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 Pacific freight 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. Though compromised from its original vision and taking another 13 years to complete, a 32-mile commuter rail line began service in March 2010.

Our 7.5 mile walk, the first of a three-part series along the tracks of Austin's Red Line train, begins downtown before passing through the East Cesar Chavez, Rosewood, Cherrywood, North Loop, and Highland neighborhoods. We’ll get a bit of shade in the early part of our walk along the Boggy Creek Greenbelt. And of course we’ll stop at the end for an optional lunch.

LOGISTICS:

• 10:40 AM start, for the convenience of anyone taking the train to the starting point.
• See train schedule. The first inbound train departs from Lakeline and arrives downtown at 10:40 AM.
• There are paid parking garages by the pile of rubble formerly known as the Austin Convention Center
• You might be able to find street parking by Highland Station, but no guarantee
• We'll meet right by the downtown train station
• If you parked somewhere along the train line (there are proper parking lots up north at Leander, Lakeline, and Howard), we’ll be at the Highland stop by 1:30, in time for downtown trains (1:28, 2:05, 2:42, 3:19) or northbound trains (1:42, 2:19, 2:56, 3:33)
• Official walk route