Not sure if you check this board anymore, but I am looking for a picture of John's Oyster Resort other than this :
A little more about CC rails 1959-1980
The back-and-forth interchange arrangements between the three trunkline railroads and the port railroad in Corpus Christi described and shown in the diagram in a previous post lead to some interesting operations. Some involved a shipment going back and forth repeatedly over the same trackage because of the interchange technicalities, a variety of operation that might be worthwhile working into a model railroad. It provides more "operating fun" per mile of track (or in our limited basements, garages, closets, etc., per INCH of track.)
Because of those technicalities, I got to see and photograph one unusual piece of railroading in the early 1970s, the handling of a monster load. It was unusual enough that the TV station where I worked was called with a news release, explaining why the load was coming through Corpus Christi. A reactor vessel fabricated in the Saint Louis area for a new DuPont plant under construction in Ingleside was roughly 120 feet tall. 120 feet LONG when loaded across three flatcars. A pair of special heavy-duty Missouri Pacific flatcars was used to carry the weight. Each car had four sets of six-wheel trucks-- 24 wheels per car, 48 wheels total bearing the load. Another flatcar acted as a spacer between the two end cars.
Ingleside is some 15 miles north of Corpus Christi, across the bay, on what was then the Southern Pacific. Back into the 1950s, SP had a line into Corpus Christi from the north across an arm of the bay. That line was abandoned with the removal of the bascule drawbridge across the mouth of the Port of Corpus Christi, and SP came into Corpus Christi by trackage rights over the MoP from Sinton to Odem to Corpus Christi. A direct routing for the big refinery vessel would have been MoP from the Saint Louis area to Sinton, some 25 miles from Corpus Christi, and then from Sinton about 20 miles east to Ingleside, on the SP.
But the big load could not be interchanged at Sinton. No interchange track there was long enough. So the oversize load came on a line haul MP train all the way into Corpus Christi's Viola Yard. From Viola, an MP switch crew hauled it across the Tule Lake lift bridge to the terminal railroad transfer yard. Then another switch crew (it may have been SP or TedxMex) picked it up at terminal transfer and hauled it south across the Tule Lake bridge, across the MoP line and down the connecting track to the TexMex line and into the TexMex-SP Joint Yard. At Joint Yard, the reactor vessel was switched to become the front cut of cars on an outbound SP line haul train. The SP train then proceeded east on the TexMex, turned north to the connecting track, west onto the MoP and through the MoP Viola Yard back to Sinton. At Sinton, the load went onto SP track to go the remaining distance to Ingleside.
One other interesting tidbit about seaport railroading in Corpus Christi and a few other spots on the Texas coast relates to what I called a WATERGATE back in 1980 or so. That name jumped into mind because it had not been that long since the political scandals of the Nixon administration. Perhaps it might more properly be called a flood gate.
Unlike some coastlines, the Texas Gulf Coast is not rocky, but sandy and low lying. Areas suitable for steamship docks are often areas that will flood when hurricanes come. Rails need to run into the low lying areas to access the docks, but levees and flood walls need to be built to protect from storm tides. Occasionally, the best alignment for a gradual rail line conflicts with the need to cut off a tidal surge route. A break will be left in the storm wall for routine use by the rails, to be filled in on an emergency basis during a hurricane watch or warning. I know of storm walls with railroad openings like this at the Port of Corpus Christi and also at the Conn Brown shrimpboat harbor in Aransas Pass.
Of course, the only time to see or photograph the storm gates in use would be the few days every few years during a storm emergency. When Hurricane Allen was approaching the Texas Coast in 1980, I took a few extra minutes from my newsgathering duties the day before the storm to run down to the port tracks and shoot a picture. (I could justify the side trip on station time, shooting a video clip for the news as part of the storm preparations.)
Notice that a permanent concrete storm wall comes up to a clearance point on each side of the rail r.o.w., with a notch for installing pre-made "gate" sections across the tracks. Then fill dirt is bulldozed against the gate to stabilize it against tidal forces.
Okay, I have just about run out of things to say about Texas Seacoast Railroading. At least run out of wind. I think I started answering this forum question back in April and it has taken about 30 pages. Is that too long an answer for a forum question? (See what happens when you ask what seem to be simple questions on the forums?!?!?) I hope some parts of this have been interesting or helpful to someone.
Regarding the subject of coal vs oil firing of steam locomotives, there is an old gentleman who still runs the short little excursion runs from the Galveston museum. He's in his 80's now but worked for the Santa Fe right out of Galveston. He started as a fireman on a steam engine. He's a neat guy to talk to. At least around here they were. I'll be in Galveston this weekend. If I see him, I'll ask him what they were.
Sunset Conductor wrote: I am intimately familiar with the Kansas City Southern Lift Bridge in Beaumont, Texas... The Santa Fe enjoyed 2 different crossings over (and under) the KCS Main at the Neches River Bridge. The first was called "The High Line" and crossed the KCS at grade over a diamond... The second connection was a direct connection at shore level to a Santa Fe holding yard just north of the KCS Tower. This connection passed under the bridge approach on the west bank.
I thought I had taken a photo that showed this track arrangement, but after I checked my 15 year old snapshots....no I didn't.
Well, back to our continuing saga.
Port of Corpus Christi Railroading 1959-1980s
Railroad operations around the Port of Corpus Christi changed dramatically at the end of the 1950s. The bascule drawbridge at the mouth of the port was labeled as a bottleneck for ships as their average size grew larger, while motorists expressed intolerance at long and frequent interruptions of vehicle traffic for ships. The Texas Highway Department's solution was a high level bridge carrying auto traffic high above the shipping lane. The Corpus Christi Harbor Bridge opened in 1959 and the bascule bridge was removed.
link to Harbor Bridge photo
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/01ukb5ceNJ6Mn/610x.jpg
link to 1959 article about Harbor Bridge
http://www.texasfreeway.com/Corpus/historic/photos/texas_highways_images/txhwys_aug1959_corpus_skyway_1e.shtml
The bascule bridge carried the Southern Pacific into Corpus Christi on a route from Gregory through Portland, down to just a few feet above sea level and across a 2 mile trestle causeway at the narrows between Corpus Christi Bay and Nueces Bay. From the causeway, the SP ran in an esplanade down the middle of a divided boulevard through a tourist-court district, finally crossing the bascule bridge to a yard just south of the ship channel, a warehouse district and a downtown passenger depot. When the Harbor Bridge was being planned, designers debated how to carry the rail line into Corpus Christi. Running trains over the high level bridge would require miles of approach (similar to the Huey P. Long Bridge in New Orleans.) On the town side, the railroad would overshoot the city, running halfway across town before returning to the ground. The cost of a tunnel below the channel designed for 40 foot ship depths would be prohibitive.
