It has been heavily edited for its own good.
I want to tell you something before we get started on this
page. Morgan City and Berwick are two of the best locations
for an amateur photographer. You can't take a bad picture
in these places. Well, you can if don't try to avoid power lines,
but aside from that, it is photo heaven.
This picture is here because I liked the red building which
is a historic lighthouse. This stuff just shows up, pop, take a shot.
I've backed off any commitment to reaching Lafayette and I may go no farther on this project as it is getting very redundant though the rides that make any future coverage redundant are gone from the public eye.
This is the old depot picture from the MC website. It was close to the bridge that spans the river into Berwick.
LZ just found a Civil War era map of Brashear City, the original name of Morgan City.
We wondered if this depot was the one marked on that CW map. I place it pretty close to the river, the
way it is shown on the map.
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The red arrow points to where I think the water tank and depot were.
The yellow arrow points to where I think the turnaround began.
The turnaround is not shown on the Civil War map.
To the left there are 2 stop signs. Remember the farther one.
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There is a two story house to the left of that second sign. I think the original rose garden /depot picture was
taken from there on the second story toward the river.
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Remember the stop sign? It is to my left. See the raised area. It's the fill for the turnaround.
That's the flood protection wall ahead. The turnaround sit very close to that concrete wall.
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There it goes going down and turning east to reconnect with the main line headed back to New Orleans.
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Here it came right by these buildings (going east). Now it's used by the gravel road.
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This is a picture of the next depot down by Fourth Street.
The nutty photographer seems to be on top of a car.
The picture would be looking west toward the river.
I would guess that is a Southern Pacific semi parked on the property.
Remnants of a track can be seen on the bottom left.
Was it the station "team track"?
The picture above is by David Ellsey.
Here's GE's shot with my white trail of the turnaround.
Shown are the train bridge, the new 90 bridge
and the old 90 bridge, going bottom to top.
I can't leave Morgan City without saluting the shrimp boat,
Spirit of Morgan City.
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And the Oil Industry.
I'm going to have a showing of my Morgan City /Berwick bridge
photo art at some point. I can't here because this page
has gotten too large.
I found myself back on the Berwick side.
I moved south of the car bridges
but still north of the rail bridge.
The doc rails had gone that way.
A look at the bridge.
This is the bygone Berwick Depot. I want to credit the guy who
actually gave me permission to use it. I will at the bottom
of the page to make it look like a footnote. Naw, I will here, or I'll
forget. Bert Berry is his name. CLICK HERE to go there.
Great stuff. The site is gone.
This is the climb from the depot area and tracks to the waterfront to the main line.
When suddenly, what should appear?
The Sunset.
It was a moment.
But wait. I was closer to the bridge.
Rosco just called and wondered why I'd left out his narrative.
I explained that this was not a real page and it was all in his
imagination. But you can't fool a ghost and surely Rosco is a ghost
since he wrote this in 1935. But maybe not, medical science
being what it is today. Anyway, Rosco didn't have that much to
say about Berwick. I'm going to quote him as I was getting
tired of the previous arrangement and you don't want to mess
around with no ghost.
From the USGS Survey book:
Berwick.
Elevation 14 feet.
Population 1,679.
New Orleans 82 miles.
After crossing the Atchafalaya River over a long bridge the train reaches Berwick, a companion town to Morgan City and sharing with it the river trade and crab industry. In the region west of Berwick much of the land is under cultivation in sugarcane, but some woodland remains. An abandoned sugar mill (Glenwild) is conspicuous north of the railroad 3 miles west of Berwick.
A typical small sugar plantation may be seen just north of the tracks 2 miles beyond Patterson (near Calumet siding), with groups of whitewashed houses for laborers and many very large, handsome moss-hung live oaks.
That's it. Tomorrow I will exhibit all of my bridge pictures, including my version of the train crossing the lift bridge. You'll need to take a pill because it will get exciting.