Back in the year 2000, Ron Findley and I went exploring on the lower west bank of the Mississippi River. Our primary goal was the New Orleans Lower Coast Railroad. They had their “headquarters” in Belle Chasse, Louisiana, and we stopped there to examine the facilities. As I recall, this was a Sunday and the railroad was at rest that day.

The railroad was known to have a small fleet of EMD F unit locomotives that they had purchased from several sources, and they were stored there. I don’t believe any of them were in use on the road, at least not at that time. But they did have working locomotives, one of which was the #1229. She was originally an EMD SW9 built in 1953 for the ATSF Railway as their #2429. It was later rebuilt as an SSB1200 (the SSB designation stands for a rebuild at the ATSF San Bernardino shops, hence SSB for Switcher, San Bernardino).

After the NOLR acquired the locomotive, they repainted it with the rather unique striping done in “Mardi Gras” colors green, purple and yellow. Scuttlebutt has it that this paint job design was the work of New Orleans resident Mike Palmieri (who has since defected to Texas). Mike was affectionately known as Dr. Diesel while here due to his encyclopedic knowledge of diesel-electric locomotives.

Originally I decided not to use this photograph for today’s posting due to the clutter surrounding it. But after studying it a bit more, it grew on me. I rather like all that clutter, so typical of that found around shortline railroads. Note just a bit of an F unit cab at far right, one of several sitting patiently on the line awaiting a call to duty some day.