The railroad's solution was to abandon its line from Gregory into Corpus Christi. Instead, SP trains into Corpus Christi followed a route that diverged from the original line some 25 miles from Corpus Christi, at Sinton. There, SP trains turned from their own rails to use trackage rights over Missouri Pacific's parallel-the-coast Kingsville Sub. from Sinton to Odem. At Odem, the SP curved to the MoP's San Antonio to Corpus Christi line. Some five miles west of downtown CC, SP trains turned south onto a new connecting track to run to the Texas Mexican. Southern Pacific cooperated with Texas Mexican building a new expanded Joint Yard on Corpus Christi's western outskirts.
CC rails 1959-1980
The new connecting line crossed the Missouri Pacific to reach the north side of the port over the Tule Lake lift bridge, a vertical lift bridge.
When I was shooting the Tule Lake lift in 1970, I thought it would be interesting to illustrate the way a rail joint was cut at an acute diagonal At the point where the rails on the lift section met the fixed rails.
North of the Tule Lake lift bridge, an interchange yard was built, and trackage on the north side of the port and some of the south side wharfs was switched by the Corpus Christi Terminal Association. The three railroads, SP, MP and TexMex took turns year by year providing locos and crews to switch the CCTA, and to maintain port trackage. So one would see an SP loco one year, a MoP switcher another year, etc. Might be a prototype for changing operation of a switching area on a layout from time to time....
In the archive room of the C C Public Library, I once ran across a copy of the agreement document between the railroads and the port commissioners governing use of the connecting track built to reroute the SP. It said none of the railroads would be allowed to build spurs to serve customers along the connecting track.
Heaviest traffic was/is probably export grain. Each of the two big export grain terminal elevators can load well in excess of a hundred carloads of grain a day into ships. Cotton has also been big.
One unusual, perhaps unexpected movement. Ore shippers have used Corpus Christi as a port of entry into northern Mexico. Ships would unload at the bulk materials dock (a BIG scooper) into SP hoppers-- not short ore cars but conventional open hoppers. They looked only one-third full by volume but were full by weight with the heavy ore. The hoppers would bet switched into the transfer yard north of the lift bridge. A transfer run would carry them across the MoP line to the TexMex-SP Joint Yard. From the Joint Yard, an SP line-haul train left town via the connecting track, traveled over the MoP line through the MoP Viola Yard to Odem and Sinton. At Sinton, the SP train traveled over its own rails to San Antonio, then west on the Sunset Route to drop into northern Mexico.
More later----
leighant wrote:Port of Beaumont- Santa Fe, Southern Pacific, Missouri Pacific, Kansas City Southern. Big vertical lift bridge with an diamond crossing just a few feet off the end of the bridge. I used Beaumont as the basis for my unmodeled terminal of "Lost River" on my East Texas Santa Fe line. featured in Kalmbach's Top Notch Track Plans
Port of Beaumont- Santa Fe, Southern Pacific, Missouri Pacific, Kansas City Southern. Big vertical lift bridge with an diamond crossing just a few feet off the end of the bridge. I used Beaumont as the basis for my unmodeled terminal of "Lost River" on my East Texas Santa Fe line. featured in Kalmbach's Top Notch Track Plans
Disclaimer-I have lurked about these forums for a couple of years without posting, but I finally decided to speak up. I hope that I am quoting from a previous posting correctly. Please forgive me if I have screwed this up.
I am intimately familiar with the Kansas City Southern Lift Bridge in Beaumont, Texas. I grew up in the small town of Nederland. In adulthood, I moved close to downtown Beaumont and spent many an hour train-watching there. Back in the days before lawsuits and terrorist attacks, it was quite easy to find a friendly tower operator at the bridge who would allow a post-teenage young man to visit and watch trains.
This particular bridge became a choke-point in Beaumont because of city politics. A corner of the main telephone exchange building now sits upon what was once the Espee's Sunset Main Line through Beaumont. In the 1960s, motorists having the short temper that they usually do, were tired of the Espee passenger trains blocking Park, Orleans, and Pearl Street when stopping at the depot. Beaumont forced the Espee to enter into a joint agreement with the Missiouri Pacific and the KCS to use their trackage between Tower 84 (near W. Cedar @ 11th) and the Espee Diamond on the east bank of the Neches River. In conjunction with this, an underpass for automobiles was constructed beneath the KCS Main where it crossed Park and Orleans Streets. The old Sunset Main became known as the Espee Long Lead for that portion of the trackage that remained in service as far as where the original engine facilities had been located. This track could not be entirely removed because it was one of the interchanges that was shared with the Santa Fe. The Espee had already been making drastic cuts in its passenger service, so it was agreeable to abandon the downtown depot adjacent to Sears, Roebuck, & Co. and continue its meager passenger operations out of Tower 84. And to this day, Amtrak still stops there. even though nothing remains but a concrete slab.
But, I digress. Getting back to the subject of the Port of Beaumont! As I remember it (and someone correct me if I am wrong), at least as far as the late '70s and early '80s go, rail service to and from the port was primarily the province of the Santa Fe. I do not recall the Espee or the MoP or the KCS serving the port at all. They may have received cuts of cars in transfer, but all of the switching within the port was done by the Santa Fe. The Santa Fe enjoyed 2 different crossings over (and under) the KCS Main at the Neches River Bridge. The first was called "The High Line" and crossed the KCS at grade over a diamond. The KCS was single track over the bridge and did not split into double track until clearing this diamond and before reaching Main Street. There was an interchange connection to what we always refered to as 'The North Main' from the High Line. There used to be a crossover just east of the location of the old KCS depot to reach the south main, but there was no immediate crossover near the interchange track for it to reach the South Main. The second connection was a direct connection at shore level to a Santa Fe holding yard just north of the KCS Tower. This connection passed under the bridge approach on the west bank and went immediately to the northernmost pier of the Port. For those of you who are seeking really unusual track configurations, the Port of Beaumont is for you!
Check out the Yahoo Maps Satelite Photo at Lat 30.08085 and Long -94.09287. Those coordinates should center your picture right over the diamond of the High Line.
