The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, The Katy

The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, better known as simply The Katy or K-T (from which the name "Katy" derived), was a large granger system that, like the Illinois Central and Gulf, Mobile & Ohio Railroads 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 Railroad in 1986 and in 1989 the Katy became yet another part of the UP empire.

Of note the Katy was leased to the Missouri Pacific in 1880 and became part of the burgeoning Jay Gould empire for a time, which lasted until 1888. The biggest advantage the Katy gained from this leasing was that it acquired new markets and reached cities like Fort Worth, Dallas, and Waco, Texas.

Throughout the rest of the 19th century and into the 20th century the Katy would continue to grow and update its system, albeit its lines were not always the fastest/most direct or built to the highest standards (a particular reason why it would have financial troubles for much of its life). In 1895 it reached St. Louis and while its dreams were to reach all of the way to Chicago, financial problems, again, kept this from becoming a reality; although other new markets it did reach included Kansas City, Omaha, and Lincoln, Nebraska.

The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad also never had an extensive passenger train network (which, looking back at history today this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, particularly as the service began to eat away severely at profits across the industry following WWII) and as early as the 1950s the railroad began to wholesale abandon unprofitable rail lines and shutdown passenger operations where possible.

By the 1970s things were looking better for the Katy as a new president, Reginald Whitman, worked to abandon unprofitable lines and passenger operations and bring in new freight business, which had become quite successful by the early 1980s. However, the merger movement of the 1980s was, unfortunately, the final blow for the Katy. With the loss of profitable overhead traffic provided by such railroads as the Missouri Pacific Railroad and Frisco, and now a David among Goliaths surrounding the MKT, it simply had no choice but to find a merger partner somewhere, which it did in 1986 with the Union Pacific Railroad and finally in December, 1989 the Katy officially became part of the UP system.

While much of the original Katy system has since been either abandoned or railbanked some of its lines continue to carry on, including with the Union Pacific. Although now gone, the Union Pacific recently paid homage to several of its predecessors, including the Katy, by painting one of its new EMD SD70ACe locomotives into a version of the railroad’s famous red and black passenger livery complete with a version of its well known livery (like the one featured at the top of the page). The unit debuted during September of 2005 and it received a number recognizing the Missouri-Texas-Kansas Railroad’s final year of independence, 1988.

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For an all-time diesel locomotive roster of the Katy please click here. Also, for an excellent listing of EMD-built diesel locomotives, including those owned by the MKT please click here. Lastly, please click here to locate preserved Katy diesel locomotives.

The American Locomotive Company

The Baldwin Locomotive Works

Electro-Motive Division

Fairbanks Morse

General Electric

For more information about Katy steam locomotives please click here. Also, for information regarding surviving MKT steam locomotives please click here.

(A deep thanks to the Museum of the Rockies at Montana State University for allowing Ron Nixon's historic collection of the Katy to be featured here. Please note that the photos featured on this page feature their corresponding image number so that you may quickly and easily find more information about it from their website. To view Ron Nixon's entire collection please click here.)

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