The parent company of the independent Gulf Coast Lines was the New Orleans, Texas and Mexico Railway, incorporated in Louisiana on February 28, 1916, which bought the property and assets of the Frisco-owned New Orleans, Texas and Mexico Railroad. The NOT&M was headquartered in New Orleans, and owned or leased a number of other railroads in Louisiana and Texas, operating them all together as the Gulf Coast Lines. As of December 31, 1916, the total trackage operated by the Gulf Coast Lines system was 1,013 miles (1,630 km), including branches, sidings, trackage rights, and leased lines.[4]
The Gulf Coast Lines was projected originally by B. F. Yoakum, chairman of the board of the Rock Island and Frisco Lines. Yoakum's plan envisioned using the Rock Island and Frisco, together with.several railroads to be built in Texas and Louisiana and now known as the Gulf Coast Lines, to form a continuous line of railroad extending from Chicago, St. Louis and Memphis to Baton Rouge, Houston, Brownsville, Tampico and Mexico City.
The Frisco and Rock Island were conjoined under his leadership in 1905 and known as the "Yoakum Line."[6]
The coming of the railroad and irrigation made the Valley into a major agricultural center. In Hidalgo County, land that had been selling for twenty-five cents an acre in 1903, the year before the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway arrived, was selling for fifty dollars an acre in 1906 and for as much as $300 an acre by 1910.
Yoakum's planned extensions of the GCL from Brownsville to Tampico and Mexico City, as well as from Baton Rouge to Memphis, never materialized. In 1913, the Frisco and the GCL roads fell into bankruptcy, which was terminated in 1916 when Frisco's receivers were ordered by a court to sell the Texas-Louisiana lines. The StLB&M and the BSL&W were acquired by the New Orleans, Texas and Mexico, and operated under the Gulf Coast Lines name after that.[15][16]
On June 30, 1924, the NOT&M bought the International-Great Northern Railroad,[17] and in December of the same year, the Missouri Pacific bought the Gulf Coast Lines and operated it as a subsidiary. In March 1956, all of the GCL lines were merged into the Missouri Pacific system, losing their separate identity.[18] The Missouri Pacific was merged into the Union Pacific Railroad in 1997.
Secondary lines
Before 1925, the following railroads were also part of the Gulf Coast Lines system who retained their separate legal identities:[19]
Acquired by the New Orleans, Texas & Mexico on behalf of the Missouri Pacific in 1925 to keep the Missouri Kansas Texas from taking control of it, but operated as a separate division from the Gulf Coast Lines until all were merged into the Missouri Pacific on March 1, 1956:
After 1925, the following railroads were purchased by the Gulf Coast Lines division of Missouri Pacific, though maintaining their separate legal identities.[23]
Acquired by the New Orleans, Texas & Mexico on December 1, 1925:
After 1925, numerous Missouri Pacific passenger trains used the various segments of the Gulf Coast Lines route, which although legally separate entities for tax, tariff, and accounting purposes, were marketed to the public as a seamless continuation of MoPac passenger service.
One notable passenger train of the postwar era was the streamlined Valley Eagle, introduced on October 31, 1948, which covered the 372 miles between Houston, Corpus Christi, and Brownsville in 8+1⁄2 hours at an average speed of 44 miles per hour.[33] Two trainsets of five cars each were built by ACF to make the daytime run in both directions.[34]: 139 The train was discontinued on July 1, 1962.[35]
Also in the postwar era, MoPac's Houstonian and Orleanean ran between New Orleans and Houston, covering the 367 miles in nine or ten hours.[36]
^Official Guide of the Railways. New York: National Railway Publication Company. September 1955. p. 735.
^"MoPac's First 125 Years". Missouri Pacific: A History of Color. Missouri Pacific Historical Society. Archived from the original on 9 April 2011. Retrieved 2 April 2011.
^Vigness, David M.; Mark Odintz. "Rio Grande Valley". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Archived from the original on 12 November 2018. Retrieved 2 April 2011.
^"MoPac's First 125 Years". Missouri Pacific: A History of Color. Missouri Pacific Historical Society. Archived from the original on 9 April 2011. Retrieved 2 April 2011.
^Wooster, Robert, and Nancy Beck Young. "Orange and Northwestern Railroad". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved 4 April 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
Railroads in italics meet the revenue specifications for Class I status, but are not technically Class I railroads due to being passenger-only railroads with no freight component.