I'll close this with a short story of how I tried to prevent a railroad accident, but was totally powerless to do anything. I was visiting KCS tower one day in the early 80s. The Santa Fe dispatcher called the KCS tower by land line and advised him that he had a train in the port that was requesting clearance to leave via the High Line. The KCS operator had nothing coming (I was waiting for the Sunset Limited and it was late as usual), so he cleared the Santa Fe across. I stepped outside to watch the grain train pull up out of the port. After the head end and about 15 cars had passed, I suddenly heard a 'thump, thump, thump' sound and immediately recognized it for what it was...a derailment! Frantically, I yanked open the door to the KCS Tower and yelled at the operator "Call him on the radio! He's on the ground! He's on the ground!" At which point the KCS operator said, "I don't have a Santa Fe radio! We do everything by land line!" We both watched helplessly as the covered hoppers rolled on another 50 feet or so at some speed less than 15 mph before the derailed car finally tipped over the embankment spilling its load of wheat all over several automobiles in the Convention Center parking lot that was next door (Boxing Match was scheduled that evening). It was like watching dominoes fall. I do not recall now, some 28 years later, exactly how many cars rolled over with the derailed car, but I know that it was at least 5 or more. I went on home after that. Now that the bridge was effectively blocked and out of service, there would be no through trains in Beaumont that night. The only way out of town was North on the Santa Fe, West on the MoP through Elizabeth, West on the Espee through Amelia, or South on the KCS (which was a dead end in Port Arthur, the same as West on the Santa Fe was a dead end just past Winnie).
Just a little more on coal-fired vs oil-fired. Since I have been scavenging it while laying low hiding from Storm Dolly...
from Burlington Bulletin #19: Teague, Texas and the Boll Weevill p.41
"It was 1898 when the Cotton Belt... became the first railroad in Texas to convert a locomotive to burn oil... By the turn of the century, Santa Fe and Espee roads in Texas had begun to switch to oil, since decent quality steam coal had to be imported long distances at considerable expense. But all T&BV locomotives were coal-fired until the five former Gulf Coast Line Ten-Wheelers (T&BV 52-56) arrived in April 1907. These were among the first locomotives in the country built new for oil (in 1904.) They forced the Valley Road to provide fuel oil storage and dispensing facilities along its entire route, but it was not until about 1915 that a general conversion of locomotives to burn oil was begun, and severe oil shortages during World War I delayed completion of the program until the early Twenties."
p.20 a newspaper clipping from the Teague Tribune in 1908 says a 20-pocket coal chute was completed at Teague.
p.24 1922 plat of Teague yard shows oil house, no coal facilities.
-----
Model Railroader Locomotive Cyclopedia vol.1, steam p.30 "Most locomotives of the Southwest built after 1905 had oil tenders."
Southern Pacific/ Texas & New Orleans 2-6-0 class M-4, scale drawings in Model Railroader August 1994 p.72 "converted to oil around 1900."
Thank you. That's more than ample information about oil-fired vs. coal-fired. Please don't go to any further trouble. It makes sense that Texas coastal railroads would have used oil rather than coal, given the abundance of oil here.
Thank you again!
ssgauge wrote: Were steam locomotives in Texas, in particular the southeastern part of the state, predominately oil or coal fired? And, if oil fired, would that include switchers?
I am still trying to answer that question definitively. I expected to find it in the "Bible" of Santa Fe locomotives-- Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail by E. D. Worley. 1965, Southwest Railroad Historical Society. 2nd printing, 1976, Philip M. Dybvig Inc. Dallas, Texas. 480 pages + diagram section D1-D128. I was suprised that I could find little on which steam locos were coal-fired and which oil-fired, although the book seemed to have the individual build date and scrap date and disposition of every loco in ATSF history, piston displacement size, etc. But not any uniform coverage of coal vs oil fuel as far as I could find. I found picture of oil-fired locos AND coal-fired ones.
A resource that supported my contention of oil-fired steam on the Texas coast by the 1930s was a chart of ATSF coaling towers based largely on a 1932 compilation...published in Santa Fe Modeler JulyAugust 1979 p.12-14. It listed coaling towers in Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas Panhandle; NONE LISTED in California, Arizona or on the Texas Gulf coast.
I am limited in checking my library due to an out-of-his-apartment in-law day sleeper in what was my layout and train book room...
In 1995, this was the end of a compress building whose insides were gone. When one arrived in Galveston over the causeway, four blocks of this vine-covered complex greeted the motorist along a palm-tree and oleander-bush lined street. I thought of it as the "garden warehouse district" and I am trying to "compress" a slice of the scene onto my Galveston layout. The ends are now gone and a shopping center is being built.
For a batch of pictures of compresses, internal machinery, etc, scale drawings, etc. go to the Library of Congress.
http://www.loc.gov/
Click on "American Memory", then select "architecture-landscape", then select "architecture & engineering". Then in the search box, search for "compress". This will link to dozens of historic compresses.
What exactly does a compress do? Is it okay if I just answer approximately instead of exactly?
A compress presses or compresses cotton bales to make them more dense and take up less space to fit in an ocean-going ship. This may be confusing but the same term may be used to refer to the specific machine used to squeeze the bales (used to be steam powered at one time) AND to the entire complex of warehouses etc. where cotton was gathered in a port area and held for loading aboard ships according to the steamship schedule.
Here is a diagram of a portion of the Port of Galveston compress and warehouse district, a composite of items from transition era to late 1970s. Everything on the diagram labeled "cotton" might have been referred to as a compress, though that was not always then official name of the company or the facility. Notice that the compresses nearly all had rail access but they were NOT located directly at shipside or dockside. They were usually several blocks away from the docks proper, sometimes a mile or two. So when "their ship came in", booked to load a cargo of cotton, how did the cotton actually get to the ship? Usually in "trackless trains" of cotton wagons pulled by a tractor that ran through the streets.
Most cotton gins I know of are one-story buildings, often divided in the transition era by concrete firewalls into sections so the entire warehouse does not burn up at once if there is a fire. The firewalls extended above the general roofline of the building, making a visible sign of the special nature of the building. Another feature often seen on those compresses were gravity-closing doors. Doors were on slanted tracks so they would close by themselves under their own weight unless there was something holding them open. What held them open was counterweights held on a cable with a link made of a low-temperature-melting metal link such as one made of lead. In case of fire, the lead melted and the doors closed themsleves without human or electrical or any powered intervention, to cut off air and suppress the spread of the fire. I once modeled a cargo shed with this construction but I do not seem to have it on my webspace where I can insert it instantly in this thread.
