Jimbaux searched for form and land
For years and years he roamed
He gazed a gazeless stare
They walked a million hills
He must have died alone
A long, long time ago.
A Hot Mess
Family fragments, and I fragment with it. This probably was inevitable. I probably never had a chance.
I read the story in the newspaper that I picked up this morning on cane burning, and how a guy got killed around Kaplan from a field fire, actually, a rice field fire.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/20221205_072410-ff-RGB-w-Lafayette-Surgical-Specialty-Hospital-Lafayette-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
I leave the hospital to search for trains. I quickly find some L&D action on East Willow Street.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/060929-RGB-w-LDRR-1708-pulls-a-train-from-the-salt-mine-westbound-East-Willow-Street-Lafayette-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
This train is returning to Lafayette from the salt mine near Breaux Bridge.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/060931-ff-RGB-w-LDRR-1708-pulls-a-train-from-the-salt-mine-westbound-East-Willow-Street-Lafayette-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
It’s a lame-looking locomotive, but the cars would be super cool were it not for the damn graffiti.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/060933-RGB-w-badly-graffitied-but-otherwise-super-cool-for-2022-Southern-Pacific-boxcars-in-train-from-the-salt-mine-westbound-pulled-by-LDRR-1708-E-Willow-St-Lafayette-Louisiana-5-Dec-2022.jpg)
That is absolutely revolting. Those are some really cool old Southern Pacific boxcars with big “SOUTHERN PACIFIC” lettering on the side that has been defiled by graffiti.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/060934-RGB-w-badly-graffitied-but-otherwise-super-cool-for-2022-Southern-Pacific-boxcars-in-train-from-the-salt-mine-westbound-pulled-by-LDRR-1708-E-Willow-St-Lafayette-Louisiana-5-Dec-2022.jpg)
It seriously pisses me off, because, were it not for the graffiti, those old cars would be about the coolest thing on railroading in 2022.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/060938-RGB-w-LDRR-1846-at-the-end-of-a-train-pulled-by-LDRR-1708-from-the-salt-mine-westbound-East-Willow-Street-Lafayette-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
“The Man Who Sold the World” by Nirvana was playing on 106.3FM Lafayette right after I shot these pictures.
I was really struck by this row of houses along General Mouton Avenue just west of East University Avenue.
Then, I was listening to Moon Griffon. He had a caller on about the supposed tyranny of tax credit to buy electric automobiles. As it turned out, the caller is the state treasurer named.
I stopped at Elks to photograph boxcars in the storage track.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/060939-RGB-w-boxcars-parked-at-Elks-East-Verot-School-Road-Lafayette-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
Dr Fontenot called right at 10:50, right as I was about to turn southward on South Landry Drive in New Iberia ahead of LDRR 1717 working the yard.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/060940-RGB-w-LDRR-1847-and-some-cars-being-pulled-eastward-in-the-siding-South-Landry-Drive-New-Iberia-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
It is ironic that, a few nights ago, either Friday night or Saturday night, I went through the pictures of the day of a certain funeral, at which I made some similar photos at the crossing there.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/060941-ff-RGB-w-LDRR-1847-and-some-cars-being-pulled-eastward-in-the-siding-South-Landry-Drive-New-Iberia-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
These are my first pictures of L&D action and, really, my first action shots of trains other than the lame shots that I did on September 29 in Lake Charles since Peartree’s last day of railroading.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/060942-ff-RGB-w-LDRR-1847-and-some-cars-being-pulled-eastward-in-the-siding-South-Landry-Drive-New-Iberia-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
I really like the inclusion of the loaded sugarcane trucks in the picture.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/060944-RGB-w-automobiles-including-two-loaded-sugarcane-trucks-and-trailers-waiting-as-LDRR-1847-and-some-cars-are-pulled-eastward-in-the-siding-South-Landry-Drive-New-Iberia-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
Some of the product made from that sugarcane will move via this railroad.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/060947-RGB-w-automobiles-including-two-loaded-sugarcane-trucks-and-trailers-waiting-as-LDRR-1847-and-some-cars-are-pulled-eastward-in-the-siding-South-Landry-Drive-New-Iberia-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
Next, just after 11:00, I am at West End Park, a place of tranquility and sadness.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/20221205_112945-ff-RGB-w-the-Louisiana-Delta-Railroad-switching-the-interchange-on-the-siding-West-End-Park-New-Iberia-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
It was warm and mildly Breezy there, barely comfortable in the shade, and this L&D job has dragged eastward on the siding to where both ends of it are invisible from where I am standing.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/018937-RGB-w-tank-cars-on-the-siding-West-End-Park-New-Iberia-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
I am about to call Julie, Amtrak’s automated agent, to check the status of the number one.
