Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad

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For other meanings of MKT see MKT (disambiguation)

The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad (known as the MKT, or Katy) began as the Union Pacific Railway, Southern Branch (unrelated to the Union Pacific Railroad) in 1865. It was the first railroad to enter Texas from the north.

Eventually the Katy's core system would grow to link Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri; Tulsa and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Dallas, Fort Worth, Waco, Temple, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and Galveston, Texas. An additional mainline between Fort Worth and Salina, Kansas was added in the 1980's after the collapse of the Rock Island Railroad; this line was operated as the Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas Railroad, or OKKT.

The Katy's purchase by the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company (MoPac) and the MoPac's owner, the Union Pacific, was approved in 1988. The M-K-T is now part of the Union Pacific Railroad system. On December 1 1989, the Katy was formally merged into the MoPac. A large portion of the Missouri track has been converted into a Missouri State Park: the Katy Trail. A 3.5 mile long section is being converted into a multi-use trail through downtown Dallas, linking White Rock lake to the American Airlines Center.

The former M-K-T rail line (20 miles) which linked Katy to Downtown Houston has been converted; a section between Loop 610 and Katy, TX is part of the Interstate 10 expansion since TxDOT purchased the M-K-T right-of-way in 1998, and the M-K-T line east of Loop 610 into Downtown Houston is currently owned by the City of Houston's Parks and Recreation Department (plans are underway to convert the right-of-way into a bicycle trail).

The large, aesthetically pleasing Houston suburb of Katy, Texas, is named after the railroad's nickname. A blues song, "She Caught the Katy," makes mention of the MKT. The song was prominently featured in the 1980 movie The Blues Brothers. Folk-rocker Gillian Welch references the lyrics to "She Caught the Katy" in her 2001 song, "Revelator", the title track on her Time (The Revelator) album.

In July 2005, Union Pacific unveiled a brand new EMD SD70ACe locomotive, Union Pacific 1988, in MKT colors as part of a new heritage program.

Image:Missouri Kansas Texas Katy Herald.png

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