Traxter 3

Step 3 started here in Chicago Union Station, or as Amtrak calls it, CHI, and ends in NOL.  You know the song.

Since Train 59 departed after dark, the first photos I got were here, Loosahatchee River, just north of Memphis.  What I’ve learned is that when on WiFi, photos do not identify location taken.  Remember that all these photos are taken through tinted windows and from the tracks.

Dry bulk barge loading port on the Wolf River.

Memphis Pyramid with I-40 Bridge in background.

American Queen.

House in Memphis just south of Frontline condos.

Inside the Superliner Sightseer Lounge Car.  

Mississippi River valley agriculture.

I saw a crop-duster airplane but the scale here made the shot impossible.

Pano looking across a field toward the Mississippi River…

Marks MS

Little Tallahatchee River

Money MS.  Check that link.

Pulp wood for a paper mill

Note the livery on these Kansas City Southern locomotive and compare it to that on the Panama Canal Railway engine here.  There is a connection.

Brookhaven MS.

McComb MS has a Bo Diddley connection, and acknowledges it here.

McComb also has this Illinois Central locomotive on display.

Since we were doing 79 mph parts of the trip, half an hour after crossing into Hammond LA, we took the causeway east of Lake Maurepas and started the long arc around Pontchartrain heading for NOL.

Note the greenery under the interstate bridges. 

All photos, any errors, WVD.

This marks the end of step 3 of 10, about 2000 of +5000 miles done.

 

Dense Traffic Nola

Sitting on the levee in Nola, I note a variety of watercraft passing by no less assorted than the revelers in the French Quarter.  Well . . .  How about as differentiated as the contents of the best 15 bloody marys in Nola?  Well, let’s see the photos below , or see past Nola posts here.

Seeing a deeply loaded kayak like that coexisting with commercial traffic is quite unusual, but the gear there tells me that is a long-haul and experienced paddler.

Above and below, MV John Pasentine fights a lot more gravity than the paddler does.

Janice Roberts and Presager keep a healthy distance apart, 

 

each carving an arc in the current.

Upbound inside the curve, Rodney is about to disappear beyond Pan Unity.

Less than a minute later, Pan Unity splits the distance between Shiney V. Moran on our side and an unidentified tugs stands by with

After doing some work and returning to the river, I return to a river that continues flowing assisting and resisting those whose business rides there.

Robin R. with a crane barge,  two tugs with fuel barges upbound, and more and more.

What hearkens to the past, of course are vessels like the kayak above and paddlewheelers like the 1991-build riverboat City of New Orleans, or the 1983 Creole Queen, or 1970s steamboat Natchez. For info on the Lake George NY connections of the family associated with all three paddlewheelers, click here and scroll.

I have more, so I’ll have to do Dense Traffic Nola 2.

All photos and curiosity and any errors, WVD.

The first batch of calendars is on the way.  Please confirm when you receive.   The price this year is $20, and few are left.  Order now by emailing me.