New Orleans Trains – 9 February 2008

Jimbaux sees you at the crossroads, crossroad, crossroads . . . 

Here’s a look at the railroad action in New Orleans on Saturday 9 February 2008, a post that is brief but which shows some variety despite its brevity.  Much-if-not-most of the railroad action in New Orleans is interchange traffic among the major railroads that reach it, as seen here.

KCS On The NOPB

We’ll start with the Kansas City Southern Railway.  Actually, this track along the Mississippi River is the New Orleans Public Belt Railway, which KCS train M-SHCX from Shreveport uses to reach the CSX across town.

This picture was taken at 11:39, and the Alexandria crew aboard this train had until 11:59 before it would have hog-lawed.  The CSX cars toward the front of the train were likely picked up at Barmen or Reserve.

The NS Back Belt, Where The Action And Interchange Is . . .

Now, we are further north, away from the river, along the Norfolk Southern’s “Back Belt” line across the city, where most of the interchange among the major railroads reaching the city (six of them, all big railroads in the USA and Canada except for Canadian Pacific) takes place.

Here we see CSX train Q601 from Waycross, Georgia, next to the LSU Dental School a few miles from crossing the Mississippi River and being delivered to the Union Pacific Railway at Avondale.

A CSX yard crew was aboard this train, but a few minutes and a few hundred feet after this picture was taken, it would swap crews with UP train QLIHL on the closer track (the “north main”), each yard crew heading back home with another train instead of in a crew van.  The QLIHL – Livonia, La., to Hamlet, NC – had some of these new CSX hoppers.

Comint suggested I should stay on the scene a little while longer.

393!

Yes, kiddies, it’s the 393, probably my favorite (if I were forced to pick one) run-through train on this line, and here is our shot of the day, a view that I’m increasingly hesitant to do the older that I get; I guess it’s true that as one ages, he is less likely to take needless risks.  I did plenty of stupid stuff in 2008, actually, just like 2007, 2006, 2005 . . .

NS train 393 is built in Birmingham and is a solid interchange train bound for Union Pacific in New Orleans.  The NS Meridian crew was still aboard the train when this picture was taken, but the UP crew would board not much farther to the west.

That’s Interstate Highway 610 at left, and the bridge goes over St. Bernard Avenue.  The tail end of the QLIHL (now with a CSX yard crew aboard, as I mentioned) can be seen at right, having gotten out of my way just in time!  You can see the cranes off in the distance at the France Street area of the Port of New Orleans.

That’s it.  That’s all that I have for you today.

Merci,

Jimbaux