----> IMPORTANT: This orphaned bridge is on PRIVATE PROPERTY, and is DANGEROUS. It is not safe to walk on because of the large gaps in the metal decking. <----
BUT: This orphaned bridge is easily visible from the public right of way on the FM 927, just a short drive east of Walnut Springs. Watch for the kingfisher! :)
The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, also called "the Katy" was one of the great economic engines of Texas. It is now just one of a thousand former railroads whose assets were absorbed into the Union Pacific RR.
In its heyday, the Katy moved everyone and everything all across Texas. It ran steam (and later diesel-electric) locomotives over thousands of miles of rail on main and branch lines that spread throughout much of Texas.
One such branch line of the Katy was built from Waco to serve West Texas. This line ran from Otah (west of Hamlin in Fisher County) to the giant Katy shops complex in Waco. On this stub, the railroad mileage was counted from the shops at Waco to the end of the line, with the numbers growing larger the further west of the shops you traveled.
This waymarked orphan bridge is 61.9 railroad miles west of the Waco shops, therefore it is known as MKT RR bridge No. 61.9. The bridge is a solid yet beautiful structure of cut stone brick and poured concrete with reinforced metal decking. The bridge was built over a small creek in 1928.
In 1933 the US Coast and Geodetic survey (now the National Geodetic Survey) monumented benchmark disk CS2254 D 195 on the northeast wing wall of this bridge. That benchmark is still in use today (Jan 2013), as evidenced by the surveyor's tape tied in the tree over the disk.
Over the years, this bridge has seen lots of trains, but it has also seen lots of changes. Construction of the Whitney Dam starting in the late 1940s reverberated through this region. Not only did the lake provide an economic boon of jobs, hydroelectric power, and tourism, it also wreaked havoc on established transportation routes and infrastructure, and devastated some small towns.
The 1947 hydrographic maps showing the future impoundment of water behind Whitney Dam proved that the Katy and the Santa Fe railroads had to dramtically lengthen and reroute their lines to avoid their lines being inundated. This scrambled long-established railroad lines and service points for both railroads, and touched-off ripple effects through towns that suddenly found themselves bypassed.
Many dozens of miles of rail lines that had been the life-blood of small towns were abandoned, their rails removed and reused as the railroads tracked around the lake.
Today you can see old abandoned depots in struggling towns like Blum and Kopperl (formerly on the Santa Fe), as well as Walnut Springs and Clifton, (formerly on the Katy). These depots front onto wide flat swaths of grass which used to be railroad tracks.
The rising waters of Lake Whitney also necessitated moving oil pipelines, electric lines, and even a state highway. It was not a small disruption.
Even the US Coast and Geodetic Survey noted the coming disruption in the datasheet for the benchmark on this waymarked bridge: (
visit link)
CS2254 DESIGNATION - D 195
CS2254 PID - CS2254
CS2254 STATE/COUNTY- TX/BOSQUE
CS2254 COUNTRY - US
CS2254 USGS QUAD - WALNUT SPRINGS EAST (1979)
CS2254
CS2254_MARKER: DB = BENCH MARK DISK
CS2254_SETTING: 36 = SET IN A MASSIVE STRUCTURE
CS2254_SP_SET: ABUTMENT
CS2254_STAMPING: D 195 1933 873.994
CS2254_STABILITY: B = PROBABLY HOLD POSITION/ELEVATION WELL
CS2254
CS2254 HISTORY - Date Condition Report By
CS2254 HISTORY - 1933 MONUMENTED CGS
CS2254 HISTORY - 1951 GOOD CGS
CS2254 HISTORY - 20010317 GOOD USPSQD
CS2254
CS2254 STATION DESCRIPTION
CS2254
CS2254'DESCRIBED BY COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY 1951
CS2254'01.6 MI E FROM WALNUT SPRINGS.
CS2254'MARK WAS RECOVERED IN GOOD CONDITION, ABOUT 1.6 MILES EAST
CS2254'ALONG THE MISSOURI-KANSAS-TEXAS RAILROAD FROM WALNUT SPRINGS, BOSQUE
CS2254'COUNTY, AT BRIDGE 61.9, AND IN THE TOP OF THE NORTH END OF THE EAST
CS2254'CONCRETE ABUTMENT. A STANDARD DISK STAMPED D 195 1933 873.944. NOTE--
CS2254'THIS BRIDGE NUMBER REFERS TO THE ORIGINAL MILEAGE. IT WILL BE CHANGED
CS2254'WHEN THE ROUTE AROUND LAKE WHITNEY IS COMPLETED.
CS2254
CS2254 STATION RECOVERY (2001)
CS2254
CS2254'RECOVERY NOTE BY US POWER SQUADRON 2001 (CWA)
CS2254'RECOVERED IN GOOD CONDITION.
This waymarked bridge was abandoned by the Katy in the mid-1960s, 20 years after the big reroute through Central Texas. It was not water but highways that killed this line. As highways took rail traffic away, the need for rail service on this branch declined.
The ties and iron rails were removed and recycled, but the waymarked bridge remains. The reason is purely economic: it was far cheaper and easier to remove the ties, ballast rock, and rails that it was to demolish the bridge. So the bridge is left in place, with the steel decking girders exposed to the elements.
Eventually the mighty Katy railroad itself was absorbed into the Union Pacific, one of the thousand former railroads that make up this Class I railroading behemoth.However, here and there traces of the old Katy remain.
Whether it is an old depot facing grass in a drying-up small town, or a beautifully-engineered bridge, if you know what to look for, you can see the Katy all around this area.