Folks,
Can anyone in Austin, TX share any information about places to see or avoid? Rail or otherwise would be ok. For example I see a line that crosses Barton Springs Road and goes past a High School. Whose line & what’s traffic like? I also see a line east of there that crosses 7th St twice. Whose line & what is traffic like? Thanks!
I live near, but not in, Austin so I can’t tell you how much traffic is on these lines.
The track crossing Barton Springs Road is the UP (was Missouri Pacific and before that it was International Great Northern). The AMTRAK Texas Eagle, northbound and southbound daily, uses this route.
The line crossing 7th Street is the old SP that ran from points west of Burnet to a junction at Hempstead and then on to Houston. It had it’s own depot in Austin and was at one time the Houston & Texas Central. The tracks north and east at Hempstead are now UP.
SP sold some of the route west of Hempstead to the city of Austin. Check Google for Longhorn Railroad and Austin’s Capital Metro Rail that has just started running. The Austin Steam Train has had excursions on this track. There is some freight traffic at night, also.
Art
I work on Shoal Creek Blvd and the Mo-Pac main (the UP one that you noticed that goes by Crocket High School) is a main line. It isn’t as well trafficked as the Sunset Line or Tahachapi, but there is moderate traffic on it. It is the Austin Subdivision with crew changes in San Antonio and Hearne. It is mostly Northbound traffic as UP routes most of the south bound traffic on the Giddings subdivision which also goes between Hearne and San Antonio. There are a couple of mixed intermodal trains (stacks and pigs) and some grain trains, mostly Auto Racks and Manifest traffic. They quarry a lot of aggregate out of here so they load trains and send them north and one of the few southbound trains are the southbound empties. We also get empty coal trains through here (not sure if they are Powder River trains or from somewhere else.) As far as train watching, the best place to go around here is the Milano Junction where the Austin Subdivision crosses the BNSF line from Temple down to Houston. There are no wyes or connections, just diamonds. The line from Austin to Burnet is mostly commuter traffic now and they run two aggregate trains a day one in middle of the day between rush hours and one at about 10 at night. On weekend there is a tourist train called “The Hill Country Flyer” they used to have a steam engine, but the boiler cracked and they sold it for parts. They do run an old Alco Aligator in SP Black Widow paint on the point, so it is fun for you Alco enthusiests. Hope that helps.
Travel on the Mopac expressway north of the Colorado river in Austin. For about 5 miles the UP line is in the median and trains can be seen there if you are lucky. Amtrak uses this line. Concrete ties are used in this section. Texdot (the state highway authority) would like to reroute the trains around town to “avoid grade crossings”. I think this is a ploy to get more ROW to widen the Mopac expressway as there are not that many grade crossings in Austin. The state would like the UP to move and give them the ROW. This will not happen without a big cash infusion to upgrade tracks that bypass Austin and compensate for the longer run. Also if this happens Amtrak would loose its access to the Austin station.