Wet And Wacky Monday On The Lafayette Sub – Part 1 of 3

[(Bel Biv) Jimbaux has finally realized that that girl is poison.]

Are You Ready?

Sensing that my freedom to do things like chase the Chip Local was soon coming to an end, I decided on Monday afternoon to not only photograph it like I’ve been doing in the last few weeks, but also to chase it to places where it does its work and photograph it there, something that I had not done in a long time.  I’m really glad that I did this!  However, this expedition was not without its share of some variety of peril as we shall learn in due time.  You’ll soon learn how Jimbaux channeled his inner knucklehead.

She’ll Make You Think You’re Dreaming

This is the first of a three-part series on my efforts on this Monday 8 August 2011.  Remember that caption information for pictures can be found in the filename of each picture, which can be seen by holding your mouse over the picture.

The #1 is First

Appropriately, we start the afternoon with the #1 as Jimbaux was chowing down his chicken wings from Wilson’s (which was featured in the last post featuring Chacahoula), and, yes, we’re doing the same old shot at Chacahoula, but, don’t worry, things will get better today; I promise!

Yes, although each shot of the #1 here is unique because each one is a little bit different, it’s still getting old.  Fortunately, it’s the last time you’ll see this train at this location for awhile; unfortunately, that’s because it’s the last time you’ll see a new shot of this train at all on this site, though that too is not a really bad thing for a variety of reasons.

Chip Time!

Just like often happens, Chip was following closely on the #1’s heels.  While I’ve shot westbound trains at Horseshoe Road many times from both sides of the track, I don’t recall ever doing the shot from the south side from the top of my truck until this:

How’s that?  Considering the lighting and the length of the train, I think the top of the truck is a better vantage than the usual head-ground-level shot I normally do there.  I’m not sure if it counts as a ‘new’ shot; I guess not.

You can see that Chip has seven cars today.  The last four are gondolas loaded with pipe bound for Patterson Pipe in Morgan City.  I’m not really sure about the other three cars.  Here he is a few minutes later at Chacahoula:

Not too bad, eh?

Next, we’re in Donner at Deadwood Road.  This is even more of an almost-new shot than the one of Chip at Schriever, as not only was this the first time I’d done this shot from the top of the truck, but I’ve only done this shot at all (while standing on the ground) once or twice before.

You can see why I not only like shooting the Chip Local at these locations, but also why I don’t like shooting larger road trains at these locations, as only in certain locations like Bayou Sale can you really get plenty of the mile-plus length of a regular road train in the shot.

Okay!

Should Not Say “Should”

Chip was going to Morgan City and was going to run around his train there (to put the locomotive on the eastern end of the train) to serve Patterson Pipe, which is about a mile east of the runaround track.  What I should have done was shot him from the Wyandotte Bridge, where I had yet to take a picture since going digital more than six years before.  However, in life, we don’t always do the things we should have done.  Although I think I ‘should’ – a word I’m slowly learning to purge from my vernacular – have shot him at Wyandotte, this is what I did instead.

One of the many reasons why I’m trying to get the word “should” out of my vernacular is that even with things that one “should” not do, there are gems of truth that one can learn, and so it is true with the above shot.  Even though the above shot is lame, there are things we can learn both from the shot itself and from the act of getting it; what have you learned from the above shot?

Getting The Rain Around The Runaround

As I crossed Bayou Boeuf after Chip did, I saw one of the darkest hues of blue and cyan that I had ever seen.  I could tell that the sky would soon open up and drench us.  I mentioned in the post about last Friday’s foaming that I had not done the overhead shot at Wyandotte since my film days, and I decided that I’d break that drought today, especially as I have since gained both the ability to take good cloudy day pictures as well as an appreciation for the merits of such pictures.  (Perhaps I should make a post one day about how I learned in 2006 that clouds don’t suck afterall.)

In any case, Chip beat me to the Wyandotte Bridge, but I knew that he’d be running around his train in Morgan City, just about a mile west of the bridge, and that I’d have a chance to shoot him going back east with his train.  Comint also revealed that Chip would not move east until an approaching westbound train passed him.  So, I had a chance to shoot Chip running around his train in Morgan City:

In the picture above, as the rain is falling, the HLCX 3863 (a locomotive that some of you are tired of seeing) has just detached from the train, which it left in the runaround track, and has come back onto the mainline to make the runaround.

Near The Cajun Piglet Pen

We’ll learn what that subheadline means below the picture, a picture looking west (as opposed to the above picture) showing the unit on the mainline soon to back into the runaround track to couple to his train and clear the mainline for the approaching westbound.

