Old Cars, The Pointe Coupee Art Council, Bill, Doug, and I

It all started a couple of nights ago. The Sunset was coming east and was stuck dead stop west of Jennings. Either LZ or Agent 00-L told me that it was pulling a few old cars to New Orleans. It finally made it there. Yesterday I went out looking for the return train to see if the cars were making a round trip. Nope.

Then I got this from a contributor.

The three private passenger cars and several more that came to New Orleans on the City and the Crescent will be assembled into a special train for private car owners.  With Amtrak power (one of the units painted up in the last year or so to commemorate past Amtrak liveries), the train will leave tomorrow (Tuesday) morning, taking UP to Monroe via Livonia and Alexandria.  From there, it will go to Meridian via KCS, then to Hattiesburg via NS, then to Gulfport via KCS for three days of convention of the American Association of Private Railroad Car Owners, then back to Hattiesburg via KCS and to New Orleans via NS.  The details are at http://www.aaprco.com/convention/2014midterm/2014gulfportspecial.html .

I may be tired old and ugly but I could intersect this baby in less than 40 miles.

But it would be across the Basin Bridge and into the straight on morning sun.

I don't do the Basin Bridge on a bike and almost don't do it in a car. 

Then my wife, steward of any intelligence we jointly own suggested this,

"Dummy, take your truck".

Add an hour to the time shown. 

 Leaving home.

 Up on the bridge. Traffic was nonexistent.

 Henderson Lake

  Butte LaRose

 The Atchafalaya, not to be confused with the Whiskey Bay Channel.

 The Whiskey Bay Channel was socked in.

 La.975, the gravel road to Sherburne.

I got off at La.3000 and took it to La.76 which  goes into Rosedale.

 Arriving at the UP rails it is evident that construction of the double track is going forth.
I hadn't seen this and had shot wildly because I was turning on the depot road.

 A couple of years ago I'd found the old Texas & Pacific Depot.  

It was being used by the Pointe Coupee Art Council.  I would meet them later.

 The oak is magnificent.  The depot sure was sitting a ways back from the tracks. 

I'll bet it was moved..

The bay window out front is the giveaway.

I settled in. 

Here came a guy in a white pickup looking official. 

He was going to work on the water tower. 

I intervened and introduced myself and told him I was a terrorist.

That breaks the ice.

He said he was wondering what "was up".

I told him about the train coming.

He wasn't that interested but later I saw him circling looking for it.

His worker was interested and plotted his day to stay close to the tracks.

His diligence, though no work done, paid off. 

I think there's a new trainee in Rosedale.

I had to sit a while but, nevertheless, I got to view a parade of trains, some northbound, some southbound.

 Not bad work if you can get it.

As a lull in the train parade occurred, the ladies and gents of the Pointe Coupee Art Council appeared.

The head lady recognized me as a terrorist and couldn't have been more accommodating.

She insisted that I  park the truck in the shade and told me to come to their next exhibit 

and to bring some of my pictures.

Then I heard the radio. 

This "foreman" guy was evidently a big shot and was telling the dispatcher to get his  

on the line ducks off the main  because a special Amtrak train was coming through.

That predated the actual appearance of said "special Amtrak" by an hour.

But then finally:

The horns are immediately identifiable. 

There's the special engine. It was not 66, the one I'd seen pulling another load of old cars in Lafayette 

where the conductor had to get off the train and face down a freight conductor.

AMTK 822 & 162

 The names are above the cars, "City" refers to the train "City of New Orleans". The date is the arrival date.

 Lambert's Point - CITY 4/19

 Northern Sky - CITY 4/19  and   Northern Dreams - CITY 4/19

 Caritas - CITY 4/19

 Cimarron River - CITY 4/19

 Prairie View - CITY 4/19

 Federal - SUNSET 4/18  "Sunset Limited" train

  Pacific Sands - SUNSET 4/18

 Tioga Pass - SUNSET 4/18

 Berlin - CRESCENT 4/17  "The Cresent"

 Dearing - CRESCENT 4/17

 Georgia 300 - CRESCENT 4/19

 The Agent gave me this list of cars and how they had arrived in New Orleans.

