Texas Railroad History - Tower 199 - Houston (Settegast Yard)

An Interlocking of the Houston Belt & Terminal Railway at Settegast Yard

Left: This map of Houston from the March, 1952 issue of Railway Signaling and Communications highlights Tower 80, Tower 85 and the new BJ Tower that became Tower 199. (hat tip, Neil Mackay) In the archives of the Railroad Commission of Texas (RCT) maintained at DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, a letter from the Houston Belt & Terminal (HB&T) Railway to RCT dated March 13, 1952 discusses the new interlocking at Missouri Pacific's (MP) Settegast Yard and requests an interlocker number, for which "199" was subsequently assigned. An article published that very same month in Railway Signaling and Communications titled "Three NX Interlockings on Houston Belt & Terminal" describes interlocking plant updates at Tower 80 and Tower 85, and the new "BJ Tower". It is apparent from the article that "BJ Tower" is the interlocker subsequently identified in RCT records as Tower 199. Above: Images ((c) historicaerials.com) from 1930 (left) and 1947 (right) show that a "shortcut" connector was added to the HB&T going north to MP's line to Beaumont. Settegast Yard was then built along this connector in the early 1950s.

Right: This 1974 HB&T drawing provided by Neil Mackay has been annotated to illustrate the location of Tower 199 east of the main tracks at the south end of Settegast Yard. In addition to the "199 bung" (bungalow) interlocking adjacent to the tower, two other bungalows (red shading) associated with the interlocker are highlighted. Below: This image ((c) historicaerials.com) from 1953 has been highlighted to show the tower on the east side of the main tracks.                             Below: The precise coordinates of Tower 199 in the above image have been translated to a 2023 Google Maps satellite image showing that the former tower site is now in the middle of the yard.

The building identified above as Tower 199 in 1953 imagery survived at least into 1966, but 1973 imagery shows it no longer standing. By then, the yard had been expanded such that tracks were in place on both sides of the former tower's location. The location to which the interlocker controls were located is unclear, perhaps a yard office, but it is equally likely that the deployment of new technology had rendered the Tower 199 interlocking system obsolete. Historic aerial imagery shows that about 1982, a new multi-story yard tower opened on the east side of the yard, but it seems unlikely that it had any association with the controls for the interlocking and bungalows that constituted Tower 199.

Left: The yard tower at Settegast Yard is located along the east side of the facility on the north side Queen Street at its terminus with the yard boundary. Union Pacific (UP) acquired MP in 1982, but did not integrate MP fully into UP operations until the late 1990s. (Google Street View, 2019)

 
Last Revised: 2/6/2025 JGK - Contact the Texas Interlocking Towers Page.