Above: This letter to RCT's Chief Engineer from SP's Signal Engineer, R. W. Meek, was the only item in the
Tower 89 file at DeGolyer Library. It indicates that Tower 89 was never constructed.
A crossing of the International - Great Northern, Texas & New Orleans, and Houston Belt & Terminal railroads
Tower 89 presents an interesting mystery that can be traced back to 1912 when the tower first appeared in the list of authorized interlockers published by the Railroad Commission of Texas (RCT). In a table dated October 31, 1912, Tower 89 is identified as a 12-function mechanical interlocker serving a junction of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe (GC&SF) Railway and the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio (GH&SA) Railway in Houston. Although, no operational date was listed, this was not uncommon. Sometimes, a tower was close to being operational and had been assigned an interlocker number, but was not yet in service at the time the RCT report was produced (for example, Tower 90 in Victoria is similarly listed in the same report without an operational date). In succeeding years, Tower 89 remained on the RCT list as an interlocker awaiting final approval until it was omitted without explanation from the 1915 Annual Report. In the 1919 report, Tower 89 reappears, this time in a list of interlockers that have been "abandoned on account of removal of crossing". Its initial authorization date was vaguely listed as "1912" whereas the others on the list had precise dates of initial operation provided since they had actually been operational.
In 1912, the GH&SA had a line into downtown Houston from the east that paralleled Clinton Drive. Tower 5 was located along this route, and as the tracks neared downtown, a crossing of the Houston Belt & Terminal (HB&T) railroad would have been required. This part of the HB&T had been obtained from Santa Fe when four Houston railroads combined to create the HB&T as a switching railroad in 1905. Depending on the precise line of demarcation between GC&SF and HB&T track ownership, it is possible the junction really was a crossing of the Santa Fe as stated in the RCT report. It is also possible that RCT mistakenly listed Santa Fe as one of the railroads associated with the Tower 89 interlocker due to the track's heritage. Whatever the case, not being able to locate the exact site of Tower 89 is unsurprising because, as the letter below shows, neither the RCT nor Southern Pacific (SP) knew for certain where it was!
Above: This letter to RCT's Chief Engineer from SP's Signal Engineer, R. W. Meek, was the only item in the
Tower 89 file at
DeGolyer
Library. It indicates that Tower 89 was never constructed.
Based on this letter, the logical conclusion is that Tower 89 was never built and Tower 139 eventually was constructed to control the same junction. The letter's reference to "Buffalo Bayou, Tower 139" provides evidence that Tower 139 was located near Buffalo Bayou, and a 1974 HB&T track chart confirms that the tower was located where the HB&T steel bridge crossed the bayou carrying their line north out of Union Station. At this location, east/west parallel lines of the International - Great Northern (I-GN) and the Texas & New Orleans (T&NO) railroads crossed the HB&T. Also, Tower 5 is approximately one mile east of this location; RCT files state that Tower 139 took over the Tower 5 interlocker controls in 1940. Tower 139 first appears in RCT Annual Reports in 1929 as a 36-function electrical interlocker that opened on December 20, 1928, and by this time, the GH&SA had been merged into the T&NO. Thus, the original Tower 89 junction of GC&SF/GH&SA had become a junction of HB&T/T&NO by 1928, matching the definition of Tower 139 in RCT annual reports.
Site Photos, Tower 139 (Jim King, December, 2006)
Above: The 100+ year old HB&T steel draw bridge remains intact across Buffalo
Bayou, hidden from the public by the maze of freeways crossing
overhead. Based
on the 1924 Sanborn map, Tower 139 was probably located in the foreground of
this photo; no evidence of a foundation or
structure was apparent at the site.
Note the minimal clearance between the top of the rotation arms for the
drawbridge and the freeway overhead.
Clearance issues required the massive
counterweight structure to be dismantled. Rather than discard it, it was
preserved on a new concrete
foundation surrounded by a barbed-wire fence (below)
near the bridge. Thanks to John Davis (pictured) for providing transportation to
this
and other tower sites in the Houston area!
Historic Maps, Tower 139 Location
Above: This annotated image from the 1907 Sanborn Fire Insurance index map of
Houston shows the rail
junction on the north bank of Buffalo Bayou that was the location for Tower 139. Yellow lines are SP (T&NO
or GH&SA), red lines
are I-GN, and the green line is H&BT. Later, the HB&T line was extended due
north
paralleling the I-GN line and SP lines to the major junction at
Towers 25 and 26.
Above: The 1924 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Houston shows a small structure
located just north of the HB&T "Steel Draw Bridge" at a crossing
of the HB&T,
I-GN and T&NO railroads. Under magnification
(right), the structure is revealed as a two-story railroad office with a door on
the east
end. The purpose of the "A." notation is unknown, but may have been
related to a type of construction or building material (e.g. asbestos?) which
would have been of interest for fire insurance purposes. A small rectangular railroad office
with two stories sitting well away from any other railroad
buildings and located at a busy
railroad grade junction sounds suspiciously like a railroad tower! This office probably served
operational control
purposes and may have ultimately become Tower 139 when the
interlocker was authorized for operation in 1928, four years after this map was drawn.
Above: HB&T's 1974 track chart for Tower 139 (interlockers 139-A and 139-B)
shows the location of the equipment bungalows that replaced the
tower constructed in 1928. As discussed above, the location of the 139-A
bungalow matches the location of the 2-story "office" structure that
appears on the 1924 Sanborn map, which was most likely the original tower. By
1974, the I-GN spur track that crossed the HB&T near the
drawbridge had been removed. (track chart courtesy Neil Mackay, with color
annotations by Jim King)
