Back in the days of the great railroad barons, the International & Great Northern Railroad had its handsome yellow-brick depot at the southwest corner of Third and Congress, and they owned the lines heading out of town to the west. The Houston & Texas Central’s newer, more ornate red-brick depot sat on the northeast corner, servicing the H&TC tracks heading out of town to the east. In time, the I&GN merged into the Missouri Pacific (MoPac), and in 1949 they moved operations over to what is now the Amtrak Station. The H&TC became the Southern Pacific, and though they stopped running in 1964, that line coming in from the east is what became the Capital Metro’s Red Line, terminating at Downtown Station. And that’s where we are today: the Amtrak station on the west end of Downtown, and the Cap Metro station on the east end of Downtown. But once, they met in the middle.
