Texas Railroad History - Tower A - Galveston (36th Street)
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Left: An optical illusion makes Tower A appear embedded in the building behind it. Viewed from this perspective, the front left vertical edge of the tower (where the staircase begins at ground level) happens to align perfectly with the wall and roofline of the building in the background. Reinforcing the illusion, the building has a 135-degree angled wall, not a sharp corner. An exchange track behind the tower is not readily apparent, but its location can be discerned from the crossbuck at left. The track is barely visible crossing the road from the crossbuck toward the building and passing behind the utility pole to the left of the tower. It continued straight, passing behind the tower between the right side utility pole and the windowed brick wall of the building. (photo c.1940, Rosenberg Library, Galveston and Texas History Center) |
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Left: Google Street View (May, 2017) shows approximately the same view as above. Some of the window openings have been bricked over and the track that ran behind the tower no longer exists. The date and disposition of Tower A's demise has not been determined, but the 1960s seems likely. It is known to have existed in 1958 but it does not appear on historic aerial imagery from 1969. |
Tower A was located in Galveston at a junction of the Galveston, Houston & Henderson (GH&H) Railroad, the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe (GC&SF) Railway, the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio (GH&SA) Railway, and private tracks of the Galveston Wharves Co. The Tower A name was assigned by Santa Fe, presumably in recognition of the tower's status as the first interlocking plant in Texas. Santa Fe built it a few years before the Railroad Commission of Texas (RCT) was granted authority by the Legislature to regulate railroad grade crossings. The intent of that 1901 legislation was to have RCT manage the deployment of interlocker technology into Texas, a technology that was widely used in other states. RCT's initial focus was reviewing designs and commissioning installations of interlocking plants it had ordered installed at busy rail crossings throughout the state. Tower A was apparently performing well, so RCT waited 25 years before it incorporated Tower A into the interlocker management system. When it did, RCT kept the Tower A name instead of assigning an interlocking number as it had for all "permanent" interlockers (a few temporary plants did not have numbers, e.g. Cruse.) RCT's table of active interlockers published December 31, 1926 was the first to include Tower A, listing it as a mechanical plant with 52 functions and a service date of "Prior to 1902." The table published December 31, 1927 revised Tower A's service date to simply "1898". On December 31, 1930, the final comprehensive interlocker table published by RCT raised Tower A's function count to 54, but all other information remained unchanged. Lacking an official name from RCT for 25 years, local railroaders in Galveston had adopted different names for Tower A. One of the most common was "36th Street Interlocker".
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Left: This
photo of Tower A shows that it may have been slightly taller than a
typical 2-story tower. Judging from the ground floor doorway, the second
story appears to have been built a few feet higher than otherwise
necessary, perhaps in attempt to create a higher elevation for the
operators so they could see
beyond nearby buildings. (undated photo, Kansas State Historical
Society, William Osborn collection.) Above: Frank Perez is a retired railroader who began his career with Santa Fe as an operator in Tower A in 1950. Frank tells of his first day on the job, having engineers whistling at him from all directions. He was so rattled that he started to bolt from the tower to head home when he heard the phone ring. He went back upstairs to answer it and it was his supervisor wanting to know why all those trains were whistling for signals! When Frank told him he didn't know what to do, the supervisor said to let one through at a time. Frank followed the instructions and had a successful career in the tower for many years. When Frank worked as a relief operator (1950 to 1958), Arthur Wade was first trick operator, H.E. Smith had second trick, and a "Mr. Clifford" was the third trick operator. Frank recalls that a signal maintainer named Boyd was killed when a train derailed and crushed him against a corner of the tower. Thanks to Frank for providing details about Tower A's operations. In retirement, Frank has supported the Galveston Railroad Museum as an electronics technician. Frank is sure that the person standing on the tower porch in the photo at left is H. E. Smith. Frank details that the interlocker levers were located in the middle of the room and were aligned parallel to the outside steps. |
Above: This article appeared
in the Galveston Tribune of July 8,
1898 describing the "system of switches" to be "inaugurated at once" to manage
the crossings of several railroads "on avenues B, C and D at 35th, 36th and 37th
streets." The article does not mention that Santa Fe was leading the project and
it never uses the term "interlocker".
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Right: Lacking an
official name by which to reference Tower A,
Railway Age (October 27, 1905) reported a remodeling
of the "...interlocking plant near the intersection of Thirty-sixth and
Mechanic streets...". Santa Fe built Tower A near the hypothetical intersection of 36th and Mechanic streets. However, 36th Street is not known to have ever extended all the way to Mechanic St. The intersection appears to have existed only on the official plat of Galveston on which there were many unopened streets. |
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Left, Top: Lacking an
official name for 25 years, the railroads had adopted various references
for Tower A in their employee timetables (ETTs). This table of whistle
codes from an unidentified ETT
(courtesy
Galveston Railroad Museum collection) uses the name "Thirty-Sixth Street
Interlocker". It illustrates the complex series of movements possible
through the junction. Trains could whistle these codes on approach to
Tower A and the operator would set the signals and switches as required.
