IC logging or connections with logging railroads in south Louisiana

[billy]

Did the IC have any logging operations in south Louisiana, or did it have any connections with logging railroads in south Louisiana?

Thanks for the help.

Will

[leighant]

Illinois Central interchange points with (nonmajor) railroads in Louisiana (and a few in Mississippi and Alabama that sound like backwoods roads, possibly loggers) in April 1954 Official Railway Equipment Register:

Alabama Central in Jasper, AL 

Arkansas & Louisiana Missouri in Monroe, LA

Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern in Hattiesburg, MS

Feliciana Eastern in Slaughter, LA

Fernwood, Columbia & Gulf in Columbia and Fernwood, MS

Louisiana & Northwest in Gibbsland, LA

Louisiana Eastern in Shiloh, LA

Louisiana Southern in New Orleans (Three Oaks)