Cotton bales are sometimes categorized as "gin bales" and "compress bales" or "export bales". Gin bales are bundled together in "country" cotton gins in the growing area, often within ten or twenty miles of the field, and then transported to a compress in a port area for export. Most gins did not have have the big pressure compresses, and cotton travels as "gin bales" from that point.
Longshoremen in Galveston who specialized in fitting as many bales as possible into a ship's cargo hold had the nickname "cotton jammers".
Turning Basin Compress
Port City Compress
Houston Compress Co.
Ship Channel Compress
ETC ETC.
quote user="leighant"
I know this may sound like a stupid questions but what exactly does a "compress" do?
In addition THANKS! for the great information and links in general. I appreciate those who take the time to share their passion and expertise with those who want to learn. Thanks for 'paying ahead'.
NC
My top-of-the-head prejudice would be oil-fired. But I will check my references for GC&SF (Santa Fe), T&NO (Southern Pacific), MoPac subsidiaries, Tex-Mex, and the port references for Houston and Galveston switching railroads.
I really appreciate the time you've taken to describe Texas seaports...this is excellent information and I think it will be very useful as I build my layout. I'm planning a freelanced pike but based as closely as possible on actual smaller ports, as they would have been in the late 1930s.
Another question, regarding locomotive fuel. Were steam locomotives in Texas, in particular the southeastern part of the state, predominately oil or coal fired? And, if oil fired, would that include switchers?
Port of Corpus Christi Railroading 1926-1959
This time interval forms a specific different period as far as modeling railroads in the Port of Corpus Christi. Before 1926, shipping at Corpus Christi was limited to shallow draft vessels such as schooners and barges, operating from piers going out from the natural shoreline into Corpus Christi Bay. These were located just south of the central business district, where the Texas Mexican RR met the bay.
In 1926, Corpus Christi's deep water seaport opened with a channel across the bay and a man-made harbor about a mile north of the central business district.
aerial view of port of CC, ca.1930 http://rattler.tamucc.edu/dept/special/kilgore_postcards/7PC-958D3.jpg
USN destroyers in Port of CC 1926 http://rattler.tamucc.edu/dept/special/kilgore_postcards/7PC-926.jpg
citation: the above pictures are from the Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Texas A&M University Corpus Christi, Kilgore Picture Postcard Collection in Special Collections and Archives http://rattler.tamucc.edu/dept/special/kilgore_postcards.html
History of the Port of Corpus Christi online http://www.portofcorpuschristi.com/CHistory.html
THE RAILROADS-- especially prominent at the port was the San Antonio & Aransas Pass, owned by the Southern Pacific. The SAAP came into Corpus Christi from the north on a wooden trestle causeway almost 2 miles long from Portland Texas.
SP rr entry to CC via causeway, ca.1920 http://rattler.tamucc.edu/dept/special/kilgore_postcards/7PC-812.jpg
auto causeway along rr trestle after 1924 http://rattler.tamucc.edu/dept/special/kilgore_postcards/7PC-813.jpg
After crossing the causeway, the SAAP ran about a mile down the median of a divided boulevard in a tourist court/ mostly-working-class beach resort district. Then it entered the main section of Corpus Christi crossing the entrance to the port on a bascule bridge (drawbridge) shared with auto traffic and streetcars. http://rattler.tamucc.edu/dept/special/kilgore_postcards/7PC-831.jpg
After a half-mile run through port area warehouses, the SAAP dead-ended at its depot behind the Nueces County Courthouse. The courthouse still stands, barely. The depot is long gone.
SAAP depot http://rattler.tamucc.edu/dept/special/kilgore_postcards/7PC-909.jpg
Another railroad, the San Antonio, Uvalde and Gulf reached Corpus Christi in 1914. It came into the city roughly along the south side of the port to dead-end at a station only a block's distance from the SAAP station, on an alignment almost perpendicular to the SAAP. The SAUG became part of the Missouri Pacific Lines in 1926 and more recently, part of Union Pacdific.
Jess Patton gave me this snapshot of the then MoPac depot he snapped in 1949.
I snapped a picture earlier this year of the same structure, now used as a UP office.
FYI: Searchable digital archive of historic photographs of Corpus Christi http://www.ccplarchives.ci.corpus-christi.tx.us/index.php
In 1959, the bascule bridge was removed and replaced with a high level span. The SP railroad was rerouted, and the appearance and operation of railroading in the Port of Corpus Christi changed dramatically. And that is another story.
Port of Corpus Christi Railroading "before Deepwater"
During the 1800s and early 1900s, Corpus Christi, Texas had piers on its bayfront that offered docking to shallow draft vessels-- schooners and barges. Ocean-going deep draft ships would need to be loaded and unloaded via lighters. The first "railroad" in Corpus Christi, if you could call it that, was mule-drawn, strictly point-to-point, and used only one car. It ran from Sidbury's lumber yard on the shore out onto a pier, just wide enough for the track. A mule would pull a car out onto the pier to load it with lumber taken off a shallow-draft vessel, then pull the car onto land for unloading at the lumberyard. Would be very easy to model except for figuring out how to model a realistic operating mule!
Shortly after the Corpus Christi, San Diego and Rio Grande narrow gauge started its line from Corpus Christi to Laredo on Thanksgiving Day of the centennial year, 1876, arrangements were made to lay an S curve to connect the CCSD&RG line onto Sidbury's pier line to give the railroad an access to ships. The railroad also built its own pier out into the bay, named appropriately, the Railroad Pier. Both piers and the tracks are shown on a "bird's eye view" of Corpus Christi drawn by Augustus Koch in 1887.
Link to a somewhat large file on Koch's bird's eye view
http://www.library.ci.corpus-christi.tx.us/photo7.jpg
The digital file of Koch's map is from Corpus Christi Public Library, whose "Friends of the Library" have a full-size reproduction on sale to support the library.
http://www.library.ci.corpus-christi.tx.us/ccsesquicentennial.htm
From the piers, the track went to a depot building (shown on the birds eye view), a two-story structure nearly identical to the Texas Mexican depot still standing as far as I know in Laredo.
1986 photo of Texas Mexican Express at Laredo depot.
Just up the hill from the depot was Corpus Christi's oldest house, built in 1849, a shellcrete landmark that still stands. It is now known as Centennial House, open for tours usually one day a week. Site with information on this house-- http://www.ccahs.com/
The railroad went west up a bluff, over an arroyo and passed another landhouse, the Blucher House.
prototype mansion and N scale cardboard mockup
The railroad had yards and a turntable half a mile inland from the bayfront.
