| Railroad Name: | Austin and Northwestern Railroad |
| Locale: | Austin, TX |
| Start Year: | 1881 |
| End Year: | 1986 |
| Old Gauge: |
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| Hq City: | Austin, Tx |
The Austin and Northwestern Railroad began construction on a rail line west of Austin, Texas, USA, toward Llano on April 20, 1881. The railroad was originally built as a narrow gauge line with plans to connect to the Texas and Pacific Railway at Abilene. Construction reached Burnet, Texas, by 1882 and the line was later extended to Granite Mountain by 1885 - when the railroad was contracted to haul pink granite for the new Texas State Capitol building in Austin. The company later extended its line to Marble Falls by using the charter of the Granite Mountain and Marble Falls City Railroad. Due to a bend in the tracks, trains would occasionally derail, accidentally dumping some of the pink granite.[1] The rocks which remain are a local point of interest.
The line was converted to and by 1892 the railroad was extended to Llano. In 1901 the Texas legislature approved the merger of the Austin and Northwestern and the Houston and Texas Central Railroad. As a condition of the merger, a new passenger terminal was constructed at Austin, and the line was extended from Burnet to Lampasas in 1903. The Texas and New Orleans Railroad absorbed the line in 1934, and it was later absorbed into the Southern Pacific Company.
In 1986, Southern Pacific elected to abandon the entire 163miles Giddings to Llano line. The City of Austin and Capital Metro purchased the railroad for $9.3 million, with the intent of using the right-of-way as a mass transit corridor. Capital Metro commenced Capital MetroRail commuter rail service in 2010 on 32 miles of track, running from Leander, Texas to Austin.
The operating history of the Austin and Northwestern Railroad, subsequent to Capital Metro's acquisition of the railroad, is as follows:[2]
In 1997 a 30 mi stretch of the track running from Llano to the unincorporated community of Fairland, Texas was added to the National Register of Historic Places as the Austin and Northwestern Railroad Historic District-Fairland to Llano.