Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad
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The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad ( MKT ), also known as the Katy Railroad , is a former Class I railroad company in the United States , most recently based in Dallas . It was founded in 1865 under the name Union Pacific Railway, Southern Branch and operated an extensive railroad network in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri. The main main route ran from St. Louis and Omaha via Dallas to San Antonio and Galveston . Branch lines also linked Salina , Oklahoma City, and Tulsa . In 1988 the Katy merged with the Missouri Pacific Railroad and is now part of the Union Pacific Railroad .
history
Development of the route network
On September 25, 1865, the Union Pacific Railway, Southern Branch was established. The railway company had nothing to do with the well-known Union Pacific Railroad, which the MKT would eventually take over. They wanted to build a standard gauge railway line from Junction City (Kansas) to New Orleans . Construction began in 1869 and on October 1, 1869, the first trains ran from Junction City to Emporia . The company acquired the Tebo and Neosho Railroad on May 15, 1870 , which built a line from Parsons, Kansas on the MK&T route to Sedalia, Missouri . Eight days later, the rail company was renamed Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway (MK&T). The last two letters of the abbreviation (KT) soon became the nickname "Katy", which was later used on the company's logo.
The government had given the railroad company, which was the first to reach the southern border of Kansas, a concession to continue building through the Indian territory (later the state of Oklahoma), which was not yet part of the Union. The Katy prevailed against two competitors and reached the border at Chetopa (Kansas) in 1870 . The construction went quickly and in 1872 the whole of Oklahoma was crossed and Denison (Texas) reached, where the construction stopped for financial reasons. As early as August 1870, the company had received the concession from the state of Texas to continue building via Austin to the Rio Grande and via Dallas to Galveston. In 1873, however, the MK&T extended its Missouri branch beyond Sedalia to Hannibal , where it met the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad . At this time Jay Gould acquired the rail company, which also owned the Missouri Pacific.
Only at the end of the 1870s was construction continued to the south. In 1881 the line to Dallas went into operation. Also in 1881 MK&T acquired the International and Great Northern Railroad , the main line of which started from Houston and led north. In the following year, the two routes could be connected. In 1883 the company also bought the Galveston, Houston and Henderson Railroad , which was leased to International & Great Northern, and thus reached the Gulf Coast for the first time.
In 1886 a new branch line was opened in Kansas, which also branched off from the main line in Parsons and led northwards to Paola . A right of use from there to Kansas City was agreed with the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Gulf Railroad . This branch soon became more important than the original route to Junction City.
Jay Gould had to sell the Katy Railroad in 1888. However, he kept the two railroad companies in Texas acquired in the 1880s, which were therefore transferred to the Missouri Pacific. The MKT network ended in Taylor in the south . Due to the lost connection to the Gulf Coast, MK&T ran into financial problems, but was able to recover. Construction work soon began on a dedicated line to Houston, which opened in 1893. As a result, MKT bought back half of Galveston, Houston & Henderson from Missouri Pacific and thus had a route to the Gulf Coast again. Meanwhile, the Texas section of the line had to be spun off as the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway of Texas , as a new law in Texas required that all rail companies operating lines in the state have their headquarters in Texas. The formal change of ownership took place on October 28, 1891.
On November 12, 1891, the MK&T took over the Dallas and Waco Railway with its 108 km (67 mile) line from Dallas to Hillsboro built between 1887 and 1891 . The entire Dallas and Waco Railway was also transferred to the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway of Texas on January 19, 1892 .
Other parts of the network were also built. The Katy reached St. Louis in 1896, Shreveport (Louisiana) in 1900 , Tulsa in 1903 and Oklahoma City in 1904. In the following years MK&T acquired several railway companies and expanded its network further. On June 8, 1910, the Texas Central Railroad became the property of MK&T. Their route branched off in Waco from the Katy main line and led northwest to Rotan . In 1911 the Katy also bought the Wichita Falls and Northwestern Railroad , which was connected to an MK&T branch line to Wichita Falls (Texas) and led to Elk City in northwest Oklahoma . This route was later extended to Forgan .
In 1915, the MK&T network was at its greatest extent with 3865 miles (6220 kilometers). In 1923 the railway company was reorganized as the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad (MKT). At the same time, the rail line from Moberly to Hannibal in Missouri was leased to the Wabash Railroad . The line to Shreveport was sold to the Louisiana Railway and Navigation and the branch line from Atoka to Oklahoma City was spun off as the Oklahoma City-Ada-Atoka Railway . In 1931 the Katy acquired the Beaver, Meade and Englewood Railroad , the main line of which ran from Forgan to Keyes .
Further development
The railway company converted its locomotive fleet to diesel locomotives by the early 1950s. For lack of money, however, the tracks could hardly be maintained and in 1957 the Katy made losses for the first time. The new president, William N. Deramus III , who was appointed this year, implemented strong rationalization measures . In addition to layoffs, this also included the closure of the line to Junction City, part of the original MKT main line. On June 30, 1965, MKT's passenger traffic ended. In 1968 Wallace Carroll acquired the majority of the shares in the railway company and subordinated it to the specially founded holding company Katy Industries .
In 1971 the Katy was back in the black for the first time. After the dissolution of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway in 1980, the MKT was able to acquire the route from Salina via Wichita to Dallas.
When the Union Pacific Railroad, the Missouri Pacific Railroad and the Western Pacific Railroad merged at the end of 1982 , the MKT protested and as a result received a right to use Union Pacific tracks to Omaha , Council Bluffs , Lincoln and Topeka and thus reached Nebraska and Iowa for the first time.
On May 16, 1988, the Interstate Commerce Commission approved the merger with the Missouri Pacific Railroad, which was completed on August 12. In order to continue to have a competitive situation on the important connection between Kansas City and Omaha, the merger gave the Kansas City Southern Railway a right to use this route.
Special events
On September 15, 1896, two Katy 2'B locomotives were destroyed in a deliberate head-on collision in front of 40,000 spectators near Hillsboro, Texas . The explosion of the two boilers killed three spectators and injured many.
Cultural reception
The colloquial name “Katy” became known nationally and internationally for these rail connections in the US southern states, also through the blues - Standard She caught the Katy (and left me a Mule to Ride) (German: “She took the Katy and left one to me Mule for Riding ”). There are interpretations of the piece of music by the blues musicians Albert King and Taj Mahal, among others . A popular version of the song comes from the soundtrack of the 1980 American film Blues Brothers .
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References and comments
- ^ Interstate Commerce Commission (Ed.): Decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission of the United States. Valuation reports . tape 34 . US Government Printing Office , 1930, p. 630–632 : "The deed by the Dallas and Waco Railway Company to the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company was made November 12, 1891 (and) to the Katy of Texas was made January 19, 1892"
- ↑ Drury 2000 (see literature), page 255.
- ↑ fundinguniverse.com
- ^ Hans Joachim Ritzau: Shadow of the railway history. A comparison of British, US and German railways. Pürgen: Ritzau KG - Verlag Zeit und Eisenbahn, 2nd edition 1994. ISBN 3-921304-69-5 , page 163f.
- ↑ The song She caught the Katy is included on the album The Natch'l Blues by Taj Mahal from 1969, on the compilation The Definitive Albert King from 2011 and on the soundtrack album The Blues Brothers of the feature film of the same name.
literature
- Joe G. Collias and Raymond B. George Jr .: Katy Power. MM Books, Crestwood, MO 1986, ISBN 0-9612366-1-2
- George H. Drury: The Historical Guide to North American Railroads 2nd Ed. Kalmbach Publishing Co., Waukesha, WI 2000, ISBN 0-89024-356-5
