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Union Pacific line from Longview-Laredo, TX
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6737 <br /> <br />Intermodal, auto racks and auto parts, and some mixed freight. Between the San Antonio/New Braunfels/Austin/Round Rock (Georgetown) and Valley Jct., lots of rock. And unit coal trains to San Antonio off the old Katy at Taylor. <br /> <br />Grain trains headed to the Port of Corpus Christi in season. <br /> <br />The Katy Lockhart Sub did connect the San Antonio main line at San Marcos with the Houston main line at Smithville. In the early 1900's they even ran a Pax train over it SAT-HOU. By the 1930's, the line was seeing mixed train service only. Pax rode in the caboose - Katy had a number of mixed train cabeese with baggage and very spartan pax compartments with walkover seats. There is a picture of one of these mixed trains taken in San Marcos in about 1945 in Ray George's book. I think Emery Gula***ook the photo, but I don't have it in front of me to verify. However, up until the Deramus era when things went downhill, the line handled both E-W SAT-HOU freight and N-S main line freight, except the Komet, which was a hot enough train to justify the rights charges over the MP between Taylor and San Marcos through Austin. From about Deramus up until Whitman/Gastler and the loans, the line was secondary or less and deteriorated badly. It has since been rebuilt. During the first UP constipation event, it had dead trains lined up on it almost nose to tail. <br /> <br />The connection to the Lockhart sub off the now-truncated Houston line is at the west end of what was the Katy yard at Smithville. This is a very tight wye right in the middle of town that also involves a couple of road crossings at grade. Lots of flange squealing going from the main to the Lockhart. Most of the old Smithville yard is abandoned, but the Lower Colorado River Authority has put in a state-of-the-art car maintenance shop on the west end by the old roundhouse location. That shop takes care of LCRA's coal gon fleet that services the Fayette Power Project just east in La Grange, which they own jontly with Austin Energy (City of Austin). <br /> <br />In Katy days, Smithville was a major division point.
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