Nostalgia & History > One for Con (depot that is)

While a recent view (June 23, 2009),and it is not Friday here yet, I include this here for Con. This appears to be a restored depot located in Tomball, Texas (very nicely restored I might add). This is along the BNSF Houston Subdivision (former FW&D/RI). I am not at all familiar with the history of the area, but stumbled on this while scouting around on our recent trip to visit my youngest daughter and son-in-law who reside in Tomball. According to a sign posted on the door, the building is open to visitors on weekends.

KC

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Nice restoration. It used to look like this:

http://txdepot.railfan.net/Tomball.html

I'll say! They did a heck of a job!

KC

Somewhere I have pictures of the Tomball depot that I took shortly before they moved it from its original location. It was built by the Trinity & Brazos Valley RR. When the T&BV went broke the railroad was awarded in equal amounts to both the Ft Worth & Denver (Burlington) and to the Rock Island. This was referred to as the B-RI and its employees seniority was only valid on the BRI. For five years at a time the locomotives and cabeese were provided by first one railroad and then for the next five years the other railtoad provided the locomotives and cabeese. Whoever was the operator at the time is who paid the B-RI employees. This all changed in 1980 when "THE ROCK" went belly up. Afterwards the BN owned the BRI all by itself, and now it's just another piece of the BNSF, but historically the BRI, nee T&BV had a lot of character and was an interesting railroad. Teague Texas was the hq "city" of the BRI and it's where their shops and a big classification yard was and still is located. The BRI didn't have much of a yard if any in Houston where property was more valuable. They let the HB&T take of their engines and necessary switching in the Houston area. If you ever get a chance on another visit to Texas try to go up to Teague for a visit on a weekend, there is a real good local museum in the old passenger station in Teague that has a lot of good pictures of the T&BV/B-RI. This museum is only open on weekends. Teague is still a crew base as far as I know, and the BNSF still does a lot of classification switching there I believe.

Thanx for thinking of me and for posting your picture.

Con