Hardy St. Yard, Texas & New Orleans (T&NO) Railroad
The precise interlocking assignment for Tower 207 remains undetermined. It was located along Maury St. at the east end of the T&NO Hardy St. yard, and it appears to have had a responsibility associated with managing train movements to and from the yard. The adjacent T&NO tracks were (and remain today) a major east/west line across north Houston, so it is likely that Tower 207 controlled access between this main line and the east end of the yard. The Tower 207 designation was assigned to an electric interlocker at this location in 1958. The elevated tower in the photos below implies that, at least initially, the towerman needed a good view of the yard tracks and both directions of the main line.
A high resolution scan of the above photo yields the closeup of Tower 207 at
top. The image was scanned
from a slide obtained by Carl Codney. The slide is captioned "Houston, Texas SP
fan trip, 8/31/57".
This date is problematic because Railroad Commission records list 1958 as the
year the "207" designation
was granted. Note the white building immediately behind the tower structure
survived and is visible in
more recent photos below.