In last week’s post we saw an Arkansas & Louisiana Missouri Railway caboose in Monroe, Louisiana. Later that same Saturday morning Ron and I arrived in Bastrop, La. where we checked out the A&LM facilities there. Ron photographed switcher #11 (also seen last week), then turned his attention to the structure featured below.
This combination office and freight station (often referred to as the depot) is located on Pine Street. I really like this building, having seen it a couple times. The white paint over the asbestos siding and the green roof give it a unique Southern look. Indeed, I plan to build something similar to serve my Louisiana Central (model) Railroad in the town of Monterey.
The Arkansas & Louisiana Missouri Railway office and freight station (the Depot) located on Pine Street in Bastrop, Louisiana. The tracks are on the right side of the building. The railroad’s sign looks a bit understated . . . classic short-line. Looks like the front door isn’t being used at this time, as the pickup would make access a bit inconvenient.The right side of the A&LM office/freight station. That’s an interesting little critter on the track. It isn’t obvious to me what it is, but I’ll speculate it to be a traveling air compressor, or perhaps a pump.
In late 2024 I posted an image of this structure taken by Tom Blackwell in August of 1990. That same beat-up pickup truck was still there. Click here to see that image. I took a look at Google Maps to check out the state of the building in 2026. Unfortunately, the structure appears to have been demolished. Sad!
In May of 1989, on the Saturday before our arrival at the Reader Railroad in Hope, Arkansas, Ron Findley and I stopped to check out things in Warren, Arkansas. While there we discovered the Southern Lumber Company’s 4-6-0 steam locomotive #123 that is on display in the city’s park. While still basically intact, it was in sad shape. Missing many of it’s appliances, and needing a fresh paint job, it stood alone in a well mowed open area there.
Note that there is a builders plate attached to the front corner of the tender, it stating that this locomotive was built by Baldwin with construction number 17911 in May of 1920. However, I’ve seen information that this isn’t this locomotive’s builders plate. This source (https://www.rgusrail.com/arsl123.html) says that the locomotive was built by Baldwin, but in 1907 for the Morelia & Tacambaro Railway Company at Guanajunto, Mexico. It was later sold to the Southern Lumber Company in Warren, Arkansas, where it was renumbered #123 and appears to have worked on the Warren & Ouichita Valley Railway, jointly owned by the Southern Lumber Company and Arkansas Lumber Company.
I’m willing to accept this information as a locomotive’s builders plate is normally affixed to the smokebox, aligned with the stack. I’ll speculate that a well-meaning, but misguided citizen found some number plates and attached them to the tender. The locomotive has all spoked wheels, both on the locomotive itself, and also the tender. According to the aforementioned website, she’s an oil burner weighing 112,000 lbs., 85,000 lbs. on its 54” drivers, and has 18” x 24” cylinders. Operating at 150 psi, it delivered 18,288 lbs. of tractive effort.
If you’d like to see more photos of this little steamer, visit the website linked to above. Fortunately the engine is featured there with a fresh coat of paint, and someone had the wisdom to paint over those white drivers, rods and domes with black.
This little steamer has been on display in various locations in Opelousas, Louisiana for better than 60 years. I first saw it while my family was traveling through Opelousas back in the early sixties. She was located in the Courthouse Square where my dad photographed the little 0-4-4T for my benefit. She was in good shape as I recall, with a relatively fresh paint job. Fast forward to December 26th of 1988 — Ron Findley and I were traveling westward from Baton Rouge to New Iberia. Taking a somewhat circuitous route, we passed through Opelousas to see if that little tea-kettle was still there. And sure enough it was. She was in rather rough shape compared to what I had remembered. Somewhere along the way she lost her pilot, boiler jacketing and lagging, and had received a rather hideous paint job. But at least she hadn’t been scrapped.
I wanted to learn a bit more about the locomotive’s history, so I started digging around. Most of what I found was simply copies from the display plaque for the locomotive. But I did manage to uncover a bit more. While the plaque claims she was built in 2004 by the Davenport, Iowa Ironworks Company, I found another source that says she was built in 1911 by the Davenport Locomotive Works (the proper name) as construction no. 1161. Not much more about the construction except to say she is a wood burner, is standard gauge, and has 35.5″ drivers powered from her 11″x16″ cylinders.
