Houston North Shore

Company History: The HNS opened in 1927 as a 25 mile interurban railway connecting Goose Creek and Baytown with Houston, Texas. They used trackage rights on the Houston Electric to get from the end of their line at Market Street to downtown and Union Station. The HNS also interchanged freight traffic with the local steam roads. Shortly after the line was completed, the railroad was sold and became a subsidiary of the Beaumont Sour Lake & Western which itself was a subsidiary of New Orleans Texas & Mexico which was part of the Missouri Pacific System. In 1948, the trolley wire came down and passenger traffic was shifted to diesel railbuses. The HNS was finally merged into Missouri Pacific in 1956.

Successor/Parent History: The Missouri Pacific Railroad (reporting mark MP), commonly abbreviated MoPac, with nickname of The Mop, was one of the first railroads in the United States west of the Mississippi River. MoPac was a Class I railroad growing from dozens of predecessors and mergers, including the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway (SLIMS), Texas and Pacific Railway (TP), Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad (C&EI), St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway (SLBM), Kansas, Oklahoma and Gulf Railway (KO&G), Midland Valley Railroad (MV), San Antonio, Uvalde and Gulf Railroad (SAU&G), Gulf Coast Lines (GC), International-Great Northern Railroad (IGN), New Orleans, Texas and Mexico Railway (NOTM), Missouri-Illinois Railroad (MI), as well as the small Central Branch Railway (an early predecessor of MP in Kansas and south central Nebraska), and joint ventures such as the Alton and Southern Railroad (AS).

In 1967, the railroad operated 9,041 miles of road and 13,318 miles of track, not including DK&S, NO&LC, T&P and its subsidiaries, C&EI and Missouri-Illinois.

On January 8, 1980, the Union Pacific Railroad agreed to buy the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Lawsuits filed by competing railroads delayed approval of the merger until September 13, 1982. After the Supreme Court denied a trial to the Southern Pacific, the merger took effect on December 22, 1982. However, due to outstanding bonds of the Missouri Pacific, the merger with Union Pacific become official only on January 1, 1997.

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