{"id":4638,"date":"2026-01-18T14:32:31","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T20:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/?p=4638"},"modified":"2026-01-18T14:32:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T20:32:33","slug":"picking-up-orders-on-the-fly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/2026\/01\/18\/picking-up-orders-on-the-fly\/","title":{"rendered":"Picking Up Orders on the Fly"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>On a Friday, August 6th of 1976, photographer Mike Palmieri had stationed himself at the Southern Pacific&#8217;s <em>West Tower<\/em> in New Iberia, Louisiana to watch the traffic flow. West Tower protected the crossing of the Southern Pacific with the Missouri Pacific\u2019s line down to the Jefferson Island salt mine. The tower&#8217;s train order signal is indicating to the train crew that they have train orders to pick up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A westbound freight train eventually showed, and is passing under the watch of the tower operator.  At precisely 8:35 a.m. Mike recorded this view of a crew member just as he was about to snatch his orders on the fly while passing the tower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/SP-West-Tower-New-Iberia-LA.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"545\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/SP-West-Tower-New-Iberia-LA.jpg\" alt=\"SP West Tower New Iberia La.\" class=\"wp-image-4637\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/SP-West-Tower-New-Iberia-LA.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/SP-West-Tower-New-Iberia-LA-300x204.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/SP-West-Tower-New-Iberia-LA-768x523.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/SP-West-Tower-New-Iberia-LA-440x300.jpg 440w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On a Friday, August 6th of 1976, photographer Mike Palmieri had stationed himself at the Southern Pacific&#8217;s West Tower in New Iberia, Louisiana to watch the traffic flow. West Tower protected the crossing of the Southern Pacific with the Missouri &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/2026\/01\/18\/picking-up-orders-on-the-fly\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4638","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\/4638","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=4638"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4653,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4638\/revisions\/4653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}