I soon decided that making my way back to Lafayette would be the best idea. So, that’s what I did.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/060949-ff-RGB-w-LDRR-1846-working-at-Southpark-US-Highway-90-Lafayette-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
I am crazy.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/060950-RGB-w-BNSF-Railway-Lafayette-Yard-eastward-view-Ambassador-Caffery-Parkway-Lafayette-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
It’s weird that there is this job with one car at the end of BNSF Railway’s Lafayette Yard.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/060951-RGB-w-western-end-of-BNSF-Railway-Lafayette-Yard-Ambassador-Caffery-Parkway-Lafayette-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
Anyway, here is a better view, an eastward view, of the yard.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/060952-RGB-w-BNSF-Railway-Lafayette-Yard-eastward-view-Ambassador-Caffery-Parkway-Lafayette-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
Life is weird, I guess.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/060953-RGB-w-western-end-of-BNSF-Railway-Lafayette-Yard-Ambassador-Caffery-Parkway-Lafayette-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
So, this is why I am here.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/060959-RGB-w-westbound-Amtrak-SUNSET-LIMITED-passing-BNSF-Railway-Lafayette-Yard-Ambassador-Caffery-Parkway-Lafayette-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
I have never done this shot before, not of any train in that bypass track, and here I am doing it with the westbound Sunset Limited.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/060964-RGB-w-westbound-Amtrak-SUNSET-LIMITED-passing-BNSF-Railway-Lafayette-Yard-Ambassador-Caffery-Parkway-Lafayette-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
So, this is a first.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/018942-RGB-w-westbound-Amtrak-SUNSET-LIMITED-passing-BNSF-Railway-Lafayette-Yard-Ambassador-Caffery-Parkway-Lafayette-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
I am glad that I did it, but I don’t imagine that I’ll do it again.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/018943-RGB-w-westbound-Amtrak-SUNSET-LIMITED-passing-BNSF-Railway-Lafayette-Yard-Ambassador-Caffery-Parkway-Lafayette-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
Whoah, wait a minute.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/060970-RGB-w-westbound-Amtrak-SUNSET-LIMITED-passing-BNSF-Railway-Lafayette-Yard-Ambassador-Caffery-Parkway-Lafayette-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
Actually, this going-away shot is pretty cool, and it suggests that a shot of an eastbound train here would be even cooler.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/060974-RGB-w-westbound-Amtrak-SUNSET-LIMITED-passing-BNSF-Railway-Lafayette-Yard-Ambassador-Caffery-Parkway-Lafayette-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
Okay, so, maybe I will try to photograph the #2 here some time, if it ever gets here before dark, which would be difficult even around the summer solstice.
Well, I am really hungry.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/20221205_124751-RGB-w-Whataburger-Louisiana-Highway-182-Lafayette-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
This, too, is an addiction, a pathology.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/20221205_130132-ff-RGB-w-Whataburger-Louisiana-Highway-182-Lafayette-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
Yeah, maybe I will get over it one day, but that ain’t likely.
![](https://jimbaux.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/20221205_135227-RGB-w-South-College-Road-at-West-Pinhook-Road-Lafayette-Louisiana-USA-5-December-2022.jpg)
Well, that’s all for the pictures for the day.
I hope that you liked them.
Family fragmentation is so tragic.
This is especially true when you don’t have something with which to replace it. 😢
Well, maybe I’ll get some good pictures again before the weather warms.
Peace.
Jbx