I've been a model railroader and railfan for well over 60 years now. My interests lie in the steam era and the early diesel era. My modeling has been in HO, but I do have a closet interest in Fn3 :-)
It's been a number of years since I've done any layout construction, and the new Louisiana Central pike under construction is by far my most ambitious effort. Follow along with me on this new adventure of the Louisiana Central.
In late 2023 I published a photograph of the Southern’s rare NW5 locomotive, the #2100. The locomotive and train it pulled were largely backlit with a setting sun, and the details of the locomotive weren’t easily discernible. That image was recorded in June of 1965. Today I’m offering a couple other views of the #2100 taken in later years.
A bit over five years later, in August of 1970, Mike Walsdorf recorded this view of the #2100. One noticeable change made to the locomotive is the headlight, now using twin sealed beam lamps.
The Southern NW5 Locomotive #2100 is crossing St. Claude Avenue to the median, New Orleans, Louisiana. -Mike Walsdorf
Photographer Mike Palmieri captured this view of the #2100 in April of 1976. She now sports spark arrestors atop her stacks, but has lost the class lights on the long hood.
The 2100 was the only NW5 on the Southern, and one of only 13 locomotives of this model. It was built in January 1947, and spent most of its life in and around New Orleans. It finally left after the arrival of some new MP15DC’s in August 1977, and was retired two years later. The passenger car is ex-New York Central 4-4-2 IMPERIAL EMBLEM, which was owned by the New Orleans Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. -Mike Palmieri
The NW5 was EMD’s response to the Alco RS1 locomotive. It was a 1000 hp NW2 switcher built over a stretched frame which allowed the use of Blomberg trucks* and larger fuel and water tanks. They also added the short hood to house a steam generator for use with passenger equipment. It isn’t clear (to me) whether this Southern unit had that option within its short hood. *These were smoother riding “road” trucks, designed for the F and later GP unit locomotives.
Railroad car ferries were fairly common in Louisiana many years ago. And one of those ferries was a part of the Southern Pacific. I came across the image below sometime back and it was a ferry that I’d never seen before. I decided to learn a bit more about it and digging around on the internet, I found pieces and parts which I’ve tried stitching together here.
The first thing I noticed when studying the photograph was the large “Southern” on its side. I didn’t recall the Southern Railway as having car ferries in the New Orleans area, so wondered if the word “Pacific” was hidden behind the curvature of the hull. The second clue were the initials “ML&TRR”. That turned out to be Morgan’s Louisiana and Texas Railroad or more fully, Morgan’s Louisiana and Texas Railroad and Steamship Company. Wow! Reading a bit more on Wikipedia, the ML&TRR had become an operating subsidiary of the SP. The SP at one time had quite the maritime empire, including both ships and ferryboat operations. In the New Orleans area they had railroad car ferries operating between Avondale and Harahan, and Algiers and New Orleans. This photograph appears to be the latter location, with the docks in New Orleans on the east bank of the Mississippi. There is much more information at these Wikipedia links if you’d care to learn more about these operations: History of the S.P. and T&NO Railroad.
The freight cars shown are interesting, the Orient car is the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway (KCM&O). The other car appears to be the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific (CMSP&P), better known as “The Milwaukee Road”. Both appear to be all wooden cars utilizing truss rod construction, and supported on arch bar type trucks.
After doing all the research, I found this same photograph on Shorpy (which has a huge library of images dating back into the 1800s). Some of the information that I had already discovered was on their description of the photo, and in the comments therein, and they date the time as circa 1910. Unfortunately, even Shorpy doesn’t identify the photographer.
A couple weeks ago I posted a view of a Kansas City Southern train as it was descending the bridge that crosses the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. That view of the bridge was its east side, which is in the City of Baton Rouge. Not many photographs are taken over on the west bank of the river as there isn’t the interesting combination of bridge over bridge over roadway. Nevertheless, the western side is much more serene, and fortunately photographer Tom Blackwell documented that side as well.
This image was taken in July of 1982, and KCS train #84 is slowly descending the bridge. So typical of the KCS, motive power is all EMD power and consists of F3A #4052, F7B #73B, GP7 #4150 and an unidentified SW1500. If you look closely, you can see a bit of the river levee just behind the road that crosses beneath the bridge. The levees prevent flooding in the spring when the river is surging.
