The Texas Special was a train jointly operated by the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (Katy), and the Saint Louis-San Francisco (Frisco) between 1915 and 1965. The train travelled daily between Saint Louis, Missouri and San Antonio, Texas. The train operated as a premier steam-powered, heavyweight passenger train, until 1948 when the Katy and Frisco introduced the luxury streamlined version of the train, complete with beautiful fluted side Pullman cars, EMD E7s, and topped off with a dazzling red and silver livery. Even though it was called "one of the most profitable streamliners in the U.S." by Railway Age Magazine, struggles with railroad management caused the Frisco to withdraw from the operation in 1959. Throughout the Frisco's involement in the Special, there were often cars from the Meteor on the Special and vice versa, since they wore the same livery. The Katy further moved the northern endpoint to Kansas City, and continued operating the train, although the new company who had bought the Katy in the mid '50s had no interest in offering passenger rail. By 1964 the train had been cut back to Dallas-Kansas City, and less than a year later it vanished into history on July 1, 1965. 

 

Once the train stopped running, the Katy and Frisco sold their equipment to various railroads and scrappers. Only a handful of cars have managed to survive to the present day. Out of those, only one is an Amtrak-certified private car, the J. Pinckney Henderson, which was an experimental 72-seat coach built by Pullman-Standard to replace the wrecked car of the same name. The car cycled through various owners and operators, and was even used in an experimental Amtrak service called the Keystone Club. In 2015 the car was painted back up in its original Texas Special livery, just in time for the AAPRCO mid-term of the same name! Other surviving cars include the New Braunfels, a Katy 64-seat coach that is located in Houston, the Joseph Pulitzer, a Frisco observation that is located near San Luis Obispo, CA, as well as several others in various states of restoration,