Murphy
was born near Kingston. He attended grade school in Celeste and was living in
Farmersville when he enlisted in the Army.
The GC&SF line to Paris was part of an agreement
wherein the much larger Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway
would acquire the GC&SF as a wholly-owned subsidiary once the GC&SF had finished
three specific construction projects (the other two were
Cleburne - Weatherford and
Fort Worth - Purcell.) Serving Paris had suddenly become important in
1880 when the St. Louis & San Francisco ("Frisco") Railway
began building tracks between Monett, Missouri and Hugo, Indian Territory
on the north side of the Red River. The objective was to extend the Frisco's
routes from the Midwest into Texas, opening a new Midwest gateway at Paris with
a bridge over the Red River (which opened in 1888.) The GC&SF line
from Dallas to Paris was completed in 1886, and the GC&SF was acquired by AT&SF in 1887. The GC&SF
continued operating under its own name, but due to the commonality with the
parent company's name, everyone just called it Santa Fe.
 |
Left: This map
shows rail lines in the vicinity of Celeste with interlocking
towers identified by number. Roughly half of these lines are now abandoned.
Because they changed ownership over time, the map does
not represent any particular date.
The former Katy
tracks are abandoned north of Bells (to
Denison, and the branch to Bonham) and southeast of Greenville (to Mineola) but otherwise
remain intact. The
former Santa Fe tracks are abandoned north of Farmersville. The former
EL&RR tracks are abandoned west of Farmersville. At Farmersville, the
former Santa Fe tracks to Dallas and the former EL&RR tracks to
Greenville directly connect and are owned by Kansas City Southern.
The following railroads are also on the map:
St. Louis
Southwestern ("Cotton Belt") Railway - Gould's younger son Edwin became VP and then President in
the 1890s; retired in 1925. Served Texarkana, Tyler, Dallas,
Waco and Fort Worth, and had tracks
almost all the way to St. Louis. The tracks on this map are mostly
abandoned.
Texas Midland (TM) - an offshoot
of the H&TC acquired by investor Hetty Green in 1891. She sent her son
Ned Green to Texas in 1892 to run it. The main line went from Ennis to
Paris. Between Greenville and Commerce, the TM shared the Cotton Belt tracks
but later built its own line.
Completely abandoned.
Texas
& Pacific (T&P) - a Gould railroad from the summer of
1880. It had southern and northern routes which Gould merged at Fort
Worth, and service as far west as El Paso. The
(northern route) tracks east of Bells are
out of service, and are completely abandoned east of Paris except for an
industrial spur at Texarkana. The T&P became
part of MP which was acquired by Union Pacific (UP) in 1982. |
After Gould was fired from the Katy at a stockholders
meeting in April, 1888, new Katy management sought bankruptcy protection and an
order canceling the MP lease. The court granted both requests. However, a
lawsuit had been filed against the Katy by the Texas Attorney General in 1887
for unlawful ownership of the EL&RR which the Katy had bought at Gould's
direction. A final ruling by the Texas Supreme Court in 1890 declared the Katy
to be a "foreign" railroad due to non-compliance with the track ownership
requirements of the Texas Constitution. The Court directed the Legislature to
sort out the mess with the Katy remaining in receivership until then. The
Legislature passed a new charter bill in October, 1891 legalizing the Katy's
track ownership under a new Texas subsidiary headquartered in Denison. The Katy
could not own the EL&RR (which was still technically in receivership) and it
could not own the I&GN. That the Katy actually owned the I&GN had been kept
secret from the public (and lower level Katy management) by Gould while he was
Katy President. To try to cover his tracks, Gould had leased the I&GN
to the Katy. The new management had discovered the truth and lobbied to keep the
I&GN, but the Legislature would not agree.
With the Katy forced to sell the I&GN, Gould acquired it for a bargain
price -- no other railroad would bid against him since he
still controlled the Texarkana gateway, the I&GN's shortest route to St. Louis. The sale closed in the summer of 1892, but Gould could not enjoy it for
long -- he died in December, 1892 and his railroad empire was taken over by his
elder son George. The Katy remained independent but it was reorganized during a
receivership
in the early 1920s. It emerged from bankruptcy with a new corporate name, the Missouri - Kansas - Texas
Railway, but it was still the Katy. It remained independent until
it was acquired by UP in 1988 and merged into MP (a century after Texas courts
had voided MP's lease of the Katy.)
Though traffic at Paris
was steady, it was nonetheless a "dead end" for Santa Fe, which was
largely dependent on Frisco traffic over the Red River bridge north of town. Frisco and Santa Fe collaborated on
passenger service, operating the Texas Limited between Dallas and St.
Louis via Paris, a train that passed through Celeste. Beginning
in 1915, Frisco and the Katy began jointly operating the Texas Special, a flagship
passenger service
for both railroads between San Antonio and St. Louis via the Red River bridge at
Denison. The Texas Special to Dallas passed through Celeste on Katy
tracks; there was
also Texas Special service to Fort Worth that split off at Denison.
