Steve Taylor from Austin Texas reported some wonderful news recently:

"While road-tripping in North Central Texas, I found two King railroad bridges still in place and in use.  Below are my photos of the two bridges. Both bridges were originally designed as railroad bridges...yet, today they are carrying a very rural county road.  Here is the story.  Only one bridge still has a plaque, and the plaque says "1906".  Both my 1940 and 1961 map shows that the Missouri-Kansas-Texas railroad ran through this area.....also known as the Katy, it is long gone.  The road originally ran through a set of truss bridges which were parallel to the railroad.  I suspect that at some point the road bridges needed to be replaced.....the railroad was gone by then, and some shrewd county commissioner suggested realigning the roadbed over the two bridges.  All that was required was a concrete deck and they were good to go.   Did the Katy Railroad have these bridges built?  No. The Texas Central Railroad did, as a 1900 railroad map shows that line running from Hico to Dublin. The Texas Central was leased to M-K-T in 1914 and my research shows that the track was removed around 1967."

Photos courtesy of Stephen Taylor:

This is the southmost bridge, it runs over the Bosque River nearest to Hico.

Same bridge but from the other side.

This is the bridge the Bosque River bridge replaced.

This is the bridge closest to Clairette over Greens Creek.

Builder's Plaque on the Greens Creek bridge.

Greens Creek bridge with some sort of railroad coding.

This is the bridge the Greens Creek bridge replaced.

These bridges are southeast of Clairette, TX in Erath County.  The road,  County Road 270,  runs from Hico to Clairette and parallels US 281 to the west of 281.  The first bridge crosses Greens Creek near Clairette and the second bridge, closest to Hico, crosses the North Fork of the Bosque River.  The one at Greens Creek has a plaque.