Recent Digital Photos
by Mike Condren
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50 Years of Railroad Photography |
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Dec. 20, 2010
| On my trip from Memphis to Tahlequah for Christmas, I made my usual rounds in Van Buren by the UP, former MP, yard. Here we see the power of an eastbound at the S. 28th Street refuel station. |
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| I then found the A&M transfer from the UP to the Ft. Smith Railroad sitting on the Frisco bridge, waiting on the lift span to lower. |
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| When I got to Stilwell, OK, there was a north bound freight in the passing track. I headed toward the head end and met this south bound loaded coal train. I missed the 2 KCS DPUs mid train. |
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| The north bound is then seen heading out of Stilwell. |
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Dec. 30, 2010
| Our family got together in New Orleans for a late Christmas celebration. On Thursday Jan, grandson Shawn, and I rode a St. Charles Line street car from the Carrollton end of the line to St. Charles and Roberts where we walked 2 blocks to Virginia's work and met her for ice cream at a nearby ice cream parlor. We missed this car as we were parking along Carrollton Ave. |
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| Shawn is seen at the end of the boarding platform one block from the end of the line. |
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| Here we see the car we will ride on its way to the end of the line. |
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Here we see our car approaching after "turning" at the end of the line. |
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| While waiting for our return street car, this in-bound car comes into view. Immediately I recognize that it does not have an incandescent headlight. The whiteness means that it must either be a halogen or LED cluster headlight. It turns out to be an LED cluster. | ||
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Jan and Shawn wait for our return street car to return to our automobile. |
| Our car finally shows up. It turns out to be the same car we rode to this location. It has made a trip to Canal St. and return. |
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| It was standing room only so I stayed up front to get some shots. |
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| I caught this meet from the front of our car. |
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| When we got off at our car, there were two street cars with standing room only following right behind us. |
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Dec. 31, 2010
| I took some time on the last day of the year to head to my favorite NOLA spot, Central Ave., at the east end of the Huey P. Long Bridge. I was surprized by the first train, the eastbound Sunset. NOPB has piled ties making shots of trains coming off the bridge less than perfect. This was my first time to catch the Sunset at this location. |
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| In the distance we see the tower at East Bridge Jct., just east of Central Ave. |
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| The next train was a westbound with NS power heading for the Huey P. Long Bridge and meeting a UP powered eastbound stopped at the signal at the end of the bridge. |
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| This eastbound UP train pulled up and stopped at the signal at the end of the bridge and sat there until after I had to leave. |
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| Here we see the pile of material resulting from the derailment of the CSX freight which appears on YouTube. |
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| The City of New Orleans was running a few minutes late but is seen here racing to the Union Terminal near the Super Dome in downtown New Orleans. There were two private cars on the headend heading for the Sugar Bowl. |
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Jan. 2, 2011
| The Huey P. Long Bridge is being updated to more modern standards by adding wider highway lanes. This has required the addition of new piers and new truss structures, seen here under construction. Some revisions of the approaches are also being made to the railroad part of the structure, not seen in these views. |
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| This NS train ran into the CNIC yard and is now preparing to head east after changing crews here at Central Ave. |
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| This UP eastbound is stopped near the end of the east approach of the bridge, probably to protect the contents of the train. |
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| As I crossed the tracks on Central Ave, I spotted this BNSF westbound. |
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| Before we left town, we decided to go to the French Quarter in an attempt to find Sugar Bowl shirts. After getting two we headed up Canal Street where we spotted some street cars before heading to Shreveport for the night. The last street car we saw, 2011, had an LED headlight, HAPPY NEW YEAR. |
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Jan. 3, 2011
| Before leaving Shreveport, I went by Deramus Yard. I had not been there in over 30 years. Whereas it once had been wide open. Today it is surrounded by chain link fences and gates. It is not in the best neighborhood. |
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| Just inside the fence is this locomotive cab. |
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| I was able to shoot a few locos from outside of the fence. |
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| This Cotton Belt drovers caboose once served a service station along US71 highway near Ashdown, AR. It is now on display in Ashdown. |
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| The former Graysonia Nashville and Ashdown station stands along side of their former track. This is now a subsidary of the KCS. Note that it is at the corner of Frisco Street with the former Frisco station about 2 blocks away. |
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| The former Frisco station in Ashdown is now own by the Kiamichi Railroad which operates over the former Frisco east/west line from Hugo, OK. |
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| In DeQueen, AR we went by the former backshop of the Dierks Forest operation which was later purchased by Weyerhaeuser and is now part of Patriot Rail. The DeQueen & Eastern and Texas Oklahoma & Eastern still use this facility. |
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| The KCS station at Mena, AR serves as the Chamber of Commerce headquarters. |
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| Across the street from the station, this billboard promoted the Sugar Bowl game scheduled for the next night. |  |
| On our way north, just south of Rich Mountain we met a loaded unit coal train. The only locos we saw were the DPUs. We then spotted an empty unit coal train stopped near the North Rich Mountain Control Point. |
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| We then drove to the top of Rich Mountain and the Queen Wilhelmina State Park. The first loadge at this location was built by the Kansas City Pittsburg & Gulf in 1897 to be a unusual resort retreat for passengers. The KCP&G was financed largely by Dutch interests and was named for the young Dutch Queen Wilhelmina. The lodge fell into ruins. In 1957 the area was aquired for a state park.
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| The views from the lodge are wonderful. |
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| This Dierks Forest steam engine is in the Queen Wilhelmina State Park. There is also a minature KCS Southern Belle which circles around the park. |
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| When we arrived in Heavener, the Jordan Spreader work train is sitting south of the yard office on a siding. |
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| There still are deer in the pens south of the yard office. One came up to the fence and licked my finger while I waited for the coal train we had seen at Rich Mountain to roll into town. |
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| The empty coal train slowly rolls north on the mainline. I shot my first KCS/BN unit coal train near this spot 34 year earlier to the date. That bitter cold day led me to grow a beard which has remained almost constantly ever since. |
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| A loaded unit coal train was stopped at the refueling dock at the north end of the yard. The empty unit coal train pulled up to the crossing and the refueling facility. |
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| The mid-train DPUs were KCS SD70ACes in different paint schemes. Note that the "warrenty" ran out on the gray unit in 10/09. Also note the "stop sign" herald on the black covered hopper on the "near still born" Howe Coal Co. balloon loop. |
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| The rear DPU was this BNSF unit. |
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| These two views show the loaded unit coal train. Over the first shot is the silo of the former Howe Coal Co. Huge 75-foot, 6-wheel Buckeye trucked rotary gons were purchased for this operation of the mid-70s. Only a few trips were ever made with these huge cars. They were stored in the siding at Spiro, OK for a while until a tornado turned 49 of them over onto the mainline just in front of the local as heard on the scanner by this reporter. It took two, 250-ton derricks to retruck these cars. Later there cars were placed in wood chip service, riding on 4-wheel trucks. |
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This page was designed and is maintained by Mike Condren.
If you have materials
that you would like to contribute, contact me at mcondren@cbu.edu