Brownsville, Texas late 1970’s

[peggyrothschild]

Thought I’d share a shot I took of the Brownsville, Texas freight station while working there in the late 1970’s. The Mopac would deliver to the NdeM in their yards in Matamoros and pull from their yard. There was only one combination rail/highway bridge and so auto traffic was shutdown to allow the railroad to take possession of the bridge.

This was before the railroad had everything pre-cleared for interchange. Almost all the carload business stopped in the Mopac yards where the broker was notified of the car’s arrival. The broker would then pay the necessary fees to the Mexican government, pay any demurrage assessed while the car was in the yard and then the car would be cleared for interchange. The entire yard was basically ‘cherry picked’ each shift digging out cars that were cleared. At times the import dates given to the broker would be exceeded and the car sat on demurrage until the broker received permission to move the car to the Mexican receiver. If the demurrage exceeded the worth of the lading (sand and rags were common) the broker abandoned the shipment entirely.

I remember going over to a meeting with the NdeM agent and there were two offices across from each other in the hallway on the second floor of their passenger station. One was for TCS computer reporting while the other was filled with telegraphers on keys. I wish I’d photographed the contrast in technology.

[attachment=0:5v63hibh]IMbook 1.jpg[/attachment:5v63hibh]

[bargetanika]

Charlie we visited family in south Texas in 1986, and one day we crossed over into Matamoros. The NdeM passenger station wasn’t that far over the border. I remember several things about it. One was that a steam engine water column was still in place at the end of the station platform, leaking like crazy. Another was a long line of heavyweight passenger equipment still in service. And some lower end wood passenger cars that weren’t much of an improvement over stock cars. The whole scene reeked of still being in the steam era. The station itself seemed in pretty good condition and still in use.

I recently looked at the station on Google Earth. It was a shocker. The whole area looks like a war zone now. The station was empty, all windows broken, completely vandalized, covered with grafitti. Times have completely changed . I don’t think I’d do that casual short walk over the border and back again. Freight is surely still interchanged over the river, but I wonder what kind of security is involved now, whose crew crosses the border, etc. It has got to be dangerous to work that interchange now.

[Dennis Faircloth]

Charlie, I have studied many Circular 61 freight schedule pages that indicated southbound Mexico traffic was set out at San Antonio “to be manifested”. Several different blocks from several different trains, set out, then to be handled later on trains to Laredo (DM, DMZ, etc.) Was this practice a response to the congestion in Laredo from too many cars waiting for release on too few tracks?

[peggyrothschild]

@tferk wrote:

Charlie, I have studied many Circular 61 freight schedule pages that indicated southbound Mexico traffic was set out at San Antonio “to be manifested”. Several different blocks from several different trains, set out, then to be handled later on trains to Laredo (DM, DMZ, etc.) Was this practice a response to the congestion in Laredo from too many cars waiting for release on too few tracks?

Yes, as U.S. businesses moved south and the Mexican economy grew Laredo remained Mopac’s largest interchange with the NdeM. Initially southbound autoparts were pre-manifested due to the JIT nature of the auto business. Grain trains were pre-manifested due to not wanting to hold an entire grain train in Laredo but I remember some grain stopping due to the Mexican grain inspectors wanting to samples. Gardendale was a favorite spot to hold cars going to Laredo and Harlingen, Kingsville and Bloomington to places were Brownsville traffic was held. MP tried to use Brownsville as the favored interchange for grain but it didn’t always more through there due to the Mexican destinations. MP initiated tariffs and computer steps in the early 1980s to pre-manifest all loads as we’d receive the waybill from the origin railroad as soon as they received the bill of lading from the shipper. Notice would be given to the U.S. broker as soon as we received the waybill to begin their clearance process with U.S.Customs (USC) and Mexican customs. This helped to streamline much of the switching in all the border locations. On the northbound moves out of Mexico USC would do random inspections so cars would be set out where it could be unloaded, inspected, and reloaded. I remember one car coming up from Mexico with the ends being packed with drugs and the car had been given false wood ends on the interior to hide the bags. USC was able to stop this ’empty’ from reaching its destination.

Brownsville and Laredo yards were both in downtown areas and close to the Rio Grande river. There were at least two street crossings cutting through the yard which added to the switching problems. Some traffic to (both northbound and southbound) was destined to Laredo or Brownsville and unloaded in a warehouse and trucked to destination.

I mentioned the bridges which besides the Mopac using the SP also used in Brownsville and the Tex-Mex in Laredo. I remember too the station in Laredo was still painted yellow and brown well into the 1980’s and probably still is.

[Dennis Faircloth]

Charlie, thank you for the additional info. The export process was and is pretty interesting, and still sometimes frustrating.

[Pat Meriwether]

What were typical operations into and out of Brownsville including the port during the 60’s and 70’s? I know the port operations were turned over to the Brownsville and Rio Grande International in 1984 but prior to that the Mopac did all the switching. I haven’t been able to find any information on the Mopac in Brownsville anywhere online.

[Dennis Faircloth]

Brownsville train service: my info is spotty, but here is what I have…….

In the mid to late 1960’s, a pair of trains connected San Antonio and Brownsville. #367 San Antonio-Brownsville connected with #95 New Orleans-Kingsville, and #366 Brownsville-San Antonio connected with #94 Kingsville-New Orleans. #94/#95 moved the Houston traffic to/from Brownsville.

By the early 1970’s, 94/95 had been renumbered 394/395 and cut back to Houston-Kingsville. 366/367 changed to San Antonio-Mission trains which made connection with Houston traffic at Kingsville, and Brownsville traffic at Harlingen.

Southbound, Houston to Kingsville train #395 carried a Brownsville block for Harlingen, which was picked up at Kingsville by San Antonio-Mission train #367. Brownsville traffic was set out at Harlingen and moved to Brownsville on Local 856 departing 05:00 and arriving Brownsville at 07:30.

Northbound, another local (not sure job#) departed Brownsville 12:01 am and arrived Harlingen 02:00, connecting to Mission-San Antonio train #366, which set out traffic for Kingsville-Houston #394 at Kingsville.

I have a 1975 listing that shows Brownsville assigned 2 units for yard service, totalling 3,200 horsepower. 2 jobs worked on both 1st and 2nd shifts, no jobs worked on 3rd shift.

By January 1979, two very long distance locals were serving Brownsville. L859 operated Houston-Brownsville with 5,400 horsepower assigned, departed Houston 04:00 hrs. L858 operated Brownsville-Houston with 5,400 HP, departed Brownsville 2359 hrs.

[katrice-ahmed]

Thanks for sharing, Ted
Do you have similar recollections for operations in and out of Corpus Christi?

Cheers,
Michel

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