Creatures of the swamp rise as does the sun at Chacahoula. The warm haze envelops the Cajuns starting their day, or, more often, passing through this travel junction of a hamlet, rolling fastly down the highways, and perhaps even stopping for fuel and breakfast at Wilson’s, the only retail establishment in this small village on a spit of relatively high land in an otherwise low and swampy area of northern Terrebonne Parish.
The people are not the only things moving this morning, though, as the ground begins to rumble in a place with land far too spongy for anyone to be able to feel a normal earthquake. No, this is not the sound of plates shifting, unless plate steel is what we mean, but the MNSEW carries plenty of forms of steel out of central Alabama.
The crossing bells start ringing, and the motorists at the major crossing in town, still not fully awake in their morning commutes through the swamps, stop to allow the MNSEW to pass (and, please, take a step back, as this image looks much better if you are standing about 8′ away.)
Steel on steel, wheel on rail, while the photographer is already vexed by the drenching late spring heat, even at dawn, although this day is not bad, the maintenance of the MNSEW’s velocity becomes progressively unnecessary, as it must stop to wait for several minutes at the Bayou Boeuf Bridge a dozen miles to the west, as cypress trees and oak trees, alligators and turtles, surround the steel coils and steel pipes.
And, soon, very soon, the tail end of the MNSEW, which had arrived in New Orleans as Norfolk Southern train 393 and was delivered to the Union Pacific there, would leave Chacahoula in its wake, the wind it generated being soon overcome by the stifling thickness and perpetual stillness of the southern Louisiana spring-summer air, the natural default state of things, even as the motorists, this photographer included, went about their day and about their lives.
Jimbaux
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Great shots, been there long-long ago. But we were always headed into the sun; SP train 48. We referred to that train as a “Hot Shot’. You recall those times?
Thanks for share these pictures. We (Marilou and I) love the first one, it is so dramatic than I could keep watching it for long time and wishing be there.
Have not neither enough and correct words to describe my feelings when I am watching this pictures.
Please correct my bad english.
Arnulfo
Monterrey Mx.
This is very good! I photographed this same train on the same day in Lafayette! Yours came out much better LOL. I love the colors the rising sun is giving off.
Hey, man! I do remember that shot that you posted somewhere. That url you just put under your name takes me somewhere where we can only see thumbnails, but I remember your shot of this same MNSEW later that day:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/76207783@N03/7218946502/in/photostream
In fact, I had intended at first to include a link to it in my narrative in this post, but I just flat out forgot. I would not call one shot of it better than the other for us, since you caught where you caught it at the time of the day that you caught it, and the same is true for this shot.
What I guess we can all learn from this is that a glint shot does wonders in hiding a peeling paint job. The paint job on the lead locomotive looks terrible in your picture, but in mine, the full light of day has not hit it yet, but you can still tell that it’s a Norfolk Southern unit!
Thanks, man. It’s cool that we both got the same train several hours and several dozen miles apart.
That URL is the webpage for my pictures and you just click on the thumbnail to view a larger picture. It is nothing fancy but it works.
That location i took my picture at was an experiment to see if it would come out any good. I though that it would because of the curve but it isn’t sharp enough to my liking. Plus, the paint job could of been better. LOL. My original plan was to shot it just down the line near the Elks sign. Elks is were, what i call, the L&D’s Lafayette Job stores the cars that are for the industry’s along the Breaux Bridge branch. Anyway, i thought it would of been a nice touch to have that sign in the bottom corner of the picture.
I like how you can see the light coming through the trees giving your picture a twilight effect and hiding the ugly paint like you said. I just got all excited because you seen the same train i did and i always enjoy that LOL.
Great shots, I can feel the heat and humidity, and did something just bite me?
Great pictures!! And that’s coming from someone who can only take a half-decent photo when the sun is coming over his shoulder.
Paul
Newmarket, Ontario
Right about now with the wind howling,snowing sideways and the temp a balmy 20 degrees up here in New England the heat and humidity in this shot looks damn good.
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