Photo by Tom Blackwell, from the collection of Michael Palmieri
The Louisiana Cypress Lumber Company was a fairly extensive operation in the first half of the 20th century. They had a store and mill complex located on U.S. Highway 51 just south of Ponchatoula, Louisiana. The company harvested a huge amount of cypress over the years, transporting the logs over an unusual railroad that was largely built over swamps.
Steam locomotive #1 was the company’s “mainline” power used for hauling the log trains from the swamps to the mill. In March of 1948 C.W. Witbeck recorded this view of the locomotive at rest at the mill. She is a standard gauge 2-6-2 “Prairie” built in April of 1921 by H.K. Porter. She’s powered by 12″x16″ cylinders using 170 psi steam and has 9,250 lbs. of tractive effort. She’s a coal burner and has 37″ drivers. I was fortunate to see this little steamer back in the early 70s. I had photographed the mill’s #3 which was on display out by the highway. Then driving down the gravel road alongside the mill, I spotted a whistle poking up from behind (I believe) lumber stacks. I stopped and walked around and there she was! I did take several photos, but they were unfortunately lost in a flood many years later.
According to the last information I was able to find, she was last owned by Samuel Warren Frye of Griffin, Georgia, and was on display at the Roosevelt Railroad Museum. Ralph Hawkins has several more photographs of the little Prairie on his website HawkinsRails. Be sure to scroll all the way down to see the #1 at work. Herron Rail Services produced a VHS tape years ago titled “Glory Machines 5”. It has some nice footage of the #1 at work in the swamps.
Photograph by C.W. Witbeck; Phil Kotheimer Collection
The date is January 19th of 1985, and photographer Tom Blackwell has positioned himself to capture a Kansas City Southern train as it slowly descends from the Huey P. Long – O.K. Allen Bridge. This bridge crosses the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
The train is the #55, and is powered by GP40s #785 and #758, along with an unidentified GP38-2. The train has come from Dallas, and was headed to the Norfolk Southern Railway in New Orleans.
The bridge was built in 1940, and is similar to another bridge built down in New Orleans named the Huey P. Long Bridge. This bridge (known locally as the Old Bridge) is named after two of Louisiana’s past governors. At this time there was a large Kaiser Aluminum plant built on the bank of the river, and adjacent to the bridge. The bridge was constantly coated with bauxite dust from the plant, and in the mid 60s was repainted an orange color so that it matched the dust color for the length of the bridge. Eventually the aluminum plant was closed and dismantled, and the next bridge repainting brought it back to its original light grey color.
You’ve likely noticed the concrete/steel rail bridge crossing beneath the railroad bridge viaduct. This is the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad (now the Canadian National). The roadway beneath it all is U.S. Hwy. 190, the eastbound lanes at left, and the westbound lanes barely discernible through the bridge structure at right.
Photo by Tom Blackwell, from the collection of Michael Palmieri
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.
For this first posting in the month of June, I’m featuring a photograph from the 1986 calendar published by the Louisiana State Railroad Museum, it being for their month of June. I’ve paraphrased the caption for the image below.
“Born in 1835, the St. Charles Line has seen steam, horses, mules and electric propulsion. The 962, a Perley Thomas style streetcar, turning northbound onto Canal Street, NOPSI was still the operator and the fare was an incredible 15 cents. RTA celebrated the line’s sesquicentennial on September 28, 1985 with a massive streetcar parade. (Photo from the collection of Regional Transit Authority)”
The scene is New Orleans, Louisiana. The photograph has no date, but I’d estimate it to be in the early~mid 70s (the date mentioned above was for the later celebration). NOPSI is the acronym for New Orleans Public Service, Inc., the operator of the streetcar and bus system at that time. Also at this time, streetcar operation over the length of Canal Street (the “main drag” of the city) had been terminated, and buses took over the route (one of the new style “fishbowl” buses can be seen at the right). The St. Charles line was the only one left, and the scene is the end of that line, with the car entering Canal Street for a block, then turning again onto St. Charles Avenue for the journey in the opposite direction. As a side note, the city eventually restored streetcars to Canal Street, and has even extended service to a few other streets.
