There don't seem to be many MKT history buffs abaord, but I'll try again- A friend has sent me a photocopy from his 1911 MK&T public timetable. It shows a line between Trinity and Colmesneil, Texas. Which is completely isolated from the rest of their system. Can anyone tell me about this segment? Was it a subsidiary? How did it come about? What happened to it? Anyone? Boxcab E50
Jay Gould, one of the railroad robber barons, got control of the MKT railroad and used it to make MKT do various things that benefited his "main" railroad. He had MKT build lines that served mainly to feed traffic to his main railroad, MoPac. MKT paid the cost of building the line, but MoPac got most of the revenue. He also had track maintenance for MoPac "subcontracted" out to MKT, and either underbilled, or simply never paid MKT for the expense. There may have also been some sales of rail lines that were in the interest of MoPac, not MKT. I'm guessing that this may have been one of the orphaned lines he forced the MKT into building or buying to benefit MoPac.
There is a little information about it in this link. http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/WW/eqw3.html
That's definitely a long receivership. I had heard the RR name, but knew nothing more about them. Boxcab E50
After a little more searching found this. It was known as the MKT Trinity Division and was chartered as the Trinity & Sabine Railway in 1881 as a branch of the International & Great Northern. It was purchased by the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad in 1882.
I&GN eventually came under Mopac control. I wonder how early on MP had influence in the I&GN? Boxcab E50
Ah. That's the tie back to what archangle had described. OK. Now the picture becomes fairly clear for me. Boxcab E50
I think I read all this from The Katy railroad and the last frontier By V. V. Masterson or from the KRHS. http://www.katyrailroad.org/
More info. http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/TT/eqt29.html It was definitely part of Jay Gould's pillaging of the Katy in favor of his MP empire.
Some of this multiplication of railroad names and divisions of semi independent railroads had to do with Texas law and politics. At one time, the Texas contribution forbade foreign (i.e. non-Texas) railroads from operating in the state. This was widely ignored at various times. Even when it was enforced, for instance by Attorney General and Governor Jim Hogg, it simply meant that the US railroads had to have a sham corporation with figurehead offices and officers located in Texas that owned all their Texas railroad track. There was a MP of Texas, and a MKT of Texas. Long after UP bought MoPac, and MoPac disappeared in an operational sense, you'd see reference to Missouri Pacific in legal documents and such because all the UP Texas track was owned by "The Missouri Pacific Railroad of Texas," the figurehead that owned all the MoPac track before the merger. I think this Texas railroad requirement has been eliminated from the constitution, or maybe it's simply being ignored again. The Texas constitution is a horrible construct with all sorts of amendments and political provisions in the constitution that should be part of normal law instead of in the constitution.
I had in the past noticed some differences in the ending dates for various companies either named "of Texas", or subsidiaries of several larger operations outside of Texas. They seem to scatter from about the mid-1950's to the mid-1960's. I'd suppose some variances could be the way company internal legal or financial affairs were handled. But it's had me wondering. Boxcab E50
Texas had some different ideas about how railroads should run in Texas. Soon after reconstruction, a law was passed stating that any railroad operating in the state had to be a "Texas" company with its headquarters in Texas. In 1881 Attorney General James S. Hogg won his suit to prvent the Katy's right to operate in Texas as a "foreign" corporation. This resulted in the chartering of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway Company of Texas on October 28, 1891. It acquired all of the parent company's Texas properties with the exception of the International and Great Northern and the East Line and Red River Railroad Company. The Texas legislature approved the consolidation. It did not matter that the railroads were owned by out of state interests. Other railroads did the same. The SP eventually consolidated all of its Texas holdings into the T&NO, the ATSF had both the Panhandle & Santa Fe and the Gulf Colorado & Santa Fe. CB&Q owned the Fort Worth & Denver and with CRI&P had joint ownership of the Burlington & Rock Island. The MoPac never consolidated all of its Texas railroads but ran them all independently until 1955. That is when a Federal judge overseeing the receivership of the bankrupt railroad, overturned the Texas law and consolidated all the MoPac holdings into one railroad, the Missouri Pacific.
Yes, it was the consolidation of all the various Rock Island holdings in Texas including the half ownership of the Trinity and Brazos Valley, later known as the Burlington Rock Island.
I guess technically they were separate. Both the CRI&G and 50% of the T&BV were owned by the Rock Island. However the CRI&G was given the responsiblity of the CRI&P's share of the joint operations on the T&BV. I guess the bean counters kept it all straight for the Texas Railroad Commision.
