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Bataan Memorial Trainway through downtown El Paso, Texas.
Image provided by George D. Torok
Bataan Memorial Trainway
El Paso, Texas
Research Packet and Narrative by:
Ernie Rogers
Armando Sanchez
Dr. George D. Torok
Honors Project
2002-03
National Endowment for the Humanities Historical Markers Project
Narrative History: Bataan Memorial Trainway
When completed in 1951, the Bataan Memorial
Trainway was heralded as an engineering marvel and dramatically
changed the layout of El Paso. The Trainway placed El Paso’s main
railroad tracks below street level and allowed for the free flow of
traffic in and out of the downtown area. Today, thousands of people
cross the Trainway daily but few realize the significance this project
had on the future growth and development of the city.
When the Southern Pacific Railroad arrived in 1881,
El Paso was a lightly populated settlement. The tracks were laid north
and east of the residential and commercial areas, well outside of the
city. Although the railroad was expected to bring more people into El
Paso, few anticipated the tremendous growth that would take place over
the next few decades. As the city grew, trains began to present an
inconvenience, and at times a hazard, to local residents. As early as
1889 the El Paso Times expressed concerns about the train
traffic along the edge of the city. An editorial noted that there was
an “almost daily instance of danger to life and property from
approaching engines on the Southern Pacific road.”
In 1917, Mayor Tom Lea started negotiations with the railroad but
public uproar about the closing of downtown streets during the
construction caused him to abandon the project.
During the 1930s city leaders tried to make the
project part of a federal Works Progress Administration program to
bring funding and desperately needed work to the city, but this failed
as well. World War II created another burst of growth in El Paso. By
the 1940s, eight different railroads serviced the city, all
interfering with automobile and pedestrian traffic. In 1946, the city
drew up formal plans for a trainway and presented a bond issue to
voters. On January 4, 1947 the bond issue passed by a more than ten to
one margin. Beginning in 1948, eight major contractors and twenty-two
subcontractors worked on the Trainway under the direction of project
engineer Harlan H. Hugg. The R.E. McKee Company did the largest
portion of the work re-grading the railroad lines, digging the entire
trench, and laying new tracks. A major work of civil engineering, the
Trainway cost 5.5 million dollars and took more than three years to
complete. More than 4500 gondola cars of dirt were excavated, the
trench concreted, and eight bridges were built over the tracks. A 1700
foot overpass across Cotton Street, several blocks east of the
Trainway completed the project.
The Trainway was formally opened on August 21, 1950
and named in honor of prisoners-of-war who died in enemy camps during
the Second World War, especially those who perished during the Bataan
Death March. .Loaded flatcars with more than 500 people were brought
to Union Depot. The Sunset Limited, a new Southern Pacific passenger
train, arrived and proceeded to the Main Street overpass where
Southern Pacific President A.T. Mercier and Mayor Dan Duke officiated
the ribbon-cutting ceremony. It continued through the Trainway to the
roaring applause of hundreds of spectators. With the completion of the
Bataan Memorial Trainway, trains whisked through the city, the dangers
and delays of railroad crossings were eliminated.
With the completion of the project in 1951, the
city of El Paso grew well beyond its original boundaries. Today, more
than fifty years later, the Trainway is still in use everyday and
continues to separate commuter and railroad traffic, allowing for a
safer and a greatly expanded downtown.
.
El Paso (TX) Herald-Post, Aug. 17, 19, 1950; El Paso (TX)
Times, Aug. 19, 1950.
.
El Paso Herald-Post, Aug. 19, 1950.
.
El Paso Times, Aug. 21, 1955; Leon Metz, Robert E. McKee:
Master Builder of Structures Beyond the Ordinary (El Paso, TX
1997), 58.
.
El Paso Times Aug. 21, 1950.
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