It's confusing on the level of the Houston Freeway System.
After visiting the small chapel ("Chappel" on the map),
I entered Tickfaw, the same name as the creek, river
and state park in Livingston Parish.
On queue , a Canadian National train appeared.
I had lost a little voltage roaming away from the tracks.
The train's appearance recharged my batteries.
What a welcomed sight. This was possibly the first time
I'd seen a real train on this route. "Real"? I'm not explaining
that.
I have been to the CN yard in Baton Rouge. That was a
very nice experience. Inner urban Baton Rouge is as real
as you ever want to get.
I again took a shot of the old store and home combo on
La.442. It is for sale. You could live in it, have a store or
shop and watch trains go by in a small community very
close to a big one. Nirvana. I may get my realtor's license.
This little house, next to the tracks, probably goes with it.
Dang, I see a railroad camp. I'd have to turn it facing the tracks.
This is the address.
I do believe, across the road, is/was the location of the Tickfaw depot.
The Ticfaw Christmas Pageant has located there.
While I was looking, Santa pulled up, looked at me and parked closer
to the building.
Not wanting to make Nick nervous, I waved and headed south.
By now you realize the gray w/ white spotted line is me, appropriately.
I pulled into Hammond expecting to be in a ghetto along
the tracks. Well, it happens a lot so that's what I expect
and prepare for. Nope. I was in the middle of coed bicycle
riding Southeastern Louisiana University. I may be old,
but I ain't dead. I would have taken pictures but my wife
reads these things sometimes and the inclusion of coed
bicycle rider pictures might lead to a certain sort of death.
Ya know what I mean, Darryl?
To keep my train on track, I took a few church shots. Hammond
had a church neighborhood just like Amite did. Sorry, there were
too many to show all here. If your denomination is not featured,
maybe next time.
I have no idea, but I'll go with "Catholic" on this one.
Below:
The steeple probably gives this one away but I'm not
an authority on steeples. I wonder if the deal on top is
suppose to be that way? I know that in Port Gibson there
is a hand on the peak of the steeple. I'm not sure what
it means, but anything less than "Hi", or "Good Going",
would not be a good idea.
Ok, this must be the Episcopalian, mentioned below.
This one is old, but not that old. The old ones I've seen
in central and south La., as well as Mississippi were consecrated
by General /Bishop Leonidas Polk. He got around.
Then I moved on to a few shots of the old downtown trying
to exclude the railroad . That's hard to do in these old towns
because their centerpiece was commonly the railroad. Many
towns, well most, if they had a railroad, were there because of it.
Case in point:
Just across the tracks from the main drag is the depot.
That side of town was the location of the church area and
the neighborhood. Just to the north were the coeds, uh,
the university.
OK, let's shift gears. It's time to man talk diamonds.
Below is off my old Garmin map. It does not show all the rails. I will
attempt to cover most from the evidence I found and maps taken
from my new toy, the Flight DeVille. These are the easy to find
POI's on the "diamond", meaning, "junction configuration" for
normal people.
I'll slide down and tell you what the numbers represent.
1 is the feeder from the north/south bound (where I came from) to
the west bound that heads to Baton Rouge. (of course these tracks
work in both directions, like e/w and n/s, dig?)
2 is incoming/outgoing mainline from the north.
3 fed the east/west railroad at one time. Now it feeds the
old rails that go to some industry to the east and stops.
Virgil's going to ID that RR for me, I know.
4 is the feeder south to east or east to south.
5 goes to Baton Rouge or comes from it.
6 is where I took a bunch of shots. I boldly crossed a set of rails on
my bike to avoid taking a picture of the CN RR's dumpster. Hey
you Canucks, your area was an eyesore. The rest of downtown
Hammond was postcard quality. Out of towners?
Here I was at 6 and still clipped the dumpster.
That is what Amtrak visitors see, CN, your mess.
Notice the rails between me and the mainline.
I'll harp on them later.
This was the back of the station (street side). It is a working
Amtrak depot serving the City of New Orleans and one other,
I do believe.
Mile Marker
Get ready, this gets silly, but it's what I do. I follow rails
in hopes of understanding what the designers were trying
to accomplish and then lie about it.
This is the top of the diamond from the west side.
This is looking north. You can see the two sides of the
diamond diverging west and east, west to Baton Rouge,
east to the industry and in the direction of Covington where
I'm sure they connected at one time. I've been out on the
rail bridge at Robert. That was an experience.
The non mainline rails parallel the main line southward.
The harp begins.
I think they were another railroad's (the one from Covington)
route to the depot. Then it could back up and cross the n/s
line and proceed west. Or, coming from the east, back down
to the depot area? Whatever. That was a century ago.
Some people "plain don't care", huh, Virgil?
Two speculative lines are below. The first is the dark line
on the right, coming south paralleling the green main line.
Oops, that's the one I harp about.
Forget about it crossing the e/w line. I blew that off. It, as
seen above, joined the e/w line. Well, don't completely write
it off crossing the e/w. It might have.
The second speculative line is the purple line that cuts across
the diamond e/w. If trains, coming from the east or west wanted
to continue on there east/west route, they would have to cross
the diamond or back up onto a feeder to the n/s main line and take a feeder
to cross it, but I'm no pro on driving trains. The yellow lines exist.