I took the time to identify them.  You're welcome.

 800255 Berlin - CRESCENT 4/17
800029 Dearing - CRESCENT 4/17
800702 Lambert's Point - CITY 4/19
800710 Northern Dreams  - CITY 4/19
800045 Caritas - CITY 4/19
800069 Cimarron River - CITY 4/19
800606 Prairie View - CITY 4/19
800588 Northern Sky - CITY 4/19
800111 Georgia 300 - CRESCENT 4/19
800713 Federal - SUNSET 4/18
800355 Pacific Sands - SUNSET 4/18
800693 Tioga Pass - SUNSET 4/18

Individually the cars are too sterile.  It was a train not singular exhibits.

 This is how she came by.

 Now this is surprising. 

After it left so did I. I headed to Livonia with no hope of catching it but I did.

Evidently the train had been hung up in the yard.

I caught it as it was exiting the US 190 overpass.

I took another sequence but it was through the windshield as I was driving beside it.

A redisplay is senseless.

Knowing these places is priceless.

 The engineer had blown greetings to us at the depot and the passengers were waving. 

It don't get no better.

Everybody happy, mon.

The ride home was anticlimactic as were the few shots I took. It was a good morning.

 I want to thank the Agent again for making it all possible with his updates and information.

Orange Engines

It didn't take long for me to come up with a name for this one.   

I wish the material which follows would have spawned a better, more interesting handle.

The pictures are mediocre. That is why they are here. 

Here are the new pictures with a brief explanation, no history and little geographical explanation.

After my excruciating day of doing the nastiest stuff you can do with a motorcycle it was payback time. 

The Blue Grape would have to produce.

At New Iberia I caught this weird arrangement which was getting ready to go north.  

Louis measured their connection.

No matter which way they went .. it was crazy.

I know a fella who uses "that's crazy" way too much. 

That's crazy and on the same level as "high fives"

which replaced smiley faces as obnoxious.

Oh, well, I'm obnoxious.

Backward running engines are obnoxious.

I'm seeing a relationship with no future.

There is no way at least one of them can lead.

The north bound futureless kissing engines went  past a waiting tug that was sitting on the 

old Missouri Pacific branch which  once went to Port Barre. 

 This is the best picture of the day, so be forewarned.

The futureless kissers left and the waiter left, too. (no tip)

 

I had not come 30 miles to look at orange engines.  I wanted to see if the returning Sunset Limited was 

pulling the classic cars it had with it last night when it was 2 hours late and dead stopped out on the Plains

 west of Jennings, La.

On location south of New Iberia.

 You hear the train and you wait. And, you wait some more because the horn is so loud. 

Then it sneaks up on you.

Could this phenomenon lull idiots into thinking the train is far off? 

Then whack, a gazillion pounds of hard steel hit you at 70 mph,

And, you wake up in Beaumont.

No fancy cars. I returned to the Blue Grape.

This old house, south of New Iberia on what was once US 90,  has been a personal stopping place for a

 long time. There is a farm house and  still an out building or two  

Maybe Lafitte slept there.

  I just removed 4 pictures that were not fit for any internet page.  

You didn't miss anything.

No lipstick or Shakespearean prose could doll up those trolls.

To prove how bad, the following get included.

It's Roger the Dodger in his high rail inspection vehicle driving south.  How do people get these  jobs?

 He doesn't even have to steer.

 
I know someone that should have rolled that dispatching job over to this gig. 

Talk about "coasting".

 

At the University St.overpass a train sat.  I knew the routine. 

The duo were switching the east yard which  required it

 to go outside of the  yard's limits requiring  a mainline "work between" warrant.

 At South Pierce St. I got this fairly mediocre shot.

 Then I was drawn to the BR. The rails between the salt mine and Teurlings St. 

are down right spooky even in the daytime.

 Something was down there.

 Everything got dark as a red faced creature wearing a miner's light appeared.

 The cloud had passed after depositing hundred of muddy gaspagoo upon the landscape.

It was not a salt mine devil, it was Mz. Utah, aka The Red Bird, and her crimson beak.

What a relief  to end this story in the absence of Orange Engines