Her ownership history was this: Built for the Weil Gutman Supply Co. at Columbia Switch, LA Later sold (no date) to Caire & Graughard (Columbia, Church Place & Maxie RR #1) In 1956 was sold to Elray Kocke Service Inc. at Donaldsonville, LA Sold (no date) to Ben Prather at Alexandria, LA
At some point, she was moved to the Hwy. 190 Tourist Information Center grounds in Opelousas. About 1990 the Opelousas Kiwanis Club funded the move to locate the Mary Jane to her current home at the Orphan Train Museum located in the Le Vieux Village de Poste des Opelousas, commonly referred to as Le Vieux Village.
This photo shows her at her current location at Le Vieux Village, likely in the year 2009.
The paint job is essentially what I remember from back in the sixties, and it looks like some of her jacketing (sans lagging) has been restored to the boiler, giving it a bit cleaner look. Unfortunately a few details seem to be misapplied (note the coupler pin lifting lever (cut lever) attached to the lower extension of the pilot beam). But she still exists! 🙂
As best as I remember, it was the summer of 1965 that I was out on my little Honda motorbike searching for interesting railroad “things” to see and photograph. While riding near the engine facilities in the Illinois Central’s Mays Yard in New Orleans, I spied this ALCO RS-2 locomotive at rest, painted and lettered for the company Raymond as their number 1501. Armed with my Argus C3 35mm camera, I recorded this image of the unit while wondering who this was and where she belonged. An older railfan buddy later saw the slide, and said she had come from Africa and speculated that she was headed to a shop for overhaul.
Raymond #1501 ALCO RS-2 locomotive in the Illinois Central’s Mays Yard in New Orleans. There must have been good eating in the yard judging from the number of pigeons hanging around!
I recently came across this photo buried in a box, and again wondered about its history, so did a bit of digging. She was built in April of 1949 and was delivered to the Lehigh & New England Railroad as their number 651. In September of 1961 she was sold to Raymond International who bought several L&NE RS-2s and many gondolas, hoppers and other rolling stock. They were sent to Liberia (in west Africa) where Raymond was building a railroad in the Nimba Mountains.
She was again sold to Whisler Equipment, c. 1966-67, and then to Precision Engineering, where she was eventually scrapped.
I mentioned above that I shot this with an Argus C3 camera. Older folks may remember that camera, which was rock solid in my experience. But it did have a few flaws. The view finder did not display the actual image you would get (it showed more than you’d get). I was disappointed that I’d cut off the nose of the machine. The camera also had a less than perfect light meter, that in my case often produced under exposed images. I was too dumb to figure out how to compensate for those discrepancies. Rats!
One of the photographic prints that was in the collection of railroad images that I inherited from Ron Findley was the one below of a 2-6-0 Mogul steam locomotive. It’s lettered for the Reader Railroad, but was a locomotive I’d never come across before. There was no information on that photograph, and I was stumped. So I scanned and posted the photo on Mike Palmieri’s Facebook group “Mike’s Mostly Louisiana Railroads” along with my request for information about this locomotive.
As hoped for, several readers were aware of this locomotive, and below are some of the responses about it.
Tony Howe: Yes, Reader 403 is correct. It’s a William Monypeny photo from the Louis Saillard Collection. (From the envelope sleeve): Reader Railroad No.403 2-6-0, Reader, Ark. Ex. St. Louis Southwestern #403, (built by) Alco-Rogers (construction) #37535 (on) 4/1905 To: Reader RR 3/13/1937 Retired: 8/31/1945 Also from Tony: A.E. Brown photographed the remains of the same locomotive still at Reader in 1952 in derelict condition
Mark Locke: 403 was sold for scrap soon after Tom Long bought the Reader in the 1950s. He was alarmed by the decrepit condition of the railroad as a whole. He had #11 reconditioned, bought #108, and had 403 scrapped. In the early 1960s, he purchased 2-8-0 #1702 and had it rebuilt and modified from it’s Army appearance.
Thanks to these folks, and to others that posted on this as well. The #403 is no longer a mystery. 🙂
The Louisiana Cypress Lumber Company’s railroad had to solve an interesting problem. The Manchac swamp in Louisiana was not an easy location to build a railroad. How does one lay railroad track in a swamp, particularly when the solid ground is often feet under water? They solved the problem by using a type of cribbing. It’s built on multiple layers of Gum logs stacked in alternating directions. Solid ground could be as deep as 5 or 6 feet below the water.
C.W. Witbeck photo, Jack C. Shall collection
Tedious? Yes, and when done by hand, only about 10 to 20 feet a day could be installed. But the railroad found a better way, a custom built track building machine. It was designed by Mr. C.H. Lindsey, Vice President of Louisiana Cypress Lumber Co. This machine could lay up to 120 feet of track on a good day.
