This picture, taken in August, 1965 is of a Southern
hotshot heading out across Lake Ponchartrain. The location is the
same as above but facing south instead of north and from on the opposite
side of the tracks. This has always been one of my favorites with
the perspective of the trestle, train and pole line converging on the draw
bridge out in the lake. Photo by Chuck Graham.
Just a few miles north of Lake Ponchartrain is Slidell,
the only stop in Louisiana north of New Orleans for Southern Railway passenger
trains. Here is Train No. 48, the northbound Southerner stopped in
Slidell on a September, 1967 morning. This train became the Southern
Crescent in 1971, as was one of the few intercity passenger trains not
operated by Amtrak. Of course those days are gone, and Amtrak's Crescent
now stops at Slidell.
North of Slidell, at Florenville, in the pine forests
of St. Tammany Parish (county) a GM&O RS-2 switches a pulpwood siding
in August of 1965. No doubt, these carloads of logs are destined
for the Crown Zellerback kraft plant at Bogalusa to the north. Photo
by Chuck Graham.
Illinois Central's northbound City of New Orleans
arriving in Hammond. It's a busy scene on that September, 1967 morning
with lots of passengers on the platform and a maintenance of way gang in
the siding. Four passenger trains a day in each direction stopped
in Hammond, the first stop north of New Orleans. The E-8's on the
head end and the passenger cars were always bright and clean and the trains
rarely ran late.
Observation car on Illinois Central Train 6, the
northbound