Texas Railroad History - Tower 197 - Robstown
A Crossing of the Missouri Pacific Railroad and the Texas Mexican
Railway
In 1878, the Corpus Christi, San Diego and Rio Grande Narrow Gauge Railroad
began construction of a line west from Corpus Christi, a port on the Gulf of
Mexico. By the time Laredo was reached in 1881, the railroad's name had changed
to the Texas Mexican (TM) Railway. Soon, the Rio Grande river was bridged and
the line became an important transportation artery for trade between Mexico and
Corpus Christi. At the time, the only other railroad in the area was the
International & Great Northern (I-GN) Railroad which arrived in Laredo the same
year with a line from San Antonio, Austin and points north. Along the coast,
there were no other rail lines as far south as Corpus Christi, so the TM's
east/west route remained isolated. This changed when the San Antonio & Aransas
Pass (SA&AP) Railway reached TM rails in Alice in 1888, giving TM
an outlet to the north that competed with the I-GN. Although much has changed
with the TM, including conversion to standard gauge in 1902 and various
ownership modifications, it continues to
operate by that name on the original route between Laredo and Corpus Christi, now as a subsidiary of Kansas City
Southern (KCS) Railway.
By the 1890s, the commercial opportunity presented by the lower Rio Grande
Valley as a "Winter Garden" for growing fruits and vegetables was beginning to
be realized, but transportation was the limiting factor. Lon Hill, a lawyer and
developer, operated a rice plantation near Brownsville and he began to promote
the idea of getting a railroad into the Valley. B. F. Yoakum's Gulf Coast Lines,
under the charter of the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico (SLB&M) Railway,
collected a bonus that Hill and other businessmen offered by constructing a line
from Robstown into Brownsville in 1904, a distance of 141 miles. Robstown wasn't
really a town at the time, merely a real estate opportunity recognized by
developer George Paul, figuring that the junction of the two railroads was
likely to bring population and commerce. Robstown was named for Robert Driscoll,
a noted landowner and businessman in the Corpus Christi area, and an early
investor in the SLB&M. The SLB&M's connection with the TM provided an outlet for
Valley agricultural products to the north via TM's connection with the SA&AP in Alice, and
via the Port of Corpus Christi. But the SLB&M had bigger plans, and proceeded to
complete the line from Robstown all the way to Algoa near Houston. The SLB&M's
connection with the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway at Tower 65
in Algoa provided access into Houston and beyond, where connections to other
Gulf Coast Lines were available.
So, by 1906, the SLB&M had a main line from Algoa, near Houston, to
Harlingen and Brownsville in the Rio Grande Valley. This line is now owned by Union Pacific (UP)
and continues to see significant traffic. Meanwhile, the TM has operated their
main line from Corpus Christi to Laredo continuously since 1881. These two lines crossed
in Robstown in 1904, and the crossing remains as busy as ever today. Yet, for
unknown reasons (which would be interesting to discover), this crossing was not
interlocked for nearly fifty years. Interlockers were established at numerous
other lines that crossed the SLB&M, but Robstown was omitted until sometime
between 1950 and 1952 when Tower 197 was commissioned by the Railroad Commission
of Texas (RCT). By that time, the Gulf Coast Lines including the SLB&M had been
acquired by Missouri Pacific (MP), which became the TM's official interlocker
partner. We have no other information about this interlocking plant, only its
number!
Above: A connector
track at the Tower 197 crossing allows traffic from Laredo to proceed north on
UP's route to Houston, and southbound traffic from Houston to go west on the
TM to Laredo. This was built when KCS acquired the TM; KCS has trackage rights
on UP from Victoria south to Robstown via Bloomington.
Below: This Google Street View image in Robstown looks south along UP's main
track to Harlingen. The TM crosses the Tower 197 diamonds in the foreground.
Just beyond the equipment cabinets near the center of the image, the connector
for traffic to Laredo is visible as it begins to curve to the right toward
its connection with the TM about 4/10ths of a mile west.