Typically, Celeste was not a stop for first class trains -- Katy first class
trains operated non-stop between Denison and Greenville; Santa Fe first class
trains operated non-stop between Paris and Dallas. The schedules varied over
many years and there may have been exceptions. Both railroads had other passenger trains
that regularly served Celeste.
Above: This ad for Frisco
passenger service in the St. Louis - Texas market appeared in the
Official Railway Guide in 1923. The Texas
Limited and the Texokla Limited passed through Celeste on Santa Fe tracks. The
Dallas section of the Texas Special passed through Celeste on Katy tracks.
Right: There was easily enough traffic over the
diamond at Celeste to justify a manned interlocking tower. On April 17,
1906, the Railroad Commission of Texas (RCT) issued an order
authorizing an interlocker for the Celeste crossing, but it is undetermined whether the
order was in response to a solicitation by the railroads for RCT permission to
install an interlocker. Most often, RCT would order interlockers installed at
specific crossings and the railroads would react. Sometimes, however, railroads solicited an interlocker
order for a particular crossing because they believed it would benefit their operations. (Austin Statesman,
April 18, 1906)
Below:
RCT records show that on March 30, 1907 it
authorized Tower 69 to begin operations at Celeste. The news was
reported a few days later in the Fort
Worth Record & Register of April 2, 1907. The article
states that the design plan for Tower 69 had been approved in July,
1906.
The tower housed a mechanical interlocking plant with 32 functions, a
relatively high number indicating the presence of additional signals,
switches and derails for station tracks, exchange tracks and sidings.
The span of control must have extended to the two passenger depots which
were not at the diamond; this was prior to the 1920s construction of a
joint depot. The railroads' contract for operation and maintenance of
Tower 69 was dated July 22, 1907. For an "indefinite" duration, they
agreed to split all tower-related expenses evenly. RCT's final
comprehensive interlocker report in 1930 listed Tower 69 with 29
functions, only a slight change over more than two decades. The tower
lasted nearly fifty years, being decommissioned in September, 1956. The
fate of the tower structure is undetermined. |
 |
 |
Left: Celeste Santa Fe depot,
c.1913, Ken Stavinoha Collection
Below:
In the 1920s, a Union Passenger Station was built west of the
diamond. The south wing faced the Santa Fe tracks and housed the
passenger waiting room. The north wing faced the Katy tracks and housed
the baggage area and the Railway Express office. Tower 69 is visible
east of the diamond casting a shadow to the north. (1956 image
(c)historicaerials.com)
 |
The aerial image above showing the tower across from
the union depot also shows a white-roofed interlocker cabin in the north
quadrant of the diamond. As will be discussed later, the closure of Tower 69 was
announced in March, 1956, and the automatic interlocker that replaced it was
installed in late August, 1956. It appears that this aerial image, also from
1956, was captured after the new interlocker cabin was installed. How much
longer the tower structure survived is undetermined.
 |
Left:
This 1915 track chart of Celeste (courtesy Ed Chambers) shows the track
arrangement prior to the construction of the Union Passenger Station.
The inset photo from SP's
The Cross Tie employee magazine
(San Antonio Division) c.1987 shows the union depot and the tower c.1930. The construction of the joint station in the
1920s gave the town the type of facility that larger towns enjoyed.
There was limited need to change trains conveniently in Celeste, but it did occur, as noted below.
Below: B. F. Yoakum was a famous Texas railroader
who rose from an I&GN track gang to become President of the Frisco and,
for a few years, CEO of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific. This story in
Railway Age from December, 1896
(quoting the St. Louis Republic)
explains that there were two Yoakums.
 |
Right: This Katy advertisement
appeared in the Celeste Courier,
April 29, 1955. The loop in the map shows the
two Katy routes between Denison and Hillsboro
via Fort Worth and Dallas, respectively. Later in 1955, Santa Fe
initiated legal steps to terminate its daily passenger service between
Dallas and Paris, a train that stopped at Celeste.
Below: Like Kingston and Farmersville, Celeste
claimed to be the home of Audie Murphy. His visit to Celeste was noted
in the Celeste Courier
on October 19, 1951. (This may have been the visit where Jerry Hunter,
who was 11 at the time, met Audie Murphy and took him to Show & Tell.)
 |
 |
Below: The
Celeste Courier of January 20, 1961 lamented the recent
razing of the Union Passenger Station by describing the trains that still passed
through Celeste.
 
Above: Audie Murphy movie ad,
Celeste Courier, June 15, 1956 |
 |
Left: This front page story in the
Celeste Courier of March 23, 1956
announced the future demise of Tower 69.
Right: Before removing
the tower, an automatic interlocker needed to be installed as a
replacement. The installation was announced in the August 31, 1956 issue of the
Celeste Courier.
