Greetings, and welcome to the August 2012 Sampler essay, which will largely follow the pattern of the “July 2012 Sampler” essay, which itself largely followed the pattern of the “June 2012 Sampler” essay.
That pattern includes the Wednesday-and-Friday Chip routine. I had a job near the western limits of the Chip Local, the Union Pacific Railroad local train that worked out of Avondale via the former Southern Pacific railroad mainline to Morgan City. Fortunately, where I worked was not only close to the Chip Local’s route but also very close to its western limit, meaning that I’d sometimes cross the river to check out Berwick to make sure that the train wasn’t there and just work eastward from there.
The amount of Chip Local pictures here in these posts from the spring and summer and even early fall of 2012 might seem excessive, but I knew at the time that the opportunity of which I was taking advantage would not last; a few months later, I quit that job, and a few weeks after that, Chip retired, and I hardly-ever-again photographed that train, which was abolished some time around the beginning of 2019. So, after November 2012, I have zero pictures of Chip and not much more than zero pictures of the train that was once his assignment.
With that in mind, here we go.
Friday, The 3rd
On this day, I didn’t get any Chip pictures or any train pictures, but I did get one picture of something moving ‘on’ the track.
We’re at Raceland Junction there.
Saturday, The 4th
Here’s a shot that I may not have done at any time other than on this day, due to the great difficulty in doing it.
At left, that is a New Orleans Public Belt Railroad job on its way to Canadian National Railway’s Mays Yard, and I guess that the BNSF refrigerator car – really unusual here – is going to some industry on the Hammond Subdivision. That’s the skyline of downtown New Orleans in the background!
Sunday, The 5th
This was a very memorable day on which I got many pictures in many locations, all with one of my best friends, and here is the daily transfer run between the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad, including cars from the Kansas City Southern Railway, and the CSX in New Orleans leaving NOPB France Yard.
The Mid-City Marine and I then chased a Canadian National Railway grain train almost as far as the Sunshine Bridge after the crew reported us as being suspicious, probably because he probably got about as tired of his train being photographed as we were of photographing it, where we then went to the other side of the river and got some action on the UP Livonia Subdivision before I brought him to his grandmother-in-law’s house and then proceeded down the bayou to ‘my’ ‘own’ house, the one that I would, a few months later, learn that I would lose.
Wednesday, The 8th
This is then day on which Chip told a trainee “that’s my personal photographer” at Patterson Tubular, where they pulled 11 empty gondola cars after spotting some loaded gondola cars.
He talked to a BNSF MofW person in a truck at North Boeuf. He then talked to me as he was protecting the shove across the highway!
They made setouts and pickups at North Boeuf, and they picked up eastbound L&D tonnage – 20 carbon black cars – at Ursa.
Friday, The 10th
Chip ran around his train in the Morgan City track. The train arrived there with one tank car and eight loaded pipe gondola cars, which were for Patterson Tubular, at which Chip pulled the 11 gondola cars that he brought there two days before.
Later, he picked up two hopper cars at North Boeuf, where Maintainer Jared Gilmore was working, and I got some pictures of him, too.
Sunday, The 12th
Heading back west for the week in this already-tired routine, I passed the track at Waggaman, where I found the Luling Local returning to Avondale Yard.
The former Southern Pacific mainline in is in the foreground, and the train is on the Drill Extension track along the former Texas & Pacific Railway mainline in the background.
Sunday, The 19th
Here is a westbound bare-table train, Union Pacific Railroad train INOLBR-18, in Patterson.
Yeah, there I was working the weekend again. I don’t miss that.
Tuesday, The 21st
I was already there leaving the workplace, I saw, and I took out the camera just in time.
That was that.
Wednesday, The 22nd
Here are some of those Norfolk Southern Railway bar cars, loaded, on UP train MNSEW westbound at Donner.
I would then see the INOLB emerging from the siding in Schriever westbound and get a shot of it at Horseshoe Road.
Friday, The 24th
My first pictures on this afternoon are of BNSF Railway manifest train M-CSXLAL crossing the Atchafalaya River eastbound as the Big Daddy sits at the dock in Morgan City.
Then, 26 minutes later, I caught Chip eastbound at Patterson Tubular, where he made a setout of two cars and apparently no pickup. He had 10 carbon black loads with him, I guess picked up at the Morgan City track, and also three covered hopper cars and a box car.
I caught him again at Amelia but have no photographs of him after that, which makes me wonder why I didn’t stop at North Boeuf. He had a black orangie with him today, and, like the other Chip oraniges, this orangie eventually waved at me. I guess that Chip is training railroaders to be foamer friendly!
LLPX 2272 was the power on the train, and Boudreaux was at the controls.
Sunday, The 26th
Once again, I am awakening in New Orleans – well, close – on a Sunday morning and taking pictures of trains (actually) in New Orleans on a Sunday morning, but, on this day, something weird is happening. Tropical Storm Isaac is approaching.
This is the typical New Orleans Public Belt Railroad transfer run from the CSX with the Kansas City Southern Railway interchange traffic seen in a view at the Alvar Street overpass that I rarely did due to its difficulty, and that’s the Norfolk Southern Railway’s Chalmette Branch that crosses the NOPB here, with the bridge over the Inner-Harbor Navigational Canal in the background. The train is actually shoving northward to make a pickup here.
Monday, The 27th
Basically, everyone’s goal on this day was to prepare for Tropical Storm Isaac. That’s what we at the newspaper were doing that day, and that’s what the railroads, too, were doing on this day. Here is BNSF Railway train S-NWOSCO, a West-Coast-bound intermodal train originating at BNSF’s since-closed intermodal facility in Bridge City, stopped westbound at Thibodaux Junction, at milepost 54, waiting just before dusk on space ahead of him to clear up.
This is the location of the beginning of the SP Napoleonville Branch and, later, the L&D Supreme Branch, something that I miss terribly.
Tuesday, The 28th
Morgan City was getting ready for Isaac.
I will just say that I met some interesting people in the process.
Thursday, The 30th
It was time to go back to work, I got some pictures of the effects of Isaac in Schriever at dawn, and, on the way back home, I shot this view of Jimmy’s Corner Bar in Boeuf, with its flooded parking lot.
I went to Gibson on this day, apparently.
Friday, The 31st
Just as I ended the previous month with a wildlife picture in the swamps of Chacahoula, so, too, do I end this month with a wildlife picture in the swamps of Chacahoula.
At least that creature is less threatening.
That’s all.
Jim
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Good shots JR………….keep em coming……….Later