Talk:Austin and Northwestern Railroad

Latest comment: 16 years ago by Gyrofrog in topic Untitled

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A little more info about the subject, unfortunately I don't have any sources: Looking at older maps of Austin (okay, perhaps that's a source), it appears that the old MKT and the A&NW tracks approached each other east of the city, then ran parallel into downtown Austin. The railroad tracks ran down 4th Street (I think) across downtown. What I'm not sure about, is which railroad owned the tracks (now I vaguely recall that tracks may have run down a parallel street, as well). There was a Southern Pacific depot at Congress and 4th Street (I think), but I don't ever remember seeing it (not sure how long it was there). But Southern Pacific suggests that these were the A&NW tracks. I do know that by 1989, nearly all the old tracks through downtown were torn up and/or paved over, and the streets where they had run were re-surfaced. There was (perhaps still is) all kinds of evidence of the old railroad, e.g. apartments on East 4th(?) named "The Railyard," tracks still peeking out from the layer of asphalt, and an old bridge across Shoal Creek. It was evident that this bridge brought the railroad from downtown (I guess what's now called the Warehouse District, e.g. La Zona Rosa, Austin Music Hall) to the area right behind the old power plant, where the tracks would have joined the current Union Pacific line by the Colorado River bridge. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 20:49, 17 September 2008 (UTC)Reply