The inner one feeds the "yard" and had a small car on it. It may
have been the depot rails for RR "X", the one from Covington.
Keep reading and don't think too much or you'll end up with one too many
rails and call me down on it. You'll see the map in a minute and it will
workout.
The outer one is still plainly there and feeds the industry to the east
from the south. Orange and inner yellow would belong to the RR "X".
That redis (harp) line did not make it all the way to the red/green/orange ones.
A picture will fix you up.
Then there's this one. This is looking into the CN property
which lies inside the outer orange line which is yellow above.
Ok, from here out I'll try to keep my colors straight.
You see my speculative purple (harp) line next to the rails? The thin one.
Ah, it has 2 small cars on it. OK, I'm good with that speculative line.
I'll still harp on it some more.
There are the yellow rails (above) below.
We are now going to back away from the CN offices.
I should have shot those cars. But, my Flight DeVille's
light said" low fuel .... consumption way too fast ......
Better get on home 'foyuh run out of gas," so I had
to land at the Canal Station.
Count the buildings, they are in order. When shooting rails,
always keep landmarks in the shot or they are useless, unlike these.
Now you see, I didn't have a transition shot between the
last shot and this one. I lost my cool when I was doing so well.
It happens, even to us pros.
This may be redundant, but some of you need redundancies, I do.
Taken from my brand new Flight DeVille before the light came on.
In the one below you can see the blue line going from south
to northeast to east.
This is the blue line.
Below is the blue line coming from redish "harp" line. Remnants
of the yellow line must meet it above the switch to the redish line.
Notice the rails bordering the cement. Also notice the stop sign in
the distance at the next street crossing.
The rails below are seen above but from the south instead
of my shot(above) which is taken from the north.
The rails below would be going southeast next to that rusted
tin roofed building.
The rails bordering the cement continue to the next stop
sign where they may have ended, but I doubt it. There is
a parking lot there now. See the car by the tracks, in the
distance, above.
Here is where the yellow line meets the green line, the mainline.
I know, I'm tired of this, too, and I've been there and I should be
all excited. It ain't happening.
Looking back north from the switch above. Now it's getting cool.
There is no visual evidence in the shot below of what I have
drawn with the inner yellow line joining the live rails to the right,
but I know it did.
Here's the proof. See the line from the railroad yard (yellow)
joining the north-east feeder that went through the "C" in "Cates".
By the way, Cates was a pretty important cat around here.
Drop the "e" and that will make sense. Seriously, any descent
history of Hammond mentions Cates.
The north-east feeder probably crossed the rails next to
cement, also.
There they all are, then some.
This is the grand climax.
If you can't read south to north, I included, yet again, the
rails to the south of the picture above the picture above.
Just to prove the purple line, there they are in front of the
main line. Again, I have a feeling of deja vu, again. Yes, I already made
that point, sorry.
Here's the south end of the Depot rail district, for lack of a
better name.
What are a few more areal shots from the Flight DeVille.
So, what about the rails going east toward Baton Rouge?
Here they are coming off the red line from the green north
line. This is looking east toward the station. Remember the
"speculative" purple line, the one that crossed the diamond
going east-west? There would be a switch near the curve
in the distance for these rails to continue straight instead of
bending northward.
This is looking westward through the university neighborhood
headed to Baton Rouge. It is quite a pretty lane.
That's it for today, the return trip north tomorrow. It willbe a
short one, straight forward and as easy to understand as this one.
Now a little poetry, "You Cant Catch Me", by Chuck Berry.
Comments below...
I bought a brand new airmobile
It was custom made
It was a Flight DeVille
With a (powerful) motor
And some hideaway wings
Push in on the button and you can hear her sing
Now you can't catch me
No, baby, you can't catch me
'Cause if you get too close
You know I'm gone like a cool breeze
New Jersey Turnpike in the wee wee hours
I was rolling slowly 'cause of drizzlin' showers
Up come a flattop he was movin' up with me
Then come sailin' goodbye
In a little old suped up mini
I put my foot in my tank and I begin to roll
Moanin' sirens, was the state patrol
So I get out my wings and then I blew my horn
Bye-bye New Jersey I become airborne
Now you can't catch me
No, baby you can't catch me
'Cause if you get too close
You know I'm gone like a cool breeze
Flyin' with my baby last Saturday night
Wasn't no gray cloud floatin' in sight
Big full moon shinin' up above
Cuddle up honey be my love
Sweetest little thing that I ever seen
I'm gonna name you Mabelline
Flyin' with all the things set on flight control
Radio tuned to rock 'n' roll
Two, three hours passin' by
Altitude dropped to 505
Fuel consumption way too fast
Let's get on home before we run out of gas
Now you can't catch me
No baby, you can't catch me
'Cause if you get too close
You know I'm gone like a cool breeze
Comments:
Of course the reference to "Mabeline" is an easy one.
One that is not so easy is the altitude of "505". The
Stones "studied" Berry and his style of playing is
a cornerstone of early Stones, and even later Stones music.
Back to "505". The Stones wrote a song titled, "Flight 505".
"505" is the altitude Chuck was running out gas.
"Flight 505" ends with these words:
"They put the plane down in the sea.
The end of flight number 505".
Maybe a connection, maybe not. I say there is.
That's it, more trivial pursuits tomorrow.