Now, there’s something very special about the location of the above picture.  It is near the crucible of learning for one of southern Louisiana’s greatest railroad photographers.  For those of you who think I’m talking about myself, guess again!  Y’all need to write to my homie The Cajun Porkchop and tell him to get himself camera’d!  After you get done looking at my shots of the Chip Local, take a look at his shots of the Chip Local!  Aren’t they cool?  And that isn’t even his best work.  See, the thing about Porkchop is that he’s never actually owned or used an SLR camera!  I’m trying to change that, though.

Any serious photographer who is also a good photographer who also has decent camera gear inevitably has someone come up to him from time to time and say something to the effect of “I’m going to get nice camera gear like you so I can take nice pictures like you,” to which someone like myself can only respond with the rolling of eyes.  I know at least one railroad enthusiast who I know has better camera gear than I do and takes mediocre pictures.  Anyway, Porkchop is a shining example of the opposite, someone who takes great pictures with mere point-and-shoot clicker cameras because he understands lighting and composition.

Wow, that was a long explanation, and I haven’t totally explained what it has to do with the above picture!  Anyway, Porkchop really got exposed to trains, and has some Southern Pacific memories from his early childhood, from the very section of track you see above, as he attended Wyandotte Elementary School and was able to see trains from there!

For The First Time In More Than Six Years . . .

. . . I take a picture from atop the Wyandotte Bridge.  In this case, we are looking at Union Pacific train MNSEW, which is essentially Norfolk Southern train 393 that NS (hence the “NS” station origin code) hands to UP in New Orleans, makes a setout in Avondale, and terminates at the ex-SP Englewood Yard (hence the “EW” station destination code) in Houston.

In the above picture, the front of the train is just about to pass the switch that leads to Patterson Pipe at left, where Chip will soon set out his four pipe loads.

If I Were You I’d Take . . . Precaution

(You’re not listening to today’s song?)  Though he did not know it at the time, Jimbaux was about to have a very big SNAFU at the area at the right edge of the frame in the below picture.  (To the girlfriend of Chip’s engineer, please don’t give it away to the other readers of this site!  That will be revealed in Parts 2 and 3.)

Just as I return to Louisiana, UP has finally decided to run most of its westbound road trains bound for southern Texas and beyond via the Lafayette Sub.  In December 2009, as the number of carloads tumbled continent-wide when the Great Recession hit, UP rerouted its remaining westbound traffic onto the Livonia Subdivision; the only UP trains left here were the LLS51 (the Chip Local) and the MAVBT, which is basically a ‘superlocal’ that does setouts and pickups in New Iberian and Lake Charles and arrives in Beaumont a completely different train than that which left Avondale.

Bell Biv Jimbaux

So, as of about a few days before these picture were taken, UP has put the MNSEW, the MCXEW (CSX Railroad, New Orleans, to Englewood Yard, Houston), and the new IAVLB (which you saw a few days ago) back on the Lafayette Sub.  The ZATLC – the CSX Antlanta to Los Angeles intermodal train – still is going via Livonia, however, because unlike those other trains, the Z-train continued northwestward on the T&P and went via Dallas.

Here’s a going-away shot of the NSEW:

The block of chlorine tank cars is one of the spotting features of the NSEW.  The large truss structure seen in the distance on the horizon is the US 90 overpass over the Atchafalaya River.  Paralleling it is the railroad lift bridge, which the Cajun Porkchop immortalized when the SP 745 made its run across the Lafayette Sub on the Bicentennial tour in the spring of 2005.  Jimbaux was on the scene then that day too, and that was the last picture I took from the Wyandotte Bridge until this day!  Yes, it’s all circling back, mes amis!

It’s Drilling Me Out of My Mind

That’s why it’s hard for me to find.  Anyway, here’s one last shot of the MNSEW, showing a block of cars that’s always a better spotting feature than the chlorine tank cars, the block of NS gondolas loaded with drill pipe.

I think that plenty of that pipe originates in Birmingham.  Anyway, between the pipe seen above on this Houston-bound train and the pipe that you will see Chip deliver in Part 2, you can see how much of a vital role the oil industry plays in the northwestern coastal areas of the Gulf of Mexico.

Well, I hope that you’ve enjoyed this.  Stay tuned for Part 2, which will not only show you some great pictures but will also reveal Jimbaux doing something really stupid!  Again, to the girlfriend of the engineer of the Chip Local, don’t give away the story!

Also, please post in the comments section what your favorite photo of this post is and why it is your favorite.  That’s one form of feedback that I love getting, because, usually, the photo that’s your favorite is not my favorite.  So, let me know!

In the meantime, check out how one of the former TFM SD70MACs has now been repainted in KCS’s Heritage colors, perhaps the first of that group of loc0motives to receive this treatment.

So Sayeth Nonc Pat . . .

Also, if you haven’t already done so, check out the comment the younger brother of my recently-deceased grandfather left on the last post and my reply there to him; I didn’t realize we had that connection!

All for now . . .

Jimbaux