Shortly after the CCSD&RG was built, the San Antonio and Aransas Pass built a connection from the north over the intersection of Corpus Christi Bay and Nueces Bay. The SAAP depot was on the north side of town, on the right side of the bird's eye view, and the track with a train running across the upper right of the picture is a SAAP- CCSD&RG connection that ran down a city street for several blocks.
I once designed a layout for a friend who had G gauge. The CCSD&RG tracks would dead-end at the bayfront piers, but the track west could go to a continuous oval loop that sneaks back into itself disguised as the SAAP connection. Could be a honey of an old time layout in S scale or O too.
The CCSD&RG was standard-gauged and became the Texas Mexican.
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/TT/eqt21.html
I gave the link to information on the San Antonio and Aransas Pass earlier, but here is the link again.
http://saap.tnorr.com/history.htm
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/SS/eqs6.html
Railroading after the deepwater Port of Corpus Christi opened in 1926 was another story, but one that would also make an interesting layout.
The Corpus Christi Caller Times headline today, Sunday June 22 was on the future of CONN BROWN HARBOR,ARANSAS PASS,TEXAS.
The past of that harbor is this next piece in this ridiculously-long ongoing thread on Texas Seacoast Railroading. But remember, Texas has a lot of seacoast.
Aransas Pass is on one of Texas's inner bays about 8 miles behind barrier islands that run along the actual open Gulf. A railroad was built in the 1880s to connect San Antonio to the Gulf, the San Antonio and Aransas Pass, but Aransas Pass accommodated only shallow draft vessels. A deep water channel was proposed for Aransas Pass and a deep water channel actually dredged to just inside the barrier island to create a port called Harbor Island, just across from Port Aransas (also called "Tarpon" on old maps). A shortline railroad, the Aransas Harbor Terminal Railroad was built to connect the SAAP/SP to the Harbor Island facility to deliver freight to the docks. The Terminal railroad also carried automobiles on flatcars to get to Port Aransas via ferryboat. I have what is supposed to be a 100-year-old original photograph of seagoing cargo ships at Harbor Island.
The Harbor Island facilities were damaged by hurricanes in the 19-teens, and rebuilt only as oil docks, not for dry cargo. Aransas Pass never got its major harbor for oceangoing ships, but became a major shrimpboat harbor, the "Shrimp Capital of the World" in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and home of the world-famous Shrimporee (community festival) and blessing of the shrimp fleet.
Links to sites with photos of Conn Brown Harbor
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23744369@N00/1253467901/
http://www.texasescapes.com/TexasGulfCoastTowns/AransasPassTexas.htm
http://www.caller.com/ccct/local_news/article/0,1641,CCCT_811_4465593,00.html
Back in 1991, I was building a corner module for a club layout, based on Conn Brown Harbor.The three module tracks ran behind a levee back of the shrimp harbor, more or less analogous to the real single track of the San Antonio and Aransas Pass, a subsidiary of Soputhern Pacific. The track is still there, now part of Union Pacific. It runs about a mile northeast of A.Pass to a carbon black plant.
Shrimpboat was built using the hull of a Lindberg "tuna seiner" plastic model, with shrimping rigging scratchbuilt out of brass rod soldered together. I planned a dozen more shrimpboats. Most of the buildings are mockups... freezer plants, service buildings, a waterfront marine fuel supplier. I thought the most interesting one was a bar on the top of the levee overlooking the entrance to the harbor. Shrimpers' spouses could sip a cold beer until they saw the boat of thyeir significant other coming in, then go to the dock where they could say they had been waiting. The water is just acrylic craft paint on plywood, fopr temporary appearance before shrimpboats finished and resin "water" poured.
The scene was not finished. I dropped out of the club when my fellow members voted that no one would be allowed in the club space to view the layout unless they were "serious" prospects for paying membership. (Actually, "dropped out" is too nice a phrase. I stomped out. Why should I spend long hours building a showpiece if I am never going to be allowed to show it off to my friends and relatives?)
Handbook of Texas historical article on Aransas Pass http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/AA/hfa6.html
Handbook of Texas historical article on Aransas Harbor Terminal Railroadhttp://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/AA/eqa6.html
map http://www.ttarchive.com/Library/Maps/AHT_1923_UpNDown.html
A layout based on Aransas Pass during the years the Aransas Harbor Terminal RR was running could be interesting. The Terminal RR could be modeled schematically in its entirety, a point to point line on a shelf, carrying freight for the docks and ferrying passengers and automobiles going to Port Aransas/Tarpon. It could connect to the SAAP at Aransas Pass, and the SAAP could run into staging hidden behind the narrow Terminal RR shelf. The SAAP could carry shrimp and finish products from Aransas Pass, and SAAP trains both freight and passenger would pass through Aransas Pass on their way to Rockport.
A dozen miles or so miles southwest and south of Port Lavaca are a couple of waterfront communities that used to be railroad-served seaports. Saint Louis Brownsville and Mexico, a subsidiary of Missouri Pacific for most of the 20th century, built a branch line to Port O'Connor and Seadrift.
PORT O'CONNOR was at the end of the line.
Port O'Connor chamber of commerce, with pix & info on old lighthouse, & links to other information.
http://www.portoconnor.com/poc_main_.html
SEADRIFT remembers some of its railroad heritage on its web side.
http://www.seadriftchamber.com/
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txcalhou/seadrift.htm
The railroad is long-gone through Seadrift and to Port O'Connor, but it continues going strong to Green Lake where there is a Union Carbide plant. In fact, several miles of new track were laid in recent years to build a grade separation for Highway 35, bypassing a crossing at grade at a major highway intersection.
Information on Green Lake Community: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/GG/hng29.html
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The old downtown harbor in ROCKPORT still has a few shrimpboats and lots of pleasure boats, and an industrial area south of the town proper is a base for offshore supply vessels, boatbuilding, etc. Rockport was the Texas coast terminus of the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad (which became SP, then UP). SAAP doesn't come to Rockport any more, but ends just northeast of Aransas Pass. But Rockport still has an old SAAP depot.
1993 photo but still there as I remember it...
Website with lots of info on the SAAP: http://saap.tnorr.com/
There is a story that the SA&AP had a private HUNTING AND FISHING CAR "Fern Ridge" to impress shippers and politicians. The car would be spotted on a pier out into the bay at Rockport for fishing directly from the comfort of the car.
