----> IMPORTANT: This orphaned bridge is on PRIVATE PROPERTY. <----
BUT: This orphaned bridge is easily visible from the public right of way on the FM 927, just a short drive west of Morgan.
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 56.2 railroad miles west of the Waco shops, therefore it is known as MKT RR bridge No. 56.2. The bridge is a solid yet beautiful structure of cut stone brick and poured concrete with a molded concrete span. 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 CS2257 G 195 on the northeast wing wall of this bridge. That benchmark is still in use today (Jan 2013).
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: (
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CS2257 DESIGNATION - G 195
CS2257 PID - CS2257
CS2257 STATE/COUNTY- TX/BOSQUE
CS2257 COUNTRY - US
CS2257 USGS QUAD - WALNUT SPRINGS EAST (1979)
CS2257
CS2257_MARKER: DB = BENCH MARK DISK
CS2257_SETTING: 36 = SET IN A MASSIVE STRUCTURE
CS2257_SP_SET: BRIDGE ABUTMENT
CS2257_STAMPING: G 195 1933 758.525
CS2257_STABILITY: B = PROBABLY HOLD POSITION/ELEVATION WELL
CS2257
CS2257 HISTORY - Date Condition Report By
CS2257 HISTORY - 1933 MONUMENTED CGS
CS2257 HISTORY - 1951 GOOD CGS
CS2257 HISTORY - 20010317 GOOD USPSQD
CS2257 HISTORY - 20040107 GOOD JCLS
CS2257 HISTORY - 20050517 GOOD JCLS
CS2257
CS2257 STATION DESCRIPTION
CS2257
CS2257'DESCRIBED BY COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY 1951
CS2257'02.0 MI W FROM MORGAN.
CS2257'ABOUT 02.0 MILES WEST ALONG THE MISSOURI-KANSAS-TEXAS RAILROAD FROM
CS2257'MORGAN, BOSQUE COUNTY, AT BRIDGE 56.2, AND IN THE TOP OF THE NORTH END
CS2257'OF THE EAST CONCRETE ABUTMENT. A STANDARD DISK, STAMPED G 195 1933
CS2257'758.525. NOTE-- THE NUMBER ON THIS BRIDGE REFERS TO THE ORIGINAL
CS2257'RAILROAD MILEAGE. THIS NUMBER WILL BE CHANGED WHEN THE ROUTE AROUND
CS2257'LAKE WHITNEY IS COMPLETED.
CS2257
CS2257 STATION RECOVERY (2001)
CS2257
CS2257'RECOVERY NOTE BY US POWER SQUADRON 2001 (CWA)
CS2257'RECOVERED IN GOOD CONDITION.
CS2257
CS2257 STATION RECOVERY (2004)
CS2257
CS2257'RECOVERY NOTE BY JOHN CHANCE LAND SURVEYS INC 2004
CS2257'RECOVERED IN GOOD CONDITION.
CS2257
CS2257 STATION RECOVERY (2005)
CS2257
CS2257'RECOVERY NOTE BY JOHN CHANCE LAND SURVEYS INC 2005
CS2257'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.