Not Another Houston

An aerial, photographic view of Houston’s East End rail corridor at dusk, multiple parallel tracks weaving between compact residential blocks, small parks, and low-slung industrial facilities. The warm, fading sunlight casts long, slender shadows from railcars and signal towers across the ground, while streetlights and crossing signals begin to glow with a subtle orange hue. The composition uses a wide, top-down perspective that clearly shows how the rail lines intersect with schools, homes, and community spaces. The atmosphere feels analytical and informative, not sensational, with crisp detail across the entire frame. The overall style is professional, map-like photographic realism, emphasizing infrastructure, density, and the community impacted by a major rail merger.

About

Houston’s East End and Fifth Ward have carried more than their share.

Decades of industrial facilities, freight corridors, and infrastructure decisions have concentrated environmental burden, blocked crossings, and limited mobility in communities of color — while wealthier parts of the city were spared.

Now, Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern want to merge into the largest freight railroad in North American history. And if history is any guide, our most overburdened communities will be asked to absorb the consequences once again.

Not Another Houston means exactly what it says. Not another generation of decisions made over our heads. Not another infrastructure project that treats the East End and Fifth Ward as the path of least resistance. Not another empty promise.

This fight isn’t over, and neither are we.

Not another Houston

Houston Has Been Here Before — and the STB Knows It

When the STB approved the CPKC merger in 2023, Houston’s East End was already under strain from three active rail corridors forming what residents call the “train trap triangle.”

The STB acknowledged the risk, warning that if CPKC’s traffic increases proved worse than projected, it would step in to address congestion in Houston. It imposed no proactive infrastructure requirements.

Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis called it out directly during those proceedings: it is “morally imperative” that the impact on Houston’s most vulnerable communities be fully studied before a merger moves forward. It wasn’t then. It hasn’t been since.

The result? A 10-minute blocked crossing reporting threshold that emergency responders say is dangerously inadequate. Waste removal is blocked from reaching landfills. Children are climbing through stalled rail cars to get to school. And now, a proposed UP-NS merger that would dwarf CPKC in scale — running through the same corridors, through the same neighborhoods, with the same communities bearing the cost.

The STB said it didn’t want Houston to become a problem. It already is one. The UP-NS merger cannot move forward without enforceable, community-level protections for Houston’s East End — not promises, not liaison committees, not a 10-minute rule. Real conditions. Real accountability.

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A close-up, photographic view of a heavy steel railroad crossing gate lowered across a cracked urban street in Houston’s East End, bright red warning lights frozen mid-flash. The gate’s chipped white and red paint, rusted bolts, and worn reflective tape are rendered in sharp detail. Behind it, multiple tracks vanish into a maze of industrial warehouses and tank cars under an overcast sky. Soft, diffused daylight creates minimal shadows, emphasizing the stark textures of metal, gravel, and concrete. Shot at eye level with a shallow depth of field, the gate dominates the foreground while the sprawling rail yard gently blurs behind. The mood is tense yet controlled, evoking disruption and barrier, in a clean, professional documentary photographic style.