Told in the book San Antonio & Aransas Pass Rwy by Hedge P.25
The Texas Maritime Museum is located in Rockport and it is full of artifacts and information on Texas seaports.
PORT LAVACA AREA
Continuing southwestward along the Texas coast.... different localities in and around the Port Lavaca have/ have had railroad-served port facilities in three places, and three ages. Only one fits the Texas- eaport-railroading-of-the-1930s theme requested by "ssgauge", but the others may be of interest to someone else reading this long-unraveling thread.
First geographically on our southwestward sweep and last in time is Point Comfort, on the northeast side of Lavaca Bay, across the bay from the town of Port Lavaca proper. Point Comfort is primarily an Alcoa aluminum plant built at mid-20th century. The plant was built on the water with docks for ore ships to deliver bauxite. The plant has its own formerly-Alcoa-owned short-line railroad, the Point Comfort and Northern to connect a dozen miles northward to the Union Pacific (ex-Missouri Pacific, ex-Saint Louis Brownsville & Mexico) at Lolita.
The PC&N is now owned by RailAmerica: http://www.railamerica.com/about.htm
unofficial site of PCN http://pcnorthern.tripod.com/
B. Byrnes railfan photo page with shots of PC&N motive power" http://www.byrnes.org/railfan/misc_pg/page_3.htm
Union Pacific site re PC&N as a customer line: http://www.uprr.com/customers/shortline/lines/pcn.shtml
Official Alcoa site for Point Comfort: http://www.alcoa.com/locations/usa_point_comfort/en/home.asp
A public highway, FM 1593 runs most of the length of the PC&N between Point Comfort and Lolita. The PC&N interchange with UP and PC&N engine service facilities at Lolita are easily viewed from highway 616. I have not tried to follow the tracks in the plant at Point Comfort, which I assume to be private.
A map showing port facilities and trackage is found on the website of the Calhoun Port Authority http://www.calhounport.com/facilities/
It appears from the map and website describes that in recent decades, the Calhoun Port Authority has added some general port facilities for ocean-going ships in addition to those of the Alcoa plant.
Port LaVaca on the southwest side of the bay was an early port and the terminus of one of Texas's early railroads, the San Antonio and Mexican Gulf, which became a Southern Pacxific subsidiary. In the 19th century, it was a shipping point for cattle and cattle products such as hides and tallow. In the early 20th century, it was a fishing and shallow-draft harbor with shrimp shipping (say that a dozen times real fast!) an ice plant, and a seaside resort. Passenger service was discontinued in 1935. http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/PP/hep7.html
A Southern Pacific depot was standing as a historic display in 1991.
Another interesting relic at Port Lavaca is a preserved lighthouse, shown on a city heritage and tourism site. http://www.portlavaca.org/history.html
Two or three blocks of the old downtown are a historic district, along with a castle of an old jail. Might be interesting to model, and not overwhelming.
A branch line ran to Indianola several miles southeast of Port Lavaca, an important port after the civil war, which was abandoned after being destroyed TWICE by hurricanes. No, not just the railroad abandoned. The whole town was abandoned!
Indianola Railroad http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/II/eqi2.html
Continuing southwestward along the coast, we come to PALACIOS.
Palacios is more of a "shrimpboat port" than a seaport.
http://www.portofpalacios.com/
It once had a railroad, a branch of the impressive sounding New York, Texas and Mexico. Here is a link to the story of "The Day the Railroad Arrived in Palacios"
http://www.palaciosbeacon.com/home/features-train.shtml
As I wrote in the thread back in late April, "I have so much material on Texas railroads and seaports... I will try to work northeast to southwest along the coast...."
Matagorda, Texas was the Gulf Coast terminus of a Santa Fe affiliate, the Cane Belt Railroad. Port facilities at Matagorda on the mouth of the Colorado River were apparently minimal, accommodating shallow draft vessels such as barges and schooners. A railroad traffic of mud shell was reported. The material was dredged from oyster reefs and used in a manner similar to gravel. A description of the branch in Santa Fe Modeler March April 1983 p.7 showed a spur at Matagorda running down to a river landing. I visited Matagorda in 1981, found evidence of where the roadbed had been. The railroad stopped at Wadsworth, just across the Colorado River from the South Texas Nuclear Project. I understand Wadsworth was used for delivering some of the cars of Portland cement used in the nuclear plant construction.
A historical brochure printed for a 1973 "Matagorda Day" celebration states that the Cane Belt railroad arrived in 1902 at Matagorda. Matagorda's prospects as a port disappeared in early 20th century after channelization of the Colorado River to the Gulf to relieve upstream flooding. Spoil banks from channel dredging cut Matagorda Bay in half.
The early 20th century landing is not to be confused with the present-day "Matagorda Harbor", a marina located at Texas mile 440 on the Intracoastal Waterway operated by the Port of Bay City Authority. That Matagorda Harbor opened in 1990 as part of the Mouth of the Colorado River Project, a joint project by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Port of Bay City Authority.
Web sites with information on the Cane Belt Rwy:
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/CC/eqc2.html
http://www.eaglelakedepot.com/CaneBeltHistory.htm
http://www.texassantafehistory.com/q%20cane%20belt.pdf
THE SPOT WHERE TEXAS RRs STARTED
would be a good scene for a model railroad representing the Texas Gulf Coast in the 1920s through the 1950s. That spot is HARRISBURG, a neighborhood in Houston which used to be a town of its own, in fact a town that preceded Houston. Harrisburg is where Brays Bayou flows into the Houston Ship Channel, which was once Buffalo Bayou before it was widened and deepened to make a world class port. On a street map, Harrisburg Boulevard (once Harrisburg ROAD) runs east by southeast from downtown Houston and makes a sharp turn due south just before reaching the Ship Channel. With that turn, the street changes name to Broadway and one enters what used to be Harrisburg.
If you use GoogleEarth or a mapping program, go to 95º 16' 44"W 29º 43' 41"N
When Texas was part of Mexico, Harrisburg was a settlement where shallow-draft boats on Buffalo Bayou could load and unload. After Texas won its independence in 1836, the Allen brothers came to speculate on land at Harrisburg expecting a boom, but the burning of a courthouse during the war caused title problems in the town. They picked a point to lay out a townsite at the confluence of Buffalo Bayou and White Oak Bayou, the farthest upstream they figured could be navigable. They named their town after the hero of San Jacinto, General Sam Houston.