The table is undated, but it was published after the Burlington - Rock
Island (B-RI) began serving the island (c.1930.) By then, the Texas & New Orleans (T&NO) Railroad had
absorbed the GH&SA as a result of Southern Pacific's consolidation of
its Texas and Louisiana lines into a single subsidiary.
At least since the 1930 USGS topographic map of Galveston,
the intersection of Mechanic St. and 36th St. has not existed. It is not
surprising that "Thirty-Sixth Street Interlocker" never caught on with
all of the railroads -- 36th Street wasn't nearby. Left, Second: This 1930 T&NO ETT lists two whistle codes that pertain to T&NO trains at "TOWER, 35th STREET...". T&NO associated Tower A with 35th St., and there was also a junction switch at 34th St. Neither of these streets was near the tower, faring no better than 36th St. as a naming rationale. Yet, the codes must be for Tower A. There were no other manned towers in the area (to hear the whistles!) and the codes for T&NO trains to reach the main track or the Post Office are the same as in the "Thirty-Sixth Street Interlocker" table. Left, Third: This 1951 T&NO ETT lists the same whistle codes, but uses the confusing title "TOWER 36, 35th STREET...". This appears to be an attempt to combine the 36th St. reference used by GH&H and Santa Fe with the 35th St. reference that T&NO had been using. Insstead, it erroneously conveys a reference to "Tower 36" located in Bryan. Left, Fourth: Elsewhere in the 1951 ETT, T&NO associates "35th St. Tower" with the mileposts for the 34th St. junction and the 35th St. crossings. Left, Bottom: In 1939, Santa Fe referenced the Tower A junction as "Ave. A Jct., 36th STREET" apparently confusing Ave. A with Tower A. Mechanic St. was platted as Avenue C, not Avenue A, which was two blocks from the tower, more than 200 yards away at the closest point. Another junction 0.1 miles closer to Union Station was referenced as "WHARF CO. CROSSING, 35th STREET Jct." Elsewhere in the 1939 ETT, Santa Fe confirms that these two crossings are "protected by interlocking plant", but it does not name the tower. By the end of the 1990s, all of these railroads had been consolidated into two large systems: Union Pacific (GH&H and T&NO) and Burlington Northern Santa Fe (GC&SF and B-RI.) |
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Far Left: The
1912 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Galveston shows the location of Tower
A where 36th St. was projected to intersect Mechanic St. (Avenue C). The
map shows that the angled building in the photos adjacent to the tower
was in place by then. This building would eventually become the Farmer's
Marine and Copper Works building which has since been converted to a
large covered parking facility targeting visitors taking cruise ships
out of Galveston. Near Left: Magnification of the map reveals a two-story "Switch Tower" with a sizable roof overhang. |
| Right: This portion of a
larger "Station Map - Track and
Structures" drawing (June 30, 1918, revised Oct 1, 1933) from the GH&H Office of
Resident Engineer shows the location of Tower A ("Interlocking Tower", above and
slightly to the right of the center of the image). Again, the non-existent 36th St. (unlabeled and marked as "Closed") appears to intersect Mechanic St., running horizontally beside the tower, labeled only with "Public Gr. Xing". The Santa Fe roundhouse appears along the left edge of the map. (courtesy Don Harper, Galveston Railroad Museum) Below: This summary drawing for the "Interlocking System at 36th Street" was taken from a GH&H ETT dated April 30, 1899. (Ken Stavinoha collection, click to enlarge)  |
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Right: Having studied the
historic maps above, can you spot the interlocking tower in this image cropped and magnified from an aerial photo of the east end of
Galveston Island? The
Santa Fe roundhouse is near the center.
Below: The tower is adjacent to the far right corner along the slanted wall of the large building above and to the left of the
roundhouse. The proximity of the building restricted the tower operator's
visibility and contributed to the need for the large number of whistle codes used by engineers to
request switching alignments. (image, Don Harper collection) |
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Below: Don points out that all
three Galveston roundhouses are visible in the master aerial photo. In this
snippet taken from the larger image, the Santa Fe roundhouse is at the top edge,
just right of center, the GH&H roundhouse is in the lower right corner, facing
the opposite direction as the Santa Fe roundhouse, and the T&NO roundhouse is
along the middle of the left edge of the image. What a great photo!
| Right: This "bird's eye
view" image of the Tower A vicinity c.2008 shows remnants of the Santa Fe
roundhouse foundation at far left. (Microsoft Visual Earth) Below: Although the graphic overlay on the image at right makes Mechanic St. appear as a through roadway, the reality is that it becomes a dirt path east of the tracks. Tower A sat in or near the fenced area at left. (Google Street View, April, 2024)  |
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