The Texas Special, The Katy's and Frisco's Premier Midwest - Southwest Passenger Train

The Katy (Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad) and Frisco (St. Louis – San Francisco Railway) are not well remembered for their passenger services. However, both railroads launched a joint train that turned out to be quite famous, the Texas Special. The train featured one of the most dazzling liveries rivaling any other across the country and did quite well for several years until service declines on the Katy resulted in the Frisco pulling out on the joint operation and the Texas Special died a slow, quiet death. Today, nothing remains of this flashy train but its memories of those who saw and rode aboard it certainly will never be forgotten.

The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, better known as simply The Katy (for the Houston, Texas suburb of Katy where the MKT operated), was a large granger system that, like the Illinois Central and Gulf, Mobile & Ohio ran, unconventionally, north-south (instead of the more common, east-west).

As its name implies, the Katy connected all of its namesake states with connections to cities such as Omaha and St. Louis in the north and Galveston and San Antonio, Texas in the south. The railroad was somewhat successful over the years but it ran into financial trouble a number of times throughout its life. As finances again became an issue in the 1980s the MKT sought a merger with the Union Pacific in 1986 and in 1989 the Katy became yet another part of the UP empire.

The St. Louis-San Francisco Railway, commonly known as simply the Frisco has a storied history of two halves. During the railroad’s first 60 years it had a very interesting and tumultuous history going through a number of name changes and bankruptcies (resulting in so many names). However, after its final name as the St. Louis-San Francisco, the railroad did quite well and prospered for its last 60+ years of operation before becoming part of the large Burlington Northern system in the very early 1980s.

The Frisco’s attention to its property would carry on throughout the rest of its life and a driving force behind shedding its history as a bankrupt-prone company to one that earned healthy profits and revenues. This began in the 1950s when it opened a high tech “Hump” yard in Memphis (whereby an inclined track and computer-controlled switches guided cars into their correct staging track), expedited freight trains across its major markets, consolidating operations, began run-through freights with other carriers (which meant Frisco locomotives were used to haul a train across foreign rails and vice-versa, known as “pooling” or “pooling power”) and was able to rid itself of its money-losing passenger operations in the late 1960s (while it always maintained its passenger operations with class the Frisco understood it was a losing battle and protested the ICC until it was able to drop all passenger service, the first large railroad to do so before Amtrak in 1971).

The Texas Special was re-inaugurated by the Katy and Frisco in May of 1948 as an all-streamlined train (it has its beginnings dating all of the way back to 1915) serving the Midwest and Southwest. The beginning of the train’s journey started on the Frisco between St. Louis and Vinita, Oklahoma where it was relayed to the Katy and carried south to various points in Texas such as Dallas, Austin, and Waco with connecting services to Denison, Fort Worth, and Wichita Falls.

As for the train’s overall design, it was one-of-a-kind. The Katy and Frisco spent handsomely on the Special’s streamlined equipment from Pullman-Standard, which featured brilliant red paint and stainless-steel sheathing and named for Texas locations or important people. Up front the EMD E-series diesels were likewise bedecked in stainless-steel sheathing along the bottom of the carbody (a rare design feature not often found on most other passenger train designs) with a yellow nose and big centered “Lone Star” (the train certainly embodied Texas through and through).

As for the train’s interior it likewise used red colors and included reclining seats in the coaches and also included sleepers, diners, a coach-buffet-lounge, and sleeper-lounge-observation. In total, the Katy and Frisco each had a 14-car train although they eventually had to add a third train, made up mostly of older, heavyweight equipment to meet demand and allow for better scheduling.

The streamlined version of the Texas Special did well until the late 1950s when the Katy’s service levels were deteriorating so badly (due to poor maintenance on both its track and equipment) that trains were running, embarrassingly, several hours late. The Frisco became fed up with the Katy’s antics and discontinued its leg of the Special in 1959. Now that the train had no way to reach St. Louis (and connecting service with numerous eastern and western Class I passenger trains) and terminated in Kansas City the Texas Special slowly disappeared under the Katy. What was left of the Special was finally discontinued all together in 1965.

For more reading on streamliners like the Texas Special you might want to also consider the book Streamliners: History of a Railroad Icon from renowned author Mike Schafer who covers in detail most of the well-known and remembered “classic” passenger trains to operate in the country. If you have any interest in such you should very much enjoy Mr. Schafer’s book.

Also, for a superb general history of passenger trains consider the book American Passenger Train from Mike Schafer. Using plenty of colored photographs complemented with lots of good information, if you are interested in passenger trains or would like to learn more about them this book will get you started.