C.W. Witbeck photo, Jack C. Shall collection
Another view of tracks being laid in the swamp. This machine made lifting and positioning of the heavy logs, ties and rails much easier. It appears to me that the inspiration for this equipment came from a McGiffert log loader.
C.W. Witbeck photo, Jack C. Shall collection
All of these photos were by photographer C.W. Witbeck, and are from the collection of Jack Shall (former collection of Tom Davidson). While the date wasn’t recorded, it is likely around 1951.
No, I’m not talking rail ferries. Rather, the shipment of boats on the railroads. During World War II an entrepreneur by the name of Andrew Jackson Higgins designed and built over 20,000 boats and small ships for the U.S. Navy. He originally had a small boat building company in New Orleans, Louisiana used to build boats for his lumber exporting business. At the onset of WWII this expanded into five huge boat building plants. One was in Houma, Louisiana, the rest in New Orleans. One of those four plants was located on City Park Avenue, just several blocks from the home I was raised in.
The largest number of the boats he produced were the model LCVP ramp boats, often referred to as Higgins Boats. These were the ones that were able to get in close to beaches, then drop a large ramp at the front for the Marines and the Army troops to storm out of. The other boats that gained attention were the PT (patrol torpedo) boats that Higgins produced for the Navy. While not as numerous as the Elco built boats, they were still vital in their mission. And there were several other boats and small ships that Higgins built, mostly unknown to the general public in the general sense.
So what does this have to do with railroads? Railroads were essential for the transportation of these boats. Only one of the boat building plants had direct access to a waterway. The others (including the one on City Park Avenue) had to transport each boat to Bayou St. John, and then travel down that waterway to Lake Pontchartrain for testing. There was a rail line directly next to the City Park plant, so boats there were shipped to Bayou St. John by both truck and rail. After testing, boats would be loaded on railcars for shipment across the country for delivery to the military services.
Higgins LCVP ramp boats being loaded onto railcars at Bayou St. John in New Orleans, Louisiana for shipment to the U.S. Navy. Photo taken in early 1940s during WWII.New Orleans, Louisiana: A Higgins PT boat exits the City Park plant via railroad transport to nearby Bayou St. John east of the plant for its water testing. At 78 feet in length, the boat takes multiple cars to handle it; note the idler car in front of the overhanging bow. The boat is also well over the normal width and height limits so that the car’s routing will be carefully planned to clear obstructions along the way. Photo taken in early 1940s during WWII.
I visited a number of websites that covered the topic of the Higgins operation. One of the most interesting sites was The American Automobile Industry in World War Two, An American Auto Industry Heritage Tribute by David D Jackson. Both of these images can be found on those pages. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find a photo credit for these images on any of the websites that I visited.
On a sunny Sunday, April 10th of 1988, Ron Findley and I were spending the day trackside, traveling from place to place. We eventually found our way up to Wanilla, Mississippi, where a railroad crossing exists. And there we found parked an old GM&O speeder (a motorcar). It’s probably safe to say that it was unused, but remained in fairly good condition based on our inspection of the car. Ron recorded this view of the machine. Great find on that day!
According to Mike Palmieri, for many years Wanilla was the crossing between the New Orleans-Great Northern / Gulf Mobile & Northern / Gulf Mobile & Ohio running north-to-south between Jackson, Mississippi and Slidell, Louisiana, and the Mississippi Central running east-west between Hattiesburg and Natchez. In 1967 the Mississippi Central became a part of the Illinois Central and five years later the GM&O merged with the IC to form the Illinois Central Gulf, bringing both of the lines through Wanilla under the same ownership. Ron’s interest in Wanilla was because he remembered it as the crossing of the GM&O and the IC, making it an almost sacred place in his eyes! 🙂
In studying Mr. Gelman’s series of photos featuring the last days of steam on the Illinois Central in southern Illinois, this photograph was one of the first that caught my attention. Many would say it’s a lousy shot, it doesn’t even capture the entire locomotive. But the more I look at this image, the better I like it. Here is this massive piece of machinery traveling right through the center of a typical small city in the U.S.A., surrounded by buildings filled with shops and offices. And stopping the traffic on the main drag in doing so. The locomotive was likely backing, as the engineer is leaning out and looking toward the rear. The photograph was taken in 1952 or later (based on the ’52 Chevy and ’52 Ford). The posting below contains the original caption listed for the image.
“Illinois Central Railroad Engine 1536, a Mikado 2-8-2 locomotive, travels through downtown Murphysboro. These train tracks are no longer located here, and have since moved to the east of the city. An alleyway remains where these tracks once were. The building to the near left is now a parking lot, and the Ross clothing store building still stands but contains modifications to the architecture.”
