15 July 2007 – Slimy Sunday On The Lafayette Sub

[Jimbaux wants you to open up your eyes to the beauty that is right in front of you, and maybe point your lens toward it too!]

The More Things Change . . .

Here are some pictures that I just reworked this morning (five years to the day after I took them) accompanied by some text that is only slightly modified from an e-mail I sent out to friends that night with the pictures, e-mails that were a precursor to the existence of Jimbaux’s Journal.  The below images and most of the text were made on Sunday 15 July 2007.

The More They Stay The Same . . .

I was back briefly in Bayouland this weekend, and I took the opportunity to do some greyday photography.  This afternoon as I was down on the farm, I hear a “UP 9120 west” give a job briefing past milepost 48.  Something about this made me jump out of the chair for reasons I didn’t know.

I got to Schriever and realized why.  The 9120 is a freshly painted C40-8, and I think that I saw this unit yesterday on the Q-LIHL here in New Orleans.  I guess Gentilly must have sent it back to Avondale.  The UP 9120 was leading UP train MNOEWB-15 (Manifest – New Orleans to Englewood Yard, Houston, of the 15th of July, the “B” distinguishing it from the MNOEW, which was a separate train.)

Here are two images of the M-NOEWB-15 rounding the curve at Chacahoula.

That wasn’t so great, but this next shot is probably the shot of the day, and you’ve got to love that freshly-painted standard-cab Union Pacific GE in 2007!

I was already getting to be good at this cloudy day train photography in 2007 (yes, this sentence is obviously written in 2012.)

Don’t Try This At Home, Or Anywhere Else, Ever Aagain

This is the first and probably last ever time I do this shot.  Conditions have to be just right for it, and I apparently was able to safely determine that nobody was behind me at this point.

Anyway, as the caption (which is in the filename, which you can read by holding your mouse over the picture) states, this is the Bayou Boeuf Bridge.  This bridge has since been replaced with one that looks similar.

After shooting the train here, I thought that my next shot would be the overhead shot at Bayou Sale.  I hadn’t done that shot since February, and I wondered if it was worth the time and gasoline to drive way out there. I stopped at the Wendy’s in Morgan City to grab some food, thinking that the MNOEWB would overtake me there, but it didn’t, to my surprise.

Bayou Sale

Finally at Bayou Sale, the MNOEWB-15 met BNSF train M-LALNWO1-15 (Manifest – Lafayette, La., to New Orleans, 1st section, 15th of July.)  You can see the LALNWO sitting on the siding to the right as the MNOEWB passes it.  The LALNWO’s destination is the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad’s Cotton Warehouse Yard along the riverfront in Uptown New Orleans (and no longer goes there now that BNSF has terminated its contract with NOPB.)  If the shot at Chacahoula isn’t my shot of the day, this is.

How’s that?

Too Much Drama At The LEC

The St. Mary Parish LEC, that is.  The LALNWO sits at the east siding switch at Bayou Sale with a red signal.  I’m halfway surprised that I didn’t a visit from law enforcement here since just to the right of the picture is a “corrections facility” complete with barbed wire and guard towers.  Anyway, check out that Oakway unit.  Those things are (or were) cool.

Someone please explain to me how to do good color correction with these crappy cloudy broadsides!

Berwick

Yes, Berwick is where we just were recently with our black cat.  The Berwick Bay lift bridge had just been lowered as our LALNWO approaches it at track speed.

That was neither great nor lame.

Chacahoula Again, But This Time Different

This last image is of a shot that I have probably not once done since this, and I trust you can see why I’d love to get my hands on a 300/2.8, but that’ll have to wait.

“For being my first train pictures in almost three weeks, I guess these are okay,” I wrote at the end of my 15 July 2007 e-mail.  Wow, not only did I have a life back then, but I didn’t realize then how good of a life I had!  The lesson for today is that no matter what is happening, life is good.  Remember that, mes amis.

Merci,

Jimbaux