Below: The
Courier of September 19,
1952 noted an incident that injured telegraph operator Glasscoe (whose
name appears in all three articles.)
 |
 |
The Santa Fe line between Paris and Farmersville was
sold in 1990 to Chaparral Railroad, an affiliate of the Kiamichi Railroad
(KRR), a subsidiary of Genesee & Wyoming (G&W). KRR operates the former Frisco lines through Hugo, Oklahoma and over the Red River bridge to Paris. When Chaparral abandoned the tracks to Paris in
1995 and went out of business, a coalition of organizations came together to acquire the ROW under the
rail-banking procedures of the National Trails Act. They obtained additional ROW on the
abandoned T&P line between Paris and New Boston. These ROWs have since been
combined and developed into the 130-mile Northeast
Texas Trail between Farmersville and New Boston.
The ex-Katy
line through Celeste remains in use, now owned by G&W and operated
by its Dallas, Garland and Northeastern Railroad subsidiary. At Trenton
thirteen miles northeast of Celeste, the track ownership changes to another G&W
subsidiary, the Texas Northeastern Railroad. At Bells, the track merges with the
former T&P line from Texarkana and proceeds into Sherman. East of
Bells, the former T&P tracks remain intact to Bonham but are mostly out of
service. Tracks near Savoy, 3 miles east of Bells, have been used for railcar
storage as recently as
March, 2026.
The Katy tracks between Bells and Denison were removed in 1988. The KRR still
operates the line between Paris and Hugo.
 |
 |
Far Left: Looking northwest along the former Katy
tracks at Celeste, an interlocker cabin sits trackside near the former Tower 69
crossing. The boxes mounted on the left side were interlocker override controls,
one for each railroad. It is undetermined whether this is the original
cabin for the automatic plant that
replaced Tower 69. By 2005, the Santa Fe
tracks had been gone for a decade, yet the relatively new door and the power
line connection suggest that the cabin continued to house some kind of active equipment. (Myron Malone photo,
2005)
Left: The remnant of the
foundation of Tower 69 is located across the Santa Fe ROW (gravel
visible in the background) from the cabin. (Myron Malone photo 2005) |
Right:
Mike Snowden took this photo of the Tower 69 cabin interlocker operating
instructions engraved on a metal plate and mounted somewhere on the
cabin (typically on the inside of the door -- the specific location for
this one is undetermined.)
The
transcription is...
INSTRUCTIONS
CELESTE, TEXAS
INDICATOR LIGHT BURNING
INDICATES SIGNALS ON CONFLICTING ROUTE INDICATE STOP.
(1) IF INDICATOR LIGHT BURNING –
DEPRESS BUTTON, AND HOLD 15 SECONDS – RELEASE BUTTON AND WAIT 2 MINUTES
AND 39 SECONDS FOR TIME RELEASE TO RUN. IF NO MOVEMENT ON CONFLICTING
ROUTES TRAIN OR ENGINE MAY PROCEED ON HAND SIGNAL FROM CREW MEMBER AT
THE CROSSING.
(2) IF INDICATOR LIGHT NOT
BURNING OR IF AN INDICATOR LIGHT NOT PROVIDED – WAIT 2 MINUTES AND 39
SECONDS AND THEN FOLLOW PROCEDURE IN ITEM (1). CREW MEMBER MUST KNOW
SIGNALS ON CONFLICTING ROUTE INDICATE STOP BEFORE GIVING HAND SIGNAL TO
PROCEED.
(3) AFTER TIME RELEASE IS
OPERATED AND SIGNAL(S) ON CONFLICTING ROUTE(S) DO NOT INDICATE STOP –
PROTECTION AS PRESCRIBED BY RULE 99 MUST BE PROVIDED ON CONFLICTING
ROUTES.
INDICATOR LIGHT BURNING DOES NOT
RELIEVE CREW MEMBER FROM OPERATING TIME RELEASE OR OTHERWISE PROTECTING
THE MOVEMENT WHEN REQUIRED.
|
 |
 |
Above: looking south from US 69 along the Santa Fe
ROW, now the Northeast Texas Trail (Google Street View, March, 2018)
Left:
The former Katy line, now operated by DG&NO, is visible running top to bottom
on a slight diagonal in
this bird's eye view of the Tower 69 crossing c.2008. The abandoned Santa Fe
line is visible as a gravel trail crossing diagonally left to right. The
abandoned
automatic interlocker cabin sits among the trees on the north side
of the former diamond. A DG&NO equipment cabin sits in the middle of the
triangle formed by the Katy and Santa Fe ROWs and US Highway 69.
(Microsoft Visual Earth) |
Below Left: This view shows the new equipment cabin with red and
white indicators mounted on top. In the distance, a rail crew is working on the track.
Note that the power line to the automatic interlocker cabin seen in the 2005 photo
has been removed. (Google Street View,
March, 2018) Below Right: This
is the north view along the former Santa Fe right-of-way, now the Northeast
Texas Trail. (Google Street View, March, 2018)
