Jimbaux sees that now there’s a look in your eyes Like black holes in the sky.
Food, Friends, And Trains
Hi, there. My pal The Mid-City Marine and I had a good time today, even though we saw only two trains.
We had a good long talk, and that really was the point, but we also got to see a cool train pulled by a cool locomotive, much better action than what I got yesterday.
Pre-Dawn Walk
I was out for a walk at 05:20 this morning at the first center of the universe. If that railroad track were still there and still active, I’d totally want to live here.
I heard the sugar mill.
The present owners of the house got rid of the crepe myrtle trees, I noticed this morning.
So, I had a conversation with the host last night about the whole Thing, and it kind of didn’t really go anywhere; it’s difficult to describe. She sortofkindof leaned into that whole thing of like others did to say that I can’t complain; she didn’t go there, but it’s as if she got halfway there. That’s the thing. The Mole Cousin and The Mid-City Marine never did that; they said that what was done to me was wrong, and that that’s it. It should not have happened.
But the host did seem to agree that the whole thing is just a mess.
The thing is that the agent never will admit that. I guess that it is motivated reasoning. He has never been good at admitting getting something wrong. When he does get something wrong, he just stops talking about it, he just drops the issue, but he never says that he got it wrong.
Oh, look at that sugar mill. It should be shipping railroad cars.
At 05:28, I looked into the sugarcane field in which I ran and played.
Oh, how I want to return here. Oh, how I want the train to be back here. I absolutely want this. Give me the train again. Give me the Airslide hopper cars. I’d love the caboose, but that might be asking for too much.
I saw somebody pulling a boat early on a Saturday morning.
Yeah, it would have been weird having been here as an adult.
Yeah, give me the CF7s, the Allegheny & Eastern ones. I want to hear those horns, those soft, beautiful horns blowing at each of the many crossings east of here, giving this long time of ascending sounds warning as it gets closer and louder. I want to hear that. I want to hear the screech of those wheels. I want to see the boxcars.
The poboy from Off The Hook was pretty good.
Give me a train.
I want to see trains here. I want to live in that house. Heck, I would use that art studio for something. Damn, took the windows out of it. Heck, I’d just sit in the garage. The garage would be my hangout area.
I had trouble getting to sleep last night. I was Gchatting with The Mid-City Marine until really past 22:30ish. He was talking about his family. I was kind of hungry. So, that’s part of why I had trouble falling asleep. That poboy was kind of small and too early. I ate some trail mix and probably three of those protein wafer crisp bars and maybe two Keto fat cups.
I figured that today was going to be rough, because I didn’t have much sleep. I woke up at 03:00 very hungry. So, I have slept not much more than four hours.
Look at these rails. Wow.
Don’t ever take this out. This is historic. I know that it’s a trip hazard and all of that. This should never have happened. We should never have pulled these rails up.
We could have had a Thibodaux-Donaldsonville passenger train. Yes, we could have done that. We could have had a Thibodaux-to-Baton-Rouge passenger train, a little Budd RDC; we could have started it by the hospital somewhere.
It’s funny; I started caring about this place really hard only when The Thing really started to happen.
I was thinking that I might go to McDonald’s first and get some sort of eggs or something to eat. I missed my eggs yesterday.
I want to see that GP35 pulling a three-car train, two old hopper cars and a tank car past here.
I wish that I had a scanner. I wish that the Union Pacific Railroad ran more trains around here anymore than just the local train.
I wish that I could sleep better.
I wish that this had never happened to me.
I wish that I didn’t wish so much.
I like this enclosed porch on the old house. Look at our old mailbox. I totally would come back here.
I returned to the host’s house to take my jacket off and put it on the hood of my truck. On my way there, though, at about 05:45 or so, I suddenly caught a whiff of a pretty awful smell. I couldn’t see anyone smoking cigarettes, though, but, then, I am walking in front of the old Shell house, and there is some dude with no shirt on walking back inside of the house. I’m like, okay, what a jerk. That’s what it is.
I don’t give a damn about that I have to be sensitive to them. What’s wrong with THEM?
“You’re sensitive to cigarette smoke.” Okay, you’re insensitive to cigarette smoke, you’re callous to cigarette smoke, and, most of all, you are callous to other people to the point that you think that it’s okay to subject them to such an irritant; that’s bad.
It bothers me that smoking became less common for personal health reasons and not something that is related to health reasons, which is that it’s a rude thing to do to the people around you.
Like, if I had been born 50 years or 100 years earlier, I’d be just as irritated by all of this. Like, okay, it smelled the same back then. That alone should have been a reason to stop it.
At 05:48, a TracWork pickup truck turned right, southward, onto The Drive and crossed the track here, which is ironic, on this morning. I surely wish that they would work to build this track back.
I was thinking about something that the host said last night, though, that does indicate that she kind of understands, not like a direct confession on her part, but she does understand the unfairness of my situation, like how every encounter now, I just have to lie, and she said “just lie.”
