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Join us on a trip through time - the Katy Flyer The Gulf Coast Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society has had a splendid history of organizing one and two day excursions. During the 1990s they organized several with the Union Pacific Heritage Steam and Diesel Division. The first of these that we were able to enjoy was run on November 5, 1994. What is perhaps most interesting about this run, however, is that it could not be repeated today. For some of the track has since been lifted. The journey started and ended at the Eureka Yard in inner northwest Houston. The route took us west on the old Missouri-Kansas-Texas (MKT) line to Katy, then to Sealy and on to La Grange where we stopped for lunch. The train continued to the old railroad town of Smithville where it was able to turn on a wye for the return back to Houston. Today there are no tracks from Eureka as far as Sealy. Under an agreement that seems to have had more than its fair share of problems, the Union Pacific agreed to give up the track rights so that the Katy Freeway (Interstate 10) could be widened. This work is now underway. So there was something special about knowing that we were probably traveling the rails on the last passenger train out of Houston on the old Katy. In fact history proved us right for no additional passenger services ever ran down the tracks - just freights. Then one day they started ripping up the rails. The Consist I am fortunate to have retained the full details of the journey - it is available further down this page as a download pdf file that is unfortunately very large (but in this way retains all the details). As a result my memory is actually far better than it really could be after 12 years or so! The motive power of the train was in the form of UP's three unit E9 diesel electric set. Classic streamlined locomotives unlike anything to be seen on today's railroads, the E9s are actually quite modern "under the hood" with new diesel engines and more modern traction motors than the originals. They are therefore a lot more powerful, and quite possibly a lot more reliable too. Here is a photo of the three locomotives at the end of the journey, Smithville:
E9A unit 951 took the lead and this is the longest serving of the three in the heritage fleet. E9B center unit 963B and rear cab unit 949 together provide a lot of horsepower. Which is just as well considering they were hauling a total of 14 passenger cars, consisting of:
The comfort level of the various passenger cars varies but with a general trend of getting more luxurious toward the rear of the train. We booked early enough to secure seats in the dome of the tail end City of San Francisco:
As you can see, the level of comfort in this dome is incredible. Our Gulf Coast Chapter volunteer host was George Porter who dressed the part as our car attendant and looked after us well. Down under the dome, slung between the wheels, is a bar which served coffee and donuts in the morning and supplemented our "grazing" needs during the rest of the day. On a subsequent trip I volunteered to work this bar and have an interesting story to tell - but you'll have to wait until I write it! Houston to La Grange The weather was incredible. A cold front had passed through Houston and the day started as it would continue - low humidity, no clouds in the sky and a bright warm November sun. Just about perfect conditions for a train ride! After the usual delayed start we backed east out of the yard onto the single track main line and then headed west. Track conditions in west Houston were far from ideal (this line only carried a limited amount of freight at the time, mainly crushed stone from Georgetown, Texas) so we did not pick up much speed until nearly in Katy, 24 miles from Eureka Yard. Traffic on Interstate 10 seemed to be much slower than usual; then we realized that many of the cars were the usual "chasers" with cameras aimed at us! We bought a signed print of the E9s as they must have looked passing through Katy. This is framed but currently in storage, otherwise a photo would be included here. All the limited edition signed prints were sold on the train and the original was auctioned off at the Chapter's Christmas Party. After passing through Brookshire the train next met its first serious geographic barrier, the Brazos River, spanned by a fine but rusting steel girder bridge. By this time the three E9s were moving along fast and the motion of the City of San Francsico became a steady gentle roll along the rails. Around about this time one of our party remarked on how magnificent the car's restroom was! Upgraded with Corian surfaces this was a very pleasant surpise to those of us who had become used to avoiding modern on-train toilets at all cost! At Sealy, Texas, we crossed the old ATSF (Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe) main line that ran from Galveston around Houston to Temple. Sealy is famous for the original "Sealy Posturpedic Mattress" but they are not made there any more. Excursion trips always try to include scheduled photo run bys. Our morning stop was at the settlement of Cat Spring, approximately 56 miles from Eureka Yard. Run bys are simple affairs that need to be well organized in order to be safe and fair for all involved. All are invited to detrain and stand a safe distance from the rails. The train then backs up out of sight. Cameras are prepared and everyone stands in an orderly line to get the "perfect" shot. After a minute or two the E9's horn announces imminent arrival and, with some black smoke belching from the exhausts, the massive train comes into view! After it has completely disappeared up the track it stops and reverses to pick up the happy snappers!
This photo shows just how easy it is for a photographer to get the perfect shot! And then, on to La Grange, another early Texas settlement that subsequently became quite famous as the setting for the true story "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas". Here we stopped at the original depot that had been turned into a small museum (a not unusual happening in many small Texas towns). La Grange was 92 miles down the track from the start. The tracks literally passed through the town so, as soon as we had all got off, the engineers backed the train out of town to give space to the many cars needing to cross from one side of the town to the other! All the passengers trecked across the town square to a barbeque lunch hosted by the town (and included in the price of the fare). I feel sure that the townspeople rather hoped we could have arrived earlier and left later but of course we had a timetable to keep up with. So we returned to the train, seen here back at the old depot:
La Grange to Smithville La Grange was a stop on the old Katy with no turning facilities available to the excursion train. As a result, the organizers planned the trip to go on to Smithville, a distance of 112 miles from Eureka Yard. Smithville was the hub of the MKT in Texas, a place where tracks from Houston, San Antonio and Waco converged:
On we went to Smithville, which is also where the movie "Hope Floats" was made. Smithville, being an old railroad town, welcomed us with open arms. It seemed like they gave every one of us freedom of the city! We enjoyed the railroad relics on display in the depot-cum-museum and then turned our attention to the fact that the entire train was being turned on the large wye that forms the axis of the MKT in Texas. That is where the photo of the E9s at the top of the page was taken. All too soon we were off again, retracing our route back to Houston. But we did make time for another photo run by, near a coal fired power station that still gets its fuel by rail. Inevitably the train arrived back in Eureka Yard later than anticipated but I doubt if many of the travelers were fretting too much. The weather had been perfect, fellow passengers had made friends for life and we had given many observers an unexpected thrill by just passing through their neck of the woods. The chasers no doubt got their movies and stills, the UP had a successful public relations exercise, and the Gulf Coast Chapter could declare the event a major success. I would be failing in my duty as a traveler not to mention the principle organizers of the event. They have since become our good friends even though we now live thousands of miles apart. Bill Waldrop became a radio celebrity in Houston as "Chopper Bill", giving helicopter traffic reports over local radio. Jim Leuders stayed with the railroad program and even now is reported to be escorting high and wide railroad loads across the United States. He is an avid supporter of private railroad cars and regularly works for various owners, providing all the on-board services they and their clients may need. The Gulf Coast Chapter provided a large number of volunteers for the trip. I count 39 volunteers in the official edition of Gulf Coast Railroading that was given to every passenger and is reproduced as a very large (be warned it is 16MB!) pdf file for downloading here. Add a Comment or an Update on the FocalplaneTravelblog |
