Today is Thursday 5 September 2019, and the Louisiana & Delta Railroad’s Abbeville Branch was served today afternoon for the first time in nine days.
LDRR 1846 arrived in Abbeville late in the afternoon with two empty hopper cars, one of which had arrived in New Iberia on the Union Pacific local train on the night of Wednesday 28 August, a few hours after I photographed it coming through Baldwin, and the other of which I guess arrived in New Iberia on yesterday’s UP local train, which arrived New Iberia after 22:00; I had tried to catch it (last night’s train) at a new shot at Jeanerette, but I ended up getting some decent shots of a westbound BNSF Railway manifest train instead.
It seems as though UP has been running a few other trains on the Lafayette Subdivision lately.
Also, it’s really hot.
Global warming is awful.
Anyway, at 16:49 CDT, I saw the headlight as I was driving across the track on Duroq Street.
So, I went to South Guegnon Street to set up a shot that I had had in mind.
I like that. Let’s see a wider view.
Okay, cool, here comes the train.
Dammit! There is some really nasty graffiti on that second hopper car (and some graffiti on the first hopper car.)
Did you read my rant about graffiti in the middle of the big, long post of August 16, the last time that I photographed a train on this branch? What do you think of it?
So, the first car on this train is the one that arrived in New Iberia one week ago last night, and I guess that the second one arrived last night.
Anyway, here we are at the mill.
I guess that I’ll try something different, as this is already getting repetitive.
Something must have been wrong with the switch that governs the track going to the old packaging plant here.
Anyway, the view is good, right?
Peartree checked it out, but there was no need to go to the former packaging plant today.
Below, the LDRR 1846, having left its inbound train at left, goes into the main mill complex, where there are five cars.
Below, the are putting the cars that they have just pulled out of the mill tracks into the runaround track.
Now, it’s time to put the inbound empty cars along with one of the cars that was just at the mill but wasn’t loaded into the mill tracks.
That’s a different view of Peartree protecting the shove than the one I usually show.
This man started doing this back in the mid 1970s!
Now, Peartree is standing by his outbound train, looking at the locomotive and the cars at the mill.
The 1846 had pulled four of the five cars that had been at the mill for more than a week and then respotted the other one along with the two that it had just brought to town.
The train would leave the mill with four loaded hopper cars.
They waited a while to leave, why I do not know, but I did get some redundant views that showed various defining elements of this scene and what it means to me and people here.
I like the swooping view of the mill track and the view along it into the loading area.
That building at the right in the background was a school many years ago, and many kids in the area would have seen trains at the mill from those windows.
So, it’s an iconic scene, but, in so many ways, it is Everytown, USA-Canada, and that is part of why I love it so.
Yeah, I am sorry to be so redundant.
Okay, I, too, have had enough.
The train departed from the mill area just before 18:00.
Here it is crossing South Young Street, where there was, decades ago, some railroad-served industry.
Here it is at South Hospital Road.
Finally, here it is at South Airport Road.
Let’s see that cropped.
You would think that this was the 50,000th picture taken with my camera, given the numbering, but, some weeks ago, the numbers inexplicably jumped far ahead. I have taken a ridiculously large amount of pictures since March, but there is no way that that amount is 10,000.
I really wish that these CNW and SSW cars were wearing their original paint!
The train stopped at Coastal Chemical to grab an empty tank car.
That’s really all, mes amis.
I’m hungry.
Sometimes, you just have to do what you have to do.
It was good, of course.
That’s all.
Peace out.
Jim
