Jay Gould acquired control of the International and Great Northern in December 1880. The company was leased to the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway Company, another Gould company, for ninety-nine years on June 1, 1881, but the lease was canceled on March 2, 1888, and the railroad was again operated by its own organization. The company owned 756 miles of track at the end of 1882 and did not increase mileage until after 1900. On May 1, 1901, the International and Great Northern merged the Calvert, Waco and Brazos Valley Railroad Company. The latter company had built sixty-six miles of a line between Spring, just north of Houston, and Fort Worth. The Fort Worth line was completed in 1902 by the International and Great Northern. The following year a forty-five-mile branch was built between Navasota and Madisonville. In that year the railroad also acquired the Houston, Oaklawn and Magnolia Park Railway Company. The company again entered receivership on February 27, 1908. A new company, the International and Great Northern Railway Company, was chartered on August 10, 1911, and bought the old company at foreclosure on August 31, 1911. At this time the Henderson and Overton Branch was also consolidated, giving the International and Great Northern its peak of 1,106 miles. In addition, the International and Great Northern owned the Austin Dam and Suburban Railway Company and a 50 percent interest in the Galveston, Houston and Henderson Railroad Company. Less than three years later the reorganized company was forced into receivership, which lasted until the railroad was sold at foreclosure on July 28, 1922. A new company, the International-Great Northern Railroad Company, was chartered on August 17, 1922.
The Missouri Pacific Railroad Company, the Texas and Pacific Railway Company, and the International and Great Northern had worked together as a system through Gould holdings in each company rather than by any direct control by the Missouri Pacific. By the early 1920s, however, the Gould interests no longer controlled the railroads, and in 1922 the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Company attempted to acquire the International-Great Northern. Although the Interstate Commerce Commission refused to authorize the purchase, the threat of losing a major Texas connection led to the Missouri Pacific's acquisition of the International-Great Northern. It did this through the New Orleans, Texas and Mexico Railway Company, which bought the International-Great Northern on June 20, 1924. When the New Orleans, Texas and Mexico was itself acquired by the Missouri Pacific on January 1, 1925, the International-Great Northern became part of the Missouri Pacific Lines, although the company continued to be operated separately. Major components of the Missouri Pacific Lines, including the International-Great Northern, entered receivership on March 31, 1933. This receivership was to last for twenty-three years, primarily due to the inability of the various financial interests involved to agree on a reorganization plan. A plan was finally adopted, and on March 1, 1956, the International-Great Northern was merged into the reorganized Missouri Pacific Railroad Company. During the receivership the International-Great Northern abandoned two branch lines including the five miles between Calvert and Calvert Junction in 1934 and the forty-five miles between Navasota and Madisonville in 1944. At the time of its merger into the Missouri Pacific, the International-Great Northern owned eighty-eight diesel units, 4,959 freight cars, sixty-nine passenger cars, and 149 company service cars. The company had 1,053 miles of main track at the end of 1955 and during that year had freight revenues of $29,745,000, passenger revenue of $1,681,300, and total revenue of $34,359,900. In 1965 the Missouri Pacific abandoned twenty-seven miles between Bryan and Navasota in favor of trackage rights between these two points over the Southern Pacific Company. Two years later the line from a point near Fort Worth through Waco and Mart to Marlin was abandoned. Trackage rights were obtained over the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company between Fort Worth and Waco, and a former Southern Pacific branch between Waco and Marlin was purchased and upgraded. The only other significant change has been the abandonment of thirty-one miles of the East Columbia branch, which now terminates at Arcola.