Houston, Texas

[dogbert617]

Oh, yes. Oh, yes! Go here for a comprehensive listing, circa 1952. But for the Reader's Digest condensed version, aside from twice-daily service over the Sunset Route (Sunset Limited and the Argonaut), there were daily (often twice daily) trains to Dallas, Corpus Christi, McAllen, and Shreveport. At that, it was a cutback from previous service; earlier issues of the Guide show service to Brownsville, Austin, and others.

As far as where you could go from Houston's Union Station, the Santa Fe would take you north to Fort Worth, Oklahoma City, Wichita, Kansas City and Chicago (Texas Chief route, also used by the Ranger) or west to Sweetwater, Lubbock, Clovis and (via through cars) onward to California. The Missouri Pacific would take you to Texarkana, Little Rock and St. Louis...largely along the route of the present-day Texas Eagle, but in those days there was a direct rail connection from Houston to Longview via Palestine. (The rails are still there, but these days they're freight-only.) The Burlington would carry you to Dallas and Fort Worth on the Sam Houston Zephyr, from whence you could make direct connections to the Texas Zephyr for Denver, while the Rock Island's Twin Star Rocket followed the same route from Houston to Fort Worth (well, almost the same route; Burlington used the T&P station in Fort Worth while Rock Island used Santa Fe's station just south of the present Amtrak station), where it diverged and continued almost due north to Kansas City, Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Thanks for posting that link, to the 1952 train timetables page! It's a goldmine, to look at all the various timetables of various passenger rail trains you can browse from that are saved there! The Katy Lines one was interesting, and showed a lot of the trains you could take from Houston, Dallas, Shreveport, Wichita Falls, and New Orleans among a lot of other cities and towns.

Lot more timetables I need to browse there, that I hadn't gotten to just yet lol.

 

[rms492]

There are lots of things to do in Houston. Hanging around the train station isn't one of them. You can find it on Google earth. It's a little one room station building the SP built to serve their one remaining train a day, the Sunset Ltd. This after they sold the beautiful Grand Central Station to the post office and it was torn down to make way for the new central post office which is still there. The station is located under a freeway bridge on a dead end street. It's a crappy little station for a city the size of Houston. There is absolutely NOTHING to do there. Get a cab and go to your hotel and get away from the station.

After that, take a ride on the light rail out to the museum district. Rent a car and drive toward Galveston. Go to the NASA Space Center. If you like baseball, the stadium uses part of the old Union RR station as the entrance way and the SP 982 2-10-2 locomotive is located outside. The Metro headquarters is located on the light rail line. There you can get a transit map of Houston and a day pass or something like that. Downtown is probably going to be mostly closed up on a Sunday. It's hot here in the summer, but downtown Houston has tunnels leading everywhere and there is a map of the tunnel system. Everything is AC'd. Out from downtown there is the Galleria Shopping mall. You can drive there or take a bus. The Post Oak complex out there is huge. Houston has some of the best eating places in the country so you won't starve. Those are just some thoughts, I am sure there are many more suggestions coming. Here is a good web site.

Visit Houston: Restaurants, Hotels, Things To Do

I plan on visiting the Space Center. Can someone tell me the general area around there? Is it a safe area? I plan on staying at a hotel that is close to it, I think its the Marriott. Is it safe to walk from the local hotels to the Space Center?

 

[user 29398]

I plan on visiting the Space Center. Can someone tell me the general area around there? Is it a safe area? I plan on staying at a hotel that is close to it, I think its the Marriott. Is it safe to walk from the local hotels to the Space Center?

NASA is way out on the southern edge of town. Too far out for there to be much crime or much activity in general (though the area by Hobby Airport, closer to the city center, can get rough). Your main worry walking around this area is getting hit by a car because it's an exurb of a city that was built for wheels, not legs. If your hotel is close enough you should be able to walk there just fine (I THINK there are sidewalks, but you should check with Google Earth / Street View) but don't assume your hotel is within walking distance without verifying that on Maps. Again, though, crime isn't the issue.

If you're a history buff the San Jacinto Battlefield and the murals of the battle a nearby refinery painted on their storage tanks are also on the southwest edge of Houston. Probably 25 minutes away by car.