Jimbaux knows that slow change may pull us apart.
Think Of The Tender Things That We Were Working On
Well, so begins life without my Samsung Galaxy Tablet that I got only in November 2019 as a replacement from my 2015 tablet that finally crapped out, but at least I am getting a replacement one soon.
Yesterday, I lost my tablet while out foaming in the Lake Charles area.
So, today’s journey back to the homestead was tabletless; not only was this tabletless foaming, but it was also completely sans any smart device. Even the telephone that I had could not tell time properly!
For the past two weeks, I have been adding to the backlog more than I have been processing it, even as I have gotten that big Mobile post out and the one the day before it, and all of the shots from 6 January 2020 done but not blogged.
Anyway, here we go in this stupid Trumpy society.
The two Senate runoff elections in Georgia are today, and I’m really eagerly anticipating what happens there.
I don’t remember why I didn’t get to the track in time to see the eastbound morning run from the port, but I didn’t. My first shot is at Gerstner of the westbound run back to the port.
That was one of those “this is what it looks like” shots, not any kind of “this is a good picture” shot.
Furthermore, figuring that, due to the lighting angles, I wouldn’t be able to get any decent shots of him anywhere until Lake Street, Lake Street is where I went.
Approaching, from the east, crossing Enterprise Blvd, the port line in the morning sunlight reminds me of foaming in the northern part of Monterrey, like the old TFM along Pino Suárez, with that track next to the street, where I photographed some action early on 29 December 2006.
Anyway, here we are at Lake Street.
Here, our 12-car train begins to cross Lake Street.
I then sprint out into the field to get the wedge shot seconds later.
I was huffing and puffing when I made these shots!
What happens in Georgia today could alter the fate of humanity.
That is an old Chicago & Northwestern car in the middle of the image below.
Hey, look, an MKT car!
This is the only place between here and the port that you can get this wide of a vantage on the track, and I’m probably trespassing, but I am increasingly less morally perturbed by the act of briefly running into an open, occupied field to get a picture. Nobody created the Earth.
Next, I went to West Walnut Street just to see what the shots looked like there, not to photograph the train, which had already passed.
Imagine that.
The port is in the background in the above image.
I have the feels, man.
After eating leftover grilled vegetables and helping The Duke move some OSB and vinyl soffit and after getting told by my mother than I am putting on weight, I left for the homestead at 11:37.
I stopped at the Farmers Rice Milling Company.
Some of the cars that were here on New Year’s Eve are still here.
This seems a bit repetitive and insipid, but cars of this variety are some of the most interesting cars on railroads of 2021 (though they’d have been relatively more boring 40 years ago), and seeing them without graffiti is even rarer.
I wish that I could see this on the Abbeville Branch, still.
The pine trees add to the picture.
Again, I hope that the repetitiveness isn’t bothersome, but I am autistic!
Here is a look back east-northeast toward the mill.
That’s all for Lake Charles for today, and probably for a while, too.
Earlier today (I think), I had noticed a for-sale sign on the ex-MoPac UP property along Gerstner Memorial Boulevard, even though UP still uses much of that land, and it really got me to thinking.
I have been fantasizing about daydreaming about owning and operating a railroad transload facility, like unloading cars of construction materials and other things at that location.
Anyway, next, already too late in the day, I made a vain attempt at catching action on the Acadiana Railway branch between Eunice and Crowley.
The “Don’t You Forget About Me” song was playing when I was southbound on Hwy 91 approaching Estherwood. I turned north on Hwy 13 from Second Street in Crowley at 12:40 after finding no sign of the Eunice train.
Here I am at Mowata, surprised to still not have found a train.
This place is interesting, and I would love to know more about its history.
I got to Eunice just as the AKDN crew was tying up the AKDN 4106 at 13:23!
Also, it looks like it brought back one car, one nongraffitied car, for UP interchange, meaning that I missed a train devoid of graffiti (at least on the lit side of the train, which is what matters here) on this line!
Also, it’s a KCS car! What is a KCS car doing on this line?
Apparently, I need to learn that this train gets back here earlier than I thought, that what I saw on December 22, my first time foaming this line, was anomalous.
I think that, since I was already in Eunice, far from I-10 and next to US Highway 190, I briefly considered going east from Eunice to as far as Opelousas, to do some more exploring of new territory since I was already this far north and needed to go eastward anyway, but, for whatever reason, I decided that I wanted to go back south from here, to Crowley.
So, I then, for the first time, experienced just driving all the way between Eunice and Crowley without stopping.
I have had so little time to think about Facebook lately!
After I got to Crowley, I got on US Highway 90 to go east.
I discovered a good broadside shot west of Rayne, and I decided that I would turn around to return there if I intercepted a westbound train, but I didn’t intercept any westbound train here.
In Duson, work was being done on the North A Street crossing.
I got to Lafayette.
In Lafayette, I noticed a big cement place right next to and north of the track just west of Apollo Road, and there is no railroad service to the facility.
There was a westbound BNSF Railway manifest train dragged out past Ambassador Caffery Parkway, there was no shot available, and I wasn’t going to wait to find out what this thing was doing to chase it back to Rayne to my broadside shot, which might not be lit well anymore anyway.
Let’s just say that I think that I am over Whataburger.
Let’s just say that I hope that I am and fear that that prediction doesn’t last well.
Trying to get to the Amtrak depot in Lafayette was frustrating!
I hate saying this, but, for as cool as town as Lafayette is, its railroad scene is really lame.
The L&D BR job was done for the day when I passed Elks. I need to dedicate a day to foaming just that job.
So, I got to New Iberia. I noticed that the LDRR 1850 was being worked on by the depot, and it looks like the LDRR 1500 is being scrapped, which makes me really, really sad.
So, I hung out at West End Park, and some BNSF hopper cars were on the job doing switching at the interchange yard.
I think that these cars are used for the loading from trucks from nearby sugar producers.
This is the best that I can do here.
I wish that I could see these really-neat-for-2021 cars out on some branchline around here.
Here we are at the depot.
That’s the 1850, with which I have a long history over the last 20 years.
There were sugarcane fields ablaze, and all that I did for my remaining time here is photograph sugarcane fields burning.
Yeah, I can’t look at scenes like these without thinking of that run-in that I had with a farmer because I was standing on the shoulder of a US highway photographing his burning sugarcane field.
It’s both funny and sad.
So, as the fires were on the northern side of the track and as the sun was on the southern – or western – side of the track, I went south to get a new shot to find a way to get railroad cars and fires, or, at least, smoke from the fires, in one picture.
So, this is how this day ends for me.
What this also means is that, for me, this is how the beginning of 2021 ends.
I am really eager to find out what is happening with the Georgia election today.
But the fires and the industry here makes me think of sustainability, and problems that we have to solve now if we want there to be a human civilization a century from now.
Oh, well, this was fun, but these cars are not as interesting as the cars of 20 years ago, or even the cars of one or two years ago, when the rice mill in Abbeville was still active.
That’s all.
I may not take pictures again for a few weeks.
Have a good 2021.
Jim
