More Pics of SP 745 Moving To Gretna Fest

[Jimbaux is one part saint, two part sinner, and the last part still on the line.]

You whoadies and foamers might remember a recent article on NOLA Post that showed four pictures of the SP 745 being moved to the Gretna Heritage Festival nearly a month ago.  Here, I present the rest of the pictures I took that day.  Actually, just to make the story flow well, I will include again the four shots that the NOLA Post article showed.

Here it is blasting (well, maybe not) up the Huey P. Long Bridge behind a BNSF locomotive at the hands of the New Orleans Public Belt Railway.

I was standing next to my old pal Chico when I got these shots, and there were some foamers and people associated with the Louisiana Steam Train Association on the other side of the tracks.  I guess, and subsequent evidence indicated this is as well, that they like backlit pics of their beloved steam locomotive.

The name painted on the side of the caboose is “Duplechain” for Ray Duplechain, retired manager with the Southern Pacific and the NOPB, and reader and frequent commenter on Jimbaux’s Journal!

Dupe even commented on the aforementioned article on NOLA Post, and he’s likely to comment on this page too!

Occupy?

After that, it was time to go and shoot some of the OccupyNOLA craziness.  Yeah.  My father said that his favorite picture out of that series was the on the in Part 1 of the people with jobs and at work taking a break from work to watch the parade.

Back To This

So, To Avondale I went, and I shot the parked train sitting and waiting for a yet-to-be-on-duty Union Pacific job to shove it to Westwego and the New Orleans & Gulf Coast Railway.

Here (above and below) are a couple of shots down some empty yard tracks.

Here’s a broadside of the waiting train and crew.

Yeah, sometimes, backlit pictures are okay.

The Way Things Could Have Been At Nine Mile Point Road

Nice sunlit land is at Nine Mile Point Road as I wait for the train.

Well, that will be a great shot, won’t it?

The Way Things Were at Nine Mile Point Road

Here’s the way things were.

Oh, well.  In case anyone cares, there’s a UP SD70M shoving the train, and the UP job is the WG54.

NOGC

Now, the New Orleans & Gulf Coast Railway picks him up in Westwego.

To the right of these pictures is a wye.  The NOGC locomotive will uncouple from the train, go around the wye, couple to the other end of the train, and take it through the wye.

That’s the NOGC pickup truck in the above picture.

Now, he’s crossing Louisiana Street.

Below, the train is now going into the wye, having crossed the street again.

This is the eastern leg of the wye.

Now, he’s going down the western leg of the wye.

Hey, look!  Now, he’s going the other way, and he has a train with him that he’s shoving!

Now, he’s coming down the eastern leg, this time with a train in tow.

Here’s the locomotive crew.

Not enough for you?  Here’s more.

I think that this is the generator car, or something like that.  I don’t know.

And I think that this is the Jefferson, but I’m not sure either.

There was a small crowd of people watching and photographing from either side of the track.  On the south side, there were a few ladies watching at the fisheries market.

Now it’s time to shove the train back to go and pickup the pickup truck.

The conductor has to flag the crossing for traffic on Louisiana Street.

Here comes that caboose!

We now see the traffic on Louisiana Street with the Mississippi River in the far distance (behind the levee, of course.)

And here’s the gaggle of people on the northern side of the track, one of whom told me that that steam engine had run tourist trains out of Bell Chase about a decade ago.

Of course, I had to correct him about this, saying that this thing had likely never been to Belle Chase and that the locomotive of which he was thinking was in Colorado.

And that’s really all there is to it, my friends.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this.  I really need to run.

Jimbaux