www.txrrhistory.com - Tower 72 and Tower 184 - Corsicana
Crossings of the St. Louis - Southwestern Railway with the Trinity &
Brazos Valley and Texas & New Orleans railroads
It is somewhat unusual to find two numbered interlockers less
than 1,500 feet apart, but that was the situation in Corsicana,
where the St. Louis - Southwestern ("Cotton Belt") crossed
both the Houston & Texas Central (H&TC) and Trinity & Brazos Valley
(T&BV) railroads at grade. The H&TC line from Houston to Denison
was the first railroad to reach Corsicana, in the early 1870's.
A decade later, a line that eventually became owned by the Cotton
Belt was built from Tyler to Waco, crossing the H&TC at grade
in Corsicana. In 1907, the T&BV, building north from Teague, crossed the Cotton
Belt at grade, a crossing that became controlled by Tower 72 on November 21,
1907. (The T&BV also crossed the H&TC further north, but this was grade
separated). The files of DeGolyer Library show that this interlocker was not
static over the years; modifications to Tower 72 were initiated in letters to
the Railroad Commission of Texas (RCT) dated April 14, 1932, September 30, 1940,
September 30, 1952, and April 21, 1954. Tower 72 remained active for many years,
but was eventually retired and razed. The site of Tower 72 is still active at
what is now a crossing of BNSF and UP.
The H&TC had been part of the Southern Pacific
(SP) system since 1883, and it was absorbed into SP's primary Texas operating company,
the Texas & New Orleans (T&NO) railroad, in 1927. SP acquired the Cotton
Belt in 1932, but continued to operate it as a separate company. Although their
crossing had existed since the early 1880s, RCT never included it on the list of locations that needed to be interlocked.
As an uncontrolled crossing of two railroads, all trains would be required to
stop before proceeding, but this may not have been an added burden because the
crossing was within SP's yard limits, immediately adjacent to the SP depot,
where through trains would likely stop anyway. The
rule that was followed until the mid-1920s was that a crossing where both lines
were owned by a single railroad could be managed by internal rules and did not
require interlocker approval by RCT. This
interpretation changed when the RCT began asserting approval authority over yard
interlocking systems (see discussion at Tower 121).
In the 1930s, railroads began submitting interlocking plans to RCT to cover
their own crossings. An interlocker was installed for the Cotton Belt/T&NO
crossing, and on December 21, 1937, interim authority to begin operating the
newly designated Tower 184 was granted with the interlocker control machine
located in the passenger depot. On February 19, 1945, T&NO requested "permission
to install an additional color light dwarf signal" for this interlocker, but
otherwise, this interlocker appears to have had few changes over the years. The crossing at Tower 184 was retired in 1988 when the Cotton Belt
line west of the junction was abandoned. Now,
the former Cotton Belt line curves to the south and joins
the UP main line heading toward Hearne.
Historic Photos of Tower 72
Above:
Looking north past Tower 72 up the ex-T&BV main line
through Corsicana, the Cotton Belt crossing is just past
the tower. On the left in the distance is the turret of
T&BV Depot, still utilized by the BNSF Railroad. Below, a close-up of the
tower and its order hoop. Both photos
by Gary Morris
Above left: When a young Myron Malone (Webmaster Emeritus of this website)
was photographed at Tower 72, he was looking south down the Burlington - Rock
Island (B-RI) Railroad, successor to the T&BV, while standing on the Cotton
Belt track. The B-RI was a paper railroad created to acquire the T&BV when it
came out of bankruptcy in the early 1930s. The B-RI was jointly owned by the
Burlington and Rock Island railroads, which supplied all of its equipment and
personnel. Photo by Robert W. Courtney
Above right: Terry Kirkland captured this photo of SP9114 crossing the diamond
at Tower 72.
Photos of the Corsicana Crossings from the Tom Kline collection (click to enlarge)
Historic Map, Tower 72
Above: The 1910 Sanborn Fire Insurance Co. map
of Corsicana shows the location of Tower 72 in the southwest quadrant of the
crossing. Under magnification (right), the map reveals a two-story "Switch
Tower". Below: The Sanborn map shows the location of the Union Passenger Station
in the northwest quadrant of the Tower 184 crossing. The Tower 184 interlocker
was operated from the passenger station.
Satellite Image, Corsicana Interlockers
Location Map for Corsicana Towers