In 1850, a railroad was chartered to run, not from Houston, but from Harrisburg, to plantations at Richmond and Wharton. The first rails were laid in 1851 from a landing alongside Brays Bayou and then south (bypassing Houston, by the way!) That railroad was the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado, later to become part of the Galveston, Houston and San Antonio, and later, Southern Pacific.
Below is a map of the "Harrisburg" section of Houston as it was from about the 1920s through the 1950s, with the present-day bayou channel and street alignment shown in dotted lines. This is about a half mile south of Booth Yard on the bottom right corner of the 1939 Turning Basin trackage map I posted earlier.
The old original BBB&C line did not cross Bray's Bayou but started there and ran south. The Ship Channel was constructed in the 19-teens and a Public Belt railway established in the 1920s to provide port switching services. The Public Belt trackage was operated by the Port Terminal Railway ASSOCIATION, an organization of the trunkline railroads serving the city, and the Port railroad came to be known by the initials of the Association, PTRA. PTRA built a track south from Booth Yard to cross Brays Bayou on a timber pile trestle shown on the left side of this map. That line briefly joined the BBB&C track, then cut away to swing east along the south side of the Ship Channel. (not shown on this map)
Meanwhile, the stub of the former BBB&C, by then part of SP, was extended to cross Brays Bayou going north to access part of the port. It crossed Brays Bayou on a quaint little vertical lift bridge. This was not a huge truss bridge like the Cape Cod, Mass lift bridge, shown in Model Railroader Oct06 p.68. It was a deck girder bridge, somewhat similar to the MicroEngineering deck girder bridge in HO.
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/255-75501
I copied this photo some 20 years ago from an old Port of Houston promotional magazine of 1939 found in the engineering library of Texas A&M University at College Station.
I recently discovered that many historic back issues of this port publication is available online, and this photo is on p.29 of a pdf file at:
http://www.portarchive.com/1939/Volume%2018%20November,%201939%20Number%202%20Page%2021%20to%2042.pdf
I measured the image of some of the people in the photo and came up with a guesstimate of a scale of 9.33 pixels/prototype foot in the plane of the near side of the bridge...
Ht of standing man 55 pixels 5.9 feet
Bottom of raised bridge above water 164 px 17 ft 7 inches
Top of bridge deck above water 211 px 22 ft 7 inches
Length of moveable span 344 px 36 ft 10 in.
Normal track level above water 119 px 12 ft 9 inches
Max hit of vertical supports above water 241 px 25 ft 10 in.
Another interesting and modelgenic part of the scene is the "New" Terminal Warehouse, shown in this photo I took in 1989.
It is 4 stories, concrete frame, masonry curtain wall. A Sanborn's map showed it as built min 1912. I remember how dramatic this corner seemed in the 1950s when we drove around the sharp curve that dropped down from Harrisburg Boulevard at left and crossed a concrete bridge- where there is now the old bridge pier at right bottom. Then the road rose again The little vertical lift railroad bridge was to the right of this pix. To the left of this view in the 1950s was the Public Belt/ PTRA line crossing Brays Bayou on a trestle, and crossing Harrisburg Boulevard at grade, elevation about 35 feet.
By the 1980s, the PTRA line was raised on a grade separation over Harrisburg Boulevard, and it crossed Brays Bayou on a concrete trestle. The sharp curve and the down-and-up ride for motorists was replaced with a concrete viaduct from which this photo was taken.
Almost everything in this photo except the bayou and the modern auto viaduct are gone. The "New" Terminal Warehouse was demolished for a container terminal. The old road that runs up to the old bridge pier was replaced with a "turnaround" and observation area.
I have seen quite a few pictures of "shipside" rail spurs being used to load and unload what I call "open loads" directly to and from ships... articles usually carried in gondolas or flatcars, such as drilling pipe, heavy machinery, vehicles, logs etc. In those cases, a crane or hoist can lift or lower a load directly on or off a railcar, and swing it on or off a ship.
I believe commodities, the kind of thing loaded in and out of a boxcar door such as bales of cotton, bales of wool and mohair, bagged grain, flour, raw sugar, raw coffee, manufactured goods in small to medium crates... etc (LOTS of etc) usually handled through warehouse. This is slightly indirect. The advantage is that the ship does not have to wait its schedule on switching of railcars, and railcars do not have to be held if a ship is late, etc. It allows for some "slack" in scheduling of the operation.
The same kind of "slack" occurs in bulk commodity transfer, such as bulk grain (not bagged) between railcar, terminal elevator and ship, or tankage for liquid loads.
An exception is uncovered unprotected bulk solid loads such as rail-to-ship ore dock operations, or unloading coal, coke or "clinkers" from ship at a bulk material handling dock to railcars. I have seen a shipment in the Port of Corpus Christi where pelletized iron ore was unloaded from a ship by a giant clamshell scooper some 12 or 15 stories tall, dumped (with some "slack" via a hopper) into railcars. A hundred or more railcars would be held for unloading the ship. Regular hopper cars, not shorty ore jimmies, were used, filled only "one third full" (by volume) by FULL by weight capacity. I was making a newsreel and photographed a train from an overpass so that you could see the "almost-empty" looking hoppers passing. The ore was shipped to Corpus Christi to be rail-transported across the lower tip of Texas as a route into smelters northern Mexico.
Corpus Christi is another story, and I will get to it when I finish with Houston, Matagorda, Palacios, Port LaVaca, and Rockport-Fulton. And then I will still have Riviera Beach and Brownsville- Port Isabel. This is getting to be a long drawn-out thread answering your request about Texas Seaport Railroading, but hey, there is a lot to tell.
Incredible source of information, especially from 1939, the time I intend to model..thank you!
Regarding pier/rail operations, I'm assuming the tracks on piers in Houston are usually used to unload freight into (or out of) railcars from (or to) the pier's warehouse or transit shed, which in turn is used to store freight unloaded from ships, or to hold freight until loaded onto ships. Is that correct? As I mentioned before, my primary familiarity with port operations is based on what I've observed in Seattle in the 1950s on the older piers...I don't want to mistakenly assume all ports operate the same way. One reason I ask is that the Port of Houston articles seem to draw a distinction between "shipside" tracks and those "behind" pier warehouses. That suggests freight may be directly transferred between railcars and ships??
ssgauge wrote: Any suggestions on books or websites about Texas ports...