In zooming in on the image, I notice that there is a street sign at the left, and it reads “13th Street”. So that led me to research the photograph location. Using Google Maps, I have exactly located where this image was taken. The view above is looking west while standing on Walnut Street (Hwy. 149) and the cross street is indeed 13th Street, with the track actually on (or in) the street. The alleyway referred to above is a half block further west, midway between 13th and 14th Streets. The parking lot referred to is presently a Regions Bank with parking on its right side adjacent to the alleyway. The actual location (seen at left in this photo) now has a park-like setting that also has that Regions Bank drive-thru teller machine. Whew!
And I got a surprising (and confirming) find while studying the map. There is a splendid looking depot on 13th Street just a block to the north (to the right in the photo above). Below is that depot.
The depot in Murphysboro, still in use today, however repurposed as the START facility (Specialized Training for Adult RehabiliTation). I’m assuming that it was originally the depot for the Illinois Central. My 1948 Railroad Atlas shows the GM&O entering Murphysboro from the south, but continuing as the IC for 26 miles further north, where it becomes the GM&O again. There are also other IC and MP tracks coming from the south and east. Perhaps this was a joint station along with joint trackage? It appears that Murphysboro had quite a bit of railroad activity in the day. Photo from Google Maps.
I came across this image recently and it was labeled as “The Green Diamond in Ponchatoula”. I have seen photographs of this Illinois Central train before, but didn’t remember it ever running through Ponchatoula (in Louisiana). Researching the train, I learned that it only ran between Chicago and St. Louis. So digging further yet, I learned that this trainset eventually ceased operation as the Green Diamond, and was renamed the Miss Lou. This new train operated between Jackson, Mississippi and New Orleans, Louisiana. Read on below for further details.
The Green Diamond was a five-unit articulated trainset (each truck supported the ends of two cars). The problem with this arrangement is that the consist was fixed . . . couldn’t be added to, thus couldn’t handle the additional traffic as the train became popular. Therefore, management decided to retire this trainset as the Green Diamond, and transferred that name to a conventional train with separate locomotives and cars.
The Green Diamond trainset was built in 1936 by Pullman-Standard and powered by Electro-Motive Corporation with a single 1200 H.P. engine. The four cars it pulled were a baggage/mail, two coaches, and a diner/lounge/observation car. The train operated between 1936–1947. After it’s discontinuance as the Green Diamond, the train set was shipped to the ICRR’s shops at Paducah, Kentucky for a complete overhaul. The train emerged still in its two-tone green, but with the Green Diamond names completely removed. It then re-entered service on April 27, 1947, as the Miss Lou.
A couple weeks ago we got a glimpse of the Illinois Central Mikado #1536 as she was being watered at a penstock in her usual servicing at the end of a run. Photographer Ben Gelman stayed with the locomotive and captured another view as she was preparing to leave with another train in tow. Stopped just short of a grade crossing, I speculate that the fireman is building a good head of steam in preparation of starting their train, that based on the heavy smoke plume being belched from the beast. I’m also speculating that this view is at the edge of the yard in Carbondale, Illinois. Again, the exact date is unknown, but I believe this to be in early 1959 toward the end of steam on the I.C.
Once again, for this first posting in the month of August, I’m featuring a photograph from the 1986 calendar published by the Louisiana State Railroad Museum, it being for their month of August. The caption for the image follows below.
“March 1950, and Kansas City Southern’s class E-4 Consolidation, a 1913 graduate of Richmond, awaits her next assignment at Shreveport, Louisiana, the operating headquarters of the KCS Lines. (Photo from the collection of Harold K. Vollrath)”
The “1913 graduate of Richmond” referred to above is fully Alco-Richmond. By 1901 Richmond Locomotive Works had merged with seven other manufacturing companies to form the American Locomotive Company (ALCO). Locomotive production at Richmond ceased in September 1927.
There seems to be relatively few photographs of KCS locomotives, and information about them is scant (at least in my search). I was able to unearth only a bit of information about this burly 2-8-0. Built in 1913, she had 57″ drivers, and her boiler fed 175 psi steam to a pair of 24″ x 30″ cylinders. This produced 45,095 lbs of tractive effort. She underwent a re-building at some point, with the receipt of 63″ drivers, and her boiler pressure increased to 200 psi. Cylinder diameter was increased to 26″, and the tractive effort increased to 54,725 lbs. It appears she was one of eight class E-4s to be switched from coal burning to oil firing, that observation based on the Vanderbilt tender she tows. She was scrapped in 1952.
