Steel That Refused to Disappear
Before Buda had highways, it had rails.
The original Buda Depot — a late-1800s structure built during the era of the Missouri Pacific Railroad — served the community until approximately 1961. It was the center of movement, commerce, and connection in a young rail town.
When the depot was decommissioned, it changed hands several times.
Then in the early 1980s — around 1982 — it left Buda.
Not under dramatic threat.
Not due to demolition orders.
Not because of a city expansion project.
It was a private relocation.
A subsequent owner chose preservation over decay. Because the structure stretched nearly 100 feet in length, it was cut in half for transport and relocated to private land near I-35 between San Marcos and New Braunfels.
There, it was restored and repurposed as a residence. It became part of a property that celebrated rail history — surrounded by tracks, wheel sets, and vintage railcars.
It survived because someone made the effort to move it.
Stewardship Across Decades
Beginning in the 1990s, the depot and surrounding rail elements were cared for by a family who preserved them on private land for decades.
They did not erase the structure’s identity.
They maintained it.
They respected it.
Alongside the depot, four historic cabooses were acquired from around Texas. Each was relocated, restored, and given new purpose. Three were renovated into short-term rentals. One served as an office.
This was never a commercial theme project.
It was preservation in action.
The Return Home
In 2024–2025, those owners made another defining decision: donate the depot back to the City of Buda to ensure its permanent protection and restoration.
In November 2025, the depot returned to downtown Buda and was placed in the Downtown Greenbelt area. Restoration planning is scheduled to begin in 2026, with the long-term vision of transforming it into a public community hub.
What quietly left in the early 1980s returned intentionally more than forty years later.
The Cabooses Continue the Line
Of the four cabooses once sitting beside the depot, one has relocated to Dripping Springs, where it will again operate as a VRBO.
Three have now arrived at The Roundabout in Buda.
Moving them required:
- Heavy haul coordination
- Lowboy trailers for oversized loads
- Crane operators to lift each car, 24,000 – 48,000 pounds, off 10,000-pound wheel assemblies
- Removal of steel tracks from the ground
- Transport through active Central Texas traffic
- And the careful reversal of that entire process upon arrival
- Only 2 pins, the size of banana hold the Caboose onto the wheel assemblies, gravity sure is amazing.
Nothing about it was simple.
But rail history never was.
Why This Matters
The railroad built Buda.
The depot anchored it.
The cabooses marked the end of each train — the final safeguard of every journey.
Now the depot stands once again in downtown Buda.
And the three cabooses begin their next chapter at The Roundabout, where they will be incorporated into Sundance — not as novelty pieces, but as working elements within a community gathering space.
The story is not about a restaurant.
It is about continuity.
Private citizens preserved history when it could have disappeared.
The city welcomed it back.
And now those same pieces of steel remain part of Buda’s evolving story.
The rails may no longer run through town the way they once did.
But the legacy never left.