| About a mile west of Abita Springs, at Schoen Road, the ICG Shore Line District served two customers. USS Agri-Chem, on the right, received limestone and agricultural chemicals in box cars and covered hoppers, and was served by northward trains. Triangle Timber, behind me and on the opposite side of the main line, shipped pulpwood and was worked in the other direction.Finding more than one train on the branch was really unusual, and was usually the result of a work train on the line. This view facing east from Schoen Road was taken on a Thursday afternoon, a normal day for the northward local, whose locomotive is in the siding. The 8308, along with GP30 2269, had arrived here the previous afternoon with 23 empty hopper cars and caboose 199318. The train had been dumping ballast along the line and the crew parked their train here, where they were picked up by a company car and returned home to Bogalusa.Earlier this afternoon the regular northward local -- with GP10 8183 -- pulled up behind the ballast train and coupled to its caboose. The company station wagon, which had come down from Bogalusa to bring the crew back home, brought the crew here to get on the 8308. They pulled the combined train forward, set out the local's engine on the siding, then shoved the combined train back on the main line until everything looked like this. The crew finished whatever they were doing when they returned from Bogalusa on Friday morning to complete their northward trip and then take the train back home. Eleven years later, the branch was abandoned. |