Most of my readers are aware of the Canadian National (former Illinois Central) line that runs east from Baton Rouge to the connection with the north-south mainline in Hammond.  This line has been under an upgrade project for some time now, with lots of tie replacement, plenty of new ballast, and most significantly, the replacement of all the small wooden bridges and trestles to concrete and steel structures.  I had made a note to myself some time ago that I needed to photograph some of the old wooden trestles before they were demolished.  On a recent trip over to Hammond, I had driven down Hwy. 190 which parallels the line for much of it’s length.  I was shocked that only about a half dozen wooden structures remained, and those were grouped in a rather small area just west of Livingston.

So, this past weekend I grabbed the camera and set out to document these last few hold-outs while they still exist.  My aim was to not only document the structure, but to take some close up shots that I could use for detailing and creosoting (painting) these same structures on my own layout.  Here are a couple samples from the 60 or so images that I grabbed.

This is typical of the trestles left, a few are a bit shorter:

And a close-up view of a couple bents:

This is a small “bridge” (actually, more like a big wooden box culvert):

Note the variations of color and texture on the wing walls:

The day was clear and bright and I over exposed a bit because I wanted to get some of the color and detail beneath the trestles.  It is very apparent why most models painted flat black don’t look much like creosoted structures after you study these images.  Not only are the many colors apparent, black, grays, tans, etc., but the textures and streaking are very pronounced.  This should be interesting to try to simulate.

More later…

-Jack