Bound and Determined

 Bound and determined to get a ride in before the afternoon monsoon, I was on the road a little after 9:00

enjoying the cool morning air.   My thought was to intercept the Sunset Limited coming

out of New Orleans.  It and I left about the same time. 

I should have headed due south to Olivier, bypassing New Iberia all together.  NI is 

about as old hat as taking pictures of trains can get.

Nevertheless, I've never been to  New Iberia at 9:34 in the morning, any morning,

and this was Saturday, a day that may also qualify as an example of "never been".

Arriving at the north yard, what didn't look like an L&D tug sat on the mainline.

Photo taken from the infamous Airport Road crossing.

(infamous for crashes  between cars, trucks, tractors, farm animals rail walkers and trains)

If the morbid type, this could be your perfect picnic location.

 I was right.  The engine was something bigger.

(many of these shots were taken "at distance", typified by the blurring.

I was using my pocket sized 4x optical zoom camera far into its digital zoom range.

And the sun was responsible as well as the former President Bush the Younger.

 I rode by to try to size  up the situation.  9:39 AM.

 Why had there been two cars between the engines?

Or was I late to the yard party?
Agent 00-L has explained that the  car behind each engine is regulation.

They are there to protect the crew.

His words: "They were to serve as buffer cars between the loads of pipe and the locomotives.  Regulations require that any unenclosed load of linear freight (pipe, rail, logs, etc.) have a full-height car between it and anything human-occupied to serve as an anti-impalement device.  Any empty boxcar or hopper will do.

 

The guy riding the car is not some flunky. He is the conductor and 

he was calling the shots on the radio.

His every "whereabouts" were noted, ie, "Conductor on the ground", 

"Conductor working between...".  

I had suspected, but didn't really know that being the conductor of a freight 

train does not  buy a feet on the desk job.

This guy was no spring chicken and he was working his feathered tail off.

A repeat?  Nope. Check the  time on the pics. I love that feature.

 His goal seemed to be to assemble a train made up of pipe from the Port of New Iberia,

located off of Avery Island Rd.  Louisiana & Delta RR had brought them 

up from that location.

Sorry about the finger. 

 The picture below shows the southbound BNSF road warrior

headed on the mainline to the south end of the train with his black car.

The other engine remained in a north bound direction with his black car.

Why so crummy a picture?  Have you ever done any research into Barney Frank 

and the lending practices of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

The picture there is non to pretty, also.

Note the parked pickup protruding onto the roadway. I'd meet this 

gent and his grinning buddy, later.   He was not Mr. Welcome Wagon.

More on him later.

Following his interview, I continued doing what I was doing and followed

the southbound engine to the New Iberia depot/ L&D RR headquarters.

It got off the mainline and switched back on the sidetrack where the

pipe cars were located.

 

The L&D Ladies, having the day off, sat in the bleachers with their 

approving lights on.

 The conductor moved her in reverse back northbound.

 It was time for an artsy picture.

 A limo waited. (the van).

Look closely. The conductor is getting out of the engine door (front).

The limo would take him to the north end engine.  I  heard him

talking to the dispatcher explaining that the train building operation

would take from 45 minutes to an hour. 

I was not going to be in the bleachers. I had a train to meet and my tardiness was

moving that point further and further westward  by tarrying  here.

 Possibly I could make it back and chase him.

I just found this shot from a recent trip to Crowley. Pipe.

This was taken at the spot of Southern Pacific / Louisiana Western depot.

 At Franklin I shot a scene that has been on the "2DO" list. 

I had to correct it as the sun had its way with it.
No, it was Bush.

Wait, like BO, I need to find someone else to blame.

You can wear out a Blame-ee.

I still think Barney Franc  would make a great surrogate, a more factual one.

 At this point I'm inserting the schedule.  It would be useless  this Saturday.

I was in Franklin.  The train (1) should have been 42 minutes out of Schriever.

It wasn't, or if it was, it had stopped.  I was thinking it should have been, at least,

to Morgan City.  I would probably have to settle on one of my perches at Bayou Sale.

On a Saturday, with people fishing, I'd hesitate going to the  Wax Lake Outlet Bridge.

What follows was a personal war between standing my ground and fleeing

an  assault of self of self doubt.

It would be the second assault endured by this writer that day.

At this point I'm inserting the schdule.  It would be useless  Saturday.

I went to my secret place at Bayou Sale. 

Having been assailed by "interested parties" earlier,  I went to a place that I figured less populated.

This is the levee looking back from where I'd come in.

The grass was high but I knew the way.

I decided to do a 360 of photos for your viewing pleasure.

Being bored to death, another 360 would follow.

I hope the mood translates.

I spent a long time here on 2 occasions that day.

I thought I'd missed  the Amtrak getting its track warrant. I had, but that didn't matter.

 This is lush Louisiana.  It is why when we natives go elsewhere we get green withdrawal.

 The centerpiece of the setting is of course the bayou bridge.

 Still clicking in a clockwise movement.

 And back down where whence I had come.

