{"id":4128,"date":"2025-02-16T09:13:40","date_gmt":"2025-02-16T15:13:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/?p=4128"},"modified":"2025-02-16T09:13:40","modified_gmt":"2025-02-16T15:13:40","slug":"loading-strawberries-in-ponchatoula-la","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/2025\/02\/16\/loading-strawberries-in-ponchatoula-la\/","title":{"rendered":"Loading Strawberries in Ponchatoula, LA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Back in January I mentioned in a post that in two Louisiana cities, Hammond and Ponchatoula, both claimed to be the strawberry capital of the world.  You can <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/2025\/01\/12\/the-icrr-depot-hammond-la\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"4075\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>read that post here<\/strong><\/a>.  The image below shows farmers in Ponchatoula lining up to load strawberries into refrigerated rail cars back in the 1930s.  Look closely and you&#8217;ll notice a second string of cars behind those in the foreground.  The Illinois Central would build strawberry trains that would very swiftly carry this valuable cargo up to points north.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Loading-Strawberries-in-Ponchatoula.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"744\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Loading-Strawberries-in-Ponchatoula.jpg\" alt=\"Loading Strawberries in Ponchatoula, LA\" class=\"wp-image-4127\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Loading-Strawberries-in-Ponchatoula.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Loading-Strawberries-in-Ponchatoula-300x248.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Loading-Strawberries-in-Ponchatoula-768x635.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Loading-Strawberries-in-Ponchatoula-363x300.jpg 363w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>From the collection of the State Library of Louisiana.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back in January I mentioned in a post that in two Louisiana cities, Hammond and Ponchatoula, both claimed to be the strawberry capital of the world. You can read that post here. The image below shows farmers in Ponchatoula lining &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/2025\/02\/16\/loading-strawberries-in-ponchatoula-la\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photos-i-like","category-railfanning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4128"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4132,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4128\/revisions\/4132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}