The image shows the car in it’s “updated” appearance at the time. Earl Hampton, a resident authority on the New Orleans streetcars, offered this brief history of the cars with information regarding their rebuilding:
“The rebuilding process started in the early 60s with the 35 cars that were planned to be saved, getting an aluminum roof and those rounded and gasketed windows. Then in the late 60s the cars were rebuilt again, receiving aluminum windows and vestibules. In 1971 the conductor was eliminated (the motorman now had to also collect the fares) and the cars received the look shown in the photograph. Then in the 90s another rebuild was scheduled. The RTA decided to replace the bodies, but preservationists objected. It was at a meeting with preservationists that l (Earl) suggested that they return to the original look, receiving the original rectangular windows on the sides, ends and doors.”
The cars look so much better with that restoration in my view. Fortunately, the cars still have the “old, original” look today.
In August of 1955 J. Parker Lamb paid a visit to the Mississippian Railway up in northeast Mississippi. Its work done, he recorded this view of the road’s #77 as it slides slowly back into the enginehouse where it will be checked out and lubed for tomorrow’s run. At left, the #76 rests quietly until she is again called back to work.
In a search on Google Maps, I see the enginehouse still there as of their latest street-view photograph taken in August of 2024.
Continuing our tour on the Mississippian, C.W. Witbeck photographed the simmering #76 while in Amory, Mississippi under overcast skies in December of 1965. The 2-8-0 was built by Baldwin in 1920 as the Jonesboro, Lake City & Eastern Railroad #40. The engine became SL-SF #76 when the Frisco acquired the JLC&E in 1926. The Mississippian Railway purchased #76 in 1947 (some sources say 1948). She remained in service well into the late 1960s.
She has 19×24″ cylinders powering 48″ drivers. I’ve noticed that the Carlisle brothers keep their locomotives rather clean and tidy. Brother James is likely the hogger (the engineer) on this day.
Today I’m returning to the Mississippian Railway, featuring the sister locomotive of the #76, the #77, a Baldwin built 2-8-0 that the road acquired, along with the #76, from the Frisco in 1947. And as mentioned in a previous post, a day’s run would start in Amory, Mississippi, and head up to Fulton, Mississippi, the northern terminus of the line. Since there are no means to turn a locomotive in Fulton, the locomotive would run tender first for the northbound run.
Photographer Phil Kotheimer recorded this view of the #77 with her train on an overcast day in March of 1967. And as usual, running in reverse, something that was simply routine on this line. To my eye, this image could pass muster to have been any time from the prior 40 years with perhaps the exception of the hopper car.
Note the doghouse on the tender of the locomotive. For those unfamiliar with the term, the doghouse is the structure on top of the tender behind the coal bin. In locomotives with small cabs, it gives the head-end brakeman a sheltered place to ride, especially useful in inclement weather. In the case of the Mississippian, it also gave another set of eyes with an unrestricted view during those reverse running movements.
Once again, for this first posting in the month of May, I’m featuring a photograph from the 1986 calendar published by the Louisiana State Railroad Museum, it being for their month of May. I’ve paraphrased the caption for the image below.
“Hard working six coupled #236 of the Illinois Central Railroad is busy shunting boxcars in this May 1950 action shot. The little product of Pittsburg (1913) locomotive construction is blowing smoke and cinders of a coal burner, at the New Orleans riverfront. (Photo from the collection of Harold K. Vollrath)”
The “Pittsburg (1913) locomotive construction” referred to above is actually the Pittsburgh Locomotive and Car Works, a railroad equipment manufacturing company founded by Andrew Carnegie and T.N. Miller in 1865. By 1901 Pittsburgh had merged with seven other manufacturing companies to form the American Locomotive Company (ALCO). In March 1919, ALCO closed the Pittsburgh facility.
A lowly little switcher like this rarely gets noticed. But they have character also, and I like seeing images of the less glamorous side of railroading. I was able to unearth only a bit of information about this little 0-6-0. Built in 1913, she had 51″ drivers, and her boiler fed 170 psi steam to a pair of 21″ x 26″ cylinders. This produced 32,487 lbs of tractive effort. At some point she appears to have spent a little time in the road’s Paducah Shops as evidenced by the twin squared sand domes and a bit of modernization of her appliances.
