Trackside Trek I: Downtown to Highland (10:40 AM start)

Long before a starry-eyed but sparse stream of commuters rode its rails, the Houston and Texas Central railroad carried a freight of “hope, prosperity and progress” into Austin. Starting in 1871, its main tracks ran along Pine Street (now Fifth), helping make the city a trading hub. Near Plaza Saltillo, the Austin & Northwestern (A&NW) branched north. Beginning northward expansion in 1881, it never came close to reaching the intended destination of Abilene and a northwestern Texas rail line. But the A&NW hauled nearly sixteen thousand carloads of pink granite for the State Capitol. In 1985, voters approved the founding of Capital Metro, which set a vision of an Austin rail line. A year later, the agency and the city bought the abandoned Southern Pacificfreight tracks. A decade later, not very long in rail-planning time, the agency made concrete plans for the Red Line on the old right-of-way.