I have just found the "mother lode" of websites about the Port of Houston, an online archive of complete port information magazines going back to the 1920s, with issues available in pdf format in their entirety. Home page:
http://www.portarchive.com/
Link to entire May 1929 issue (typical content on this site)
http://www.portarchive.com/1929/1929%20May%20Volume.19%20No.1%20Page%201%20to%2018.pdf
Nearly 20 years ago, I found copies of 2 issues of their publication in a university library, copied dozens of pages and have studied them over and over and over. Now I have access to many times this information. Prepare to be kept busy.
Not the era being discussed, but I love this "bird's-eye view" of Galveston in 1885. A railroad on stilts.
Crews
Trynn_Allen2 wrote:So do you know if those are R or S class Subs? Any shots of the conning tower?
Sorry, my dad shot several detail pix of Old Ironsides, but just one of the subs. Sort of a picture to say, look what else was there. It is known they were there accompanying Old Ironsides on the 1932 tour. You might google that tour for information about Navy escort vessels.
The Southern Pacific (now Union Pacific) drawbridge shown along the right side of the plan view of the Port of Houston Turning Basin would an interesting part of a model scene representing railroads around that port, whether modeled as the 1930s or the 2000s. The bridge stills exists and must still be operable, though rarely opened. The Federal Register for November 26, 2003 said the bridge was to be closed to navigation from December 10 to December 21, 2003 to allow replacement of a diesel motor to turn the bridge. Corps of Engineers/ Homeland Security call for the bridge to be opened on signal from vessels if at least 24 hours advance notice is given. Requests to open the bridge are infrequent. The November 26 notice said that the last time the bridge had been opened was April 14.
Vertical clearance is 34 feet above mean low water. A 1928 port promotional publication describes the ground elevation behind all wharves approximately 35 to 40 feet. I could not find an official dimension for the length but measuring by six locomotives in the photo, estimated to average 60' long, would make the bridge 360 feet long. (By the way, this is a composite of 2 photos taken a few seconds apart so the same locos appear on both sides of the picture, taken ca. 1986. The photo was taken from a public park, upstream of the bridge and on the south side of Buffalo Bayou.) The bridge turns on a center support, located at the south side of the Buffalo Bayou channel. Traffic upstream of this bridge is primarily tugs and barges.
For a model scene, the bridge would be a good feature toward the back of the layout, while dockside switching trackage would be closer to the operator at a slightly lower level. Through SP trains would occasionally circuit across this bridge going to supposedly distant offscene locations, while the bridge would occasionally carry cuts of cars being transferred to one of the modeled dock, wharf and warehouse tracks. Since the bridge rarely turns, it would make it easier to build as a non-operating model, and it could be located closer top a background than clearance for turning would require.
Any commercial product that could be used to model this bridge? I notice the originator of this thread asking for Texas seaport railroad information had the name "ssgauge", so maybe he is building in S. I couldn't find anything in S scale, though I don't have much knowledge of S scale resources.
In HO scale, the closest thing I could find in the Walther's catalog was a Vollmer metal arch bridge, 19 ½ " long which works out to about 141 scale feet-- a lot less than the 300' or more prototype.
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/770-2560
Maybe the best bet would be scratchbuilding with Plastruct structural members and Central Valley truss parts but it would not be a two evening project.
A diagram of some of the tracks around the busiest end of the Port of Houston in 1939. This is from a port promotional and informational brochure. The Turning Basin is the farthest point upstream navigable by ocean-going vessels. About midway on the left side of this diagram, Buffalo Bayou continues to the west allowing shallow-draft barges almost to the city center. A Southern Pacific track crosses this bayou just upstream of the Turning Basin on a center-axis swing bridge. I have some photos of the bridge I will post later.
The orange diagonal line across the top of the picture is an SP line originally called the Texas Transportation Company, a shortline railroad running just north of Buffalo Bayou to connect downtown Houston to a Morgan Lines dock about 10 miles east of Houston, near a locality now called Galena Park. This line gave SP access to many industries along the port. A fascinating double underpass in the upper left corner of the diagram carried Clinton Drive under the SP/ TTCo line. The line was north of Clinton between downtown and the underpass, but south of Clinton from the underpass to the east end of the line.,
The orange line that crosses the swing bridge and runs more or less north and south connected the SP lines north of the bayou and channel to a point about 2 miles south, Harrisburg, a bayou-port which predated the existence of Houston. Harrisburg was the terminus of Texas' first railroad, the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado which became part of the SP. Harrisburg was also a junction with an SP-owned line that ran east along the south side of the ship channel to LaPorte and then south along the shore of Galveston Bay to Texas City and Galveston.
If you modeled this SP track across the bridge, the operation would include an SP switch job to industries and port facilities on the south side of the ship channel, local traffic to industries between Harrisburg and LaPorte, and through freight for Texas City and Galveston. It would also carry a short passenger train to run between Houston and Galveston.
Port of Houston track diagram 1939. Click image to enlarge.
The uncolored tracks belonged to the Public Belt Railway, which later became the Port Terminal Railroad Association, a common switching line doing work in the port for all the trunkline railroads. The Public Belt had a yard in the upper left corner of the diagram where it interchanged with the Houston Belt and Terminal. From there, one line paralleled the SP/ TTCo line on the NORTH side of Clinton, but it cross Clinton AND the SP tracks to give access to the north side of the port at several points. The SP had its own access to some warehouses at the northeast corner of the Turning Basin, while the Public Belt also had its access to nearby wharks and an entry to the big Public Grain Elevator. The parallel railroads crossing each other to claim their access to specific industry sites might make an interesting operation.
The Public Belt used the SP bridge to get to the south side of the Turning Basin, then went off onto its own rails to a small yard called Mackie Dee Yard. An "unrealistic" and "unprototype-like" roundy-round loop of track gave access to wharfs just to the south of the Turning Basin. From there, switching continued for miles and miles along the south side of the ship channel.
In the late 19th century, a steam-dummy-operated traction line was built to Magnolia Park, promoted as the site of a future port. It ran about a mile to the south of Buffalo Bayou from downtown to a point about a mile south of what became the Turning Basin. International and Great Northern bought the line, shown in blue, and it later became part of Missouri Pacific. UP continues to operate this line.
About a mile to the south of the area shown in this track diagram, the MKT-MP jointly-owned Galveston, Houston and Henderson Railroad skirted the south edge of the Harrisburg community, and there, it could interchange with the Public Belt to reach the Port.