For this first posting in the month of September, I’m featuring a photograph from the 1986 calendar published by the Louisiana State Railroad Museum, it being for their month of September. The caption for the image follows below.

“Trim Ten Wheeler #260 of the Missouri Pacific Lines still carries the reporting marks of subsidiary St.LB&M in this October 1948 photo at DeQuincy, Louisiana. The 1907 Baldwin product is posed by her proud engineer in front of the long since departed enginehouse but still remaining water tower. (Photo from the collection of Harold K. Vollrath)”

Actually, the locomotive is lettered for the Missouri Pacific Lines (barely visible on the tender), and sub-lettered for the St.LB&M, the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway. She was originally lettered for the St.LB&M, then for later acquisitions: the Gulf Coast Lines, and finally the MoPac. This tidy little oil-burner was one of twelve ordered by the St.LB&M from Baldwin between June of 1905 and December of 1907, numbered 251 – 262.

Kansas City Southern EMD F3 units #30A/B were used on the Southern Belle passenger train, running between Kansas City, Missouri and Shreveport, Louisiana. This image was recorded in LaGrange, Illinois during their delivery in November of 1947. It was scanned from a Vanishing Vistas postcard that I have.

In the early days of diesel locomotives, it was common to semi-permanently couple multiple units together with drawbars to achieve a desired total horsepower. As I understand, at this point in time union rules required a crew on each individual locomotive. This drawbar arrangement allowed multiple locomotives to count as one unit, thus allowing the use of a single crew. This locomotive (consist) was numbered 30. To identify the individual units within the consist, a suffix of A or B (or C, etc. as needed) was added to the number on each unit. In the case of this consist, we have 30A (the lead unit) and 30B.

Note the black paint extending up onto the roof at the rear of the second unit. This was done in an effort to “blend” the arrangement of paint colors on the locomotives to the arrangement of the colors on the passenger cars. Below is a post card showing the result.

At some point the union rules were changed and the units were separated and had the drawbar replaced with conventional couplers. This made maintenance and the mixing/matching of units much easier. #30A was eventually renumbered to 4050. And that unit was eventually rebuilt as a slug in 1981.

Photographer Ben Gelman recorded this view of Illinois Central steam locomotive #1536 as she takes on water from a penstock in the yard at Carbondale, Illinois. Look closely and you’ll see the nearby wash stand with its lance and hose used to wash down the locomotives with steamy water. It looks like she has already been to the coal chute as the coal bunker is practically overflowing. She will likely next be parked on the ready track to wait for her next assignment. The exact date is unknown, but I believe this to be in early 1959 toward the end of steam on the I.C.

I was able to find just a few specs on the #1536: she ran at a boiler pressure of 185 psi which supplied its 27″x30″ cylinders, and she rode on 63″ drivers. She had a tractive effort of 54,158 lbs, and was a product of the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1914. She obviously had been run through the Paducah shops for overhaul as she had the large, squared sand dome atop its boiler.

Mr. Gelman took a series of photos featuring the last days of steam on the Illinois Central in southern Illinois. This image is one of many contained in the Special Collections Research Center of the Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

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.

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 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.

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