 Snakes next to a bayou in tall grass, naw, you're kidding me.

 Looking east from whence I wished it would come quickly.

 Here I checked the other direction just in case I was confused.

 Back the other way.

 Back at the bike.

 The bayou.

 Across the tracks.

 Down the powerline.

 Down the levee.

 Off toward the the L&D rails.

 Down a pipeline.

 I left. It was 12.15.  The train must have gotten by me.  It should have been between

New Iberia and Lafayette.  I was at the Bayou Sale sidetrack.  I had heard 

what sounded like a train coming through my helmet. It was the wind.

 In Franklin I went to the tracks.  Here came an eastbound.

That sealed it.  The passenger train  was by me going west.

But, not so.

 The road sign fit.  I was near where the old MP rails intersected and ran alongside

the SP all the way to nearby Garden City.

This road may have been on its ROW.

 This is a poor picture of the present boulevard "neutral ground". 

(that from my New Orleans period)

It's a median in most places, maybe here?

 I heard the east bounder conductor say that the Amtrak was east of him.

I returned to the levee and took levee pictures while I waited and waited.

 I gave up thinking I'd heard wrong. I worked 

my way through inner city Franklin on out the bayou

toward where the previous bayou picture was taken.

 I went to the bridge at Baldwin and waited.

There were some funny people on the block so I left.

 Then I heard that there were signal problems and the Amtrak  was having a hard time negotiating them.  A signal man went to the bridge and ushered the paranoid  (rightfully)

passenger train across.  I, of course, had left and missed that.

It was 1:22. The train should have been closing in on Lake Charles.

 At Penn Rd, west of Baldwin, I took a stand.  A west bounder was pulled over.

I fumbled the ball.  The picture is too far off and obviously Barneyed.

 Then there were lighting problems on the exit shot.

I have some work to do on this new little camera.

I can't blame everything on Barney.

 That done, and a little perturbed with railroads in general,

I returned to New Iberia looking for a fight.

A race with a Lafayette Yard bound freight was all I could manage.

The fools that ticked me off earlier had left, no doubt fearing my return.

It was 2:41.

I passed him up in time for a shot at Camp Pratt.

Carbon black was his load.

I pulled a few links on him in time to get this approach shot near Hwy.88 at Burke.

He was smoking mad.

 

Mz Allegheny was  high balling. Good to see she still has her stuff.

3:02 PM   

 At Cade I had to take this shot. It is at the Black church cemetery.

Those are some kind of chemical containers or processors behind the plots.

Such is Louisiana.

 This is a tail engine shot. It would be needed on the return trip or in switching at the yard.

 At Broussard I jumped on the thruway, not my best choice.

 She beat me to Alligator Point, south of Pinhook Rd.

The name, "Pinhook", comes from the way a hog thief once caught 

his prey.

 There goes the tail gunner.

 Bogged down on my usual fast route to the yard,  I still barely

beat him, only because he had to deal with the switch, not a 

fair victory. Still the satisfaction of being there first 

was a small win.

Back to the New Iberia incident: I was still a little peeved at the early morning invasion of my 

space by a civilian.

Unable to preform normal tasks until this matter was resolved, I wrote a respected authority

in hopes that he could talk me trough my obsession. His edited note follows.

If you chase trains or take pictures of them , READ THIS:

Steve,

I understand how you feel.  You were entirely within your rights, but so was he.  He engaged you in conversation and didn’t attempt to keep you from doing anything (which he couldn’t have done anyway).  What he did doesn’t rise to the level of harassment, but he could have probably displayed a better (more respectful) attitude.  I suspect that he did indeed work for BNSF (or L&D), but I doubt that he was a special agent (BNSF Railway Police).  They are legally commissioned law-enforcement officers and have a badge, though not always in uniform.  They are definitely not private security guards (rent-a-cops).  When approaching a subject, they typically want him to know that they are police for their own protection.  Their legal authority is limited to the protection of the railway’s property, freight, and passengers, but in doing so they may operate on or off the right-of-way.  (Learn more at http://www.bnsf.com/communities/safety-and-security/police-team/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNSF_Police_Department .)  I think that I might have asked him right up front if he was railway police.  If so, I would have respectfully answered his questions to allay his suspicions without giving up any of my rights.  If not, the mere question would have put him in his place by showing that I knew a thing or two.

I suspect that he was some sort of trainmaster or road foreman.  Of course, employees are taught by the company to keep an eye out for anything suspicious, but some let it go to their heads.  There are a lot more genuine causes for concern than most of us realize. .......

See Amtrak’s policies on photography at http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?c=Page&pagename=am%2FLayout&cid=1241267362248 , especially the first sentence on the right to photograph and the last section and final sentence on the role of Amtrak Police.

Back to me:

That's it. Sorry about the Bush/Barney pictures but I was bound and determined to post this one.  An email would not have reached the world unless a lot of forwarding was done with "keep this going"  inserted at the end. You can "keep this going" by simply sending the link to all of  your friends and relatives.  

Over and Out.