It’s like, okay, so, you understand the situation that I am in and the wrongness of it if you think that I should lie.
Anyway, the whistle at the sugar mill didn’t sound! What??
So, that’s unfortunate, and that makes me happy that I came out here to hear the whistle when I did in the last six years.
I remember coming here the week before I got that awful job at MJ, and that was when I also realized that something about Stacie with that Trey guy. Amazing.
I returned to the host’s house to do some things before I left. It was interesting driving away from my genesis early in the morning, as if I was going to school or work or something from there.
Schriever Visit #1
At 07:21, I was in the shade between the depot and the track at Schriever, kind of enjoying this, well, it’s a little cold.
I paced around.
There was no lumber car there, unfortunately.
LDRR 1712 and LDRR 1847 were here.
Ethyl Kennedy died.
Let’s have a look to the east.
You can see the pickups nearer to the camera and the setouts at the other end of the track, and there are a couple of loaded centerbeam cars among the setouts. I don’t know if they were there yesterday. If they were, I don’t know why these guys didn’t spot those cars yesterday. I feel like they should have.
Unfortunately, ever since the 2007 closure of Valentine Paper, the loaded centerbeam flatcars are the most interesting cars around here.
So, I am looking to the west, looking for a headlight.
That reminds me that I have to call Julie, Amtrak’s automated agent, to see what’s up.
There are at least four tank cars back there on the Houma Branch.
I’d want to live in that old house even if it was just tank cars to the sugar mill, but I wish that it was so much more than just that.
So, yeah, I am just pacing around; there is nobody here, early on a Saturday morning, and I love it that way.
At 08:24, I saw that there were still shadows over the tracks. So, I am realizing, and this is something that I probably knew a long time ago and just forgot, because I haven’t been here in a while and haven’t even tried this in a while, but, it’s like, okay, when I did that shot back in May at around this time of day, maybe a little later, the sun is closer to the track; it’s further north. So, it’s coming like down the track rather than at a 45-degree angle like it is now.
There are these old steps where I used to write my journal entries.
I finally heard from The Mid-City Marine at 08:03 saying that he would be leaving shortly. So, he was running late, which upsets me, and not surprising, since he was talking to me late last night, but the real problem was that his wife is sick, and that caused him to have to handle some additional tasks before he could depart.
I was yawning. I was so tired. It could be a long day, I was thinking, hoping that I would sleep well tonight.
At 09:12, I cranked the engine on to leave Schriever to go and meet my friend. So, for future reference, it might be a better idea for him to just come meet me at Schriever, because that would mean that I won’t have to break off when a train might be coming.
Back In Thib
I initially planned for us to meet on the Campus, but I went there and got the sense that that wasn’t going to work. So, I told him to meet me at PJ’s, and then we’d bring his truck to the Jean Lafitte park.
I wanted to get some eggish breakfast before I meet up with him, as I missed my eggs the day before due to not realizing that Taco Bell had stopped serving breakfast. I got my three sausage burritos at McDonald’s. Then, I went to campus and ate them by the stadium.
That is so sad.
Anyway, then, I went by the parking lot east of Talbot Hall and realized that it was rather crowded for a Saturday, making me think that parking enforcement might be out and about today, making me think that my friend parking here might not be a good idea.
So, I got the idea for him to just meet me at PJs and then we could take his truck to the Jean Lafitte center.
I drove by where the East Thibodaux Junior High School buildings were, and it was amazing just the total change of scenery at that intersection, because there is basically almost no trace that there ever was a building there; it’s amazing. There is grass growing where the buildings were. I don’t think that grass could have come back that quickly, but maybe it could have. So, maybe that grass was planted. It looks kind of nice; it’s just sad to see the old school building gone.
I wonder where a certain cousin of mine works now.
I got to PJ’s, beating The Mid-City Marine there. There is a nice little shaded area by the bayou.
I didn’t go to the drive-thru, but this is what it looks like if you’re standing there.
That’s interesting.
Here is a sugarcane truck on Highway 308.
At 09:52, my friend finally arrived at PJ’s, and I was standing outside of the northside entrance when he drove into the parking lot. So, that’s cool.
Now, we just have to get our stuff.
Our order at PJ’s took a really damn long time, kind of irritating, and I was worried that it would make us late for photographing the westbound Sunset Limited. It would have had the train been running on time
So, we brought his truck to the Jean Lafitte place, and, then, we went to Schriever. There was some sort of little festival happening by that Carrot Patch place or whatever. We went down Church Street, and I showed him the roadbed of the old SP Thibodaux Branch. Work was being done on the roundabout. I didn’t have time to take him by the old house.
Schriever Visit #2
We got to Schriever. Ever since the 2012 schedule change, the shot options for the #1 around Schriever when it’s not sufficiently cloudy are not good. We checked out the three shot options and elected on this one, the first one chronologically, which is a going-away view of the train at the depot.
The Mid-City Marine had come through Schriever to get to Thibodaux. He could have just met me here and picked up coffee at McDonald’s in Gray.
By the switch by the Old Schriever Highway was a guy on a motorcycle who appeared to have a scanner and appears to be waiting on the train. At first, I thought that it might be Steve The Levee Rider; then, I realized, oh, that might be Nitro or Donovan. It didn’t look like Donovan. It could be Nitro. I doubt it. It could be Steve The Levee Rider; I don’t know what he looks like. I don’t know; it’s somebody, point being, kind of a shaved head guy.
He left and later returned.
We waited.
At 11:25, Paul spotted a headlight, and I heard a horn. So, here comes the train.
Yeah, this is about as good as it gets in these lighting conditions when you neither have a drone nor an interest in chasing the train until the lighting conditions are better.
It has a private car on the rear, a Patrick Henry car.
Well, at least we got that.
Showing A Friend The Genesis
I showed him The Genesis.
It was annoyingly hot and bright there.
We returned to the Jean Lafitte place, apparently wanting to push back our lunch a little bit.
That’s cool.
Food And Frustration
We ate at Off The Hook.
I had a salad, and it was good.
Yes, of course people don’t have a right to know my embarrassing story. That’s completely beside the point. The point is that that should never have been done to me in the first place.
A Long Wait, A Good Conversation, And A Satisfying Catch At Melodia
We really did do a lot of talking for almost four hours sitting there at Melodia. I took a crap in the sugarcane field west of Melodia Plantation Road right by the track, my first trackside crap in a while. I can’t think of the last time that I did that.
We had a good conversation. So, it was as if we were just sitting at the house talking.
Finally, at 17:31, we saw a headlight!
Evelen minutes later, we have our first picture.
Whoah, what is this???
It’s an EMD SD40N leading – and being the sole power of – the train!
This train usually warrants either some four-axle locomotives or some more modern six-axle locomotives. So, it’s nice to see this old Spartan-cab six-axle locomotive leading!
I surely wish that the plate steel would have been at the front of the train and that that boxcar wouldn’t have been graffitied, but I’ll take it.
It’s still a great train for 2024 standards, and it was worth the wait.
I counted 23 cars; it looked like four boxcars, two flatcars loaded with plate steel, five tank cars, and the rest are hopper cars, most or all of them carbon black. There were 12 hopper cars, and I am sure that 11 of them were carbon-black hopper cars.
That was a very-cool-looking train. Paul didn’t want to chase it. Since Schriever is kind of on the way to Thibodaux, I decided that we should go there on the off chance that the train had to stop there, since doing so wouldn’t cost us much even if the train passed there before we could catch it.
Schriever Visit #3 – Satisfaction At Sundown!
I said that the earliest that we’d be ensured to catch the train would be in Morgan City. Paul didn’t want to chase it. He wanted to go eat. I, too, wanted to eat, but I also wanted to chase that train, as it was a really cool train, but then I said, well, we don’t have a scanner, we don’t know, on the off chance that he has to stop in Schriever for some reason, like for a meet or to realign the switch, that we would not beat him there.
So, we did, and, as it turns out, as I was driving over the track on Highway 20, I saw the headlight to the east! Wow, he is not even here yet.
We will be able to get a shot of him here after all!
So, as it turns out, he had to stop to get into the siding for a meet for an eastbound BNSF Railway train!
This is train LALNWO, originating at BNSF’s Lafayette Yard and terminating at New Orleans Public Belt Railroad’s Cotton Warehouse Yard, composed mostly of interchange traffic for the Canadian National Railway.
This train had only 23 cars!
The light really was fading fast, and here came our train.
I am glad that the LALNWO had completely passed by this point, because I don’t like the sight of a train right on front another passing train.
This is a great way to end the day.
So, like I told Paul later, that UP local train is in the siding and we are on the northern side of it, which puts it closer to us than it would have been had it been on the mainline. I don’t like getting the shot that close. I would prefer it be on the mainline so that it’s less of a head-on shot, so that we can see more of the train, but, had it been on the mainline, we would not have been able to beat him there (unless he had to stop to close the east siding switch), and, then, basically, the sun sets.
So, that is as far as we could have chased that train. So, we did everything possible in the solution space.
Suppertime!
I don’t know how we decided on Rotolo’s, but I vaguely recalled that it was a result of my guest searching for choices on the internet on his telephone.
The meal was great! It was expensive, though, but mainly because I ordered too much.
He talked about his job, which is cool. I now kind of understand it better.
I couldn’t eat all of the pizza that I bought, and that’s because I bought too big of a pizza, but the reason that I did that is that I was worried about being able to sleep tonight.
So, I took a to-go box with a few pieces left, and we called it a day. I brought my friend to his truck, and we parted ways, with a great day.
I’ll share some reflections on this day tomorrow, as I am sure to take pictures tomorrow to make a blog article.
Peace.
Jim
