Rosenberg's Tower 17, was the last traditional manned railroad interlocking tower in Texas.
It closed in February 2004 and in May 2004 the tower was moved approximately a half-mile to
the east, to the property of the Rosenberg Railroad Museum.

I spent a lot of time here, camera in hand, standing beside the tower, waiting for the next train.
With daily train frequency well into the dozens and hosting the likes of UP, BNSF, Amtrak, and
depending on their routing, KCS/TFM.

The tower protected the busy crossing of the BNSF (ex-ATSF) Galveston Sub between Temple and
Galveston and the UP (ex-Southern Pacific) Glidden Subdivision between San Antonio and Houston.
The UP is the busier of the two lines, hosting everything from transcontinental double stack trains
to rock shuttles of Texas limestone to "rolling yards" -- drag freights well over a mile in length
purged out by Houston's Englewood or Settegast terminals and coal trains destined for Reliant
Engergy's Smithers Lake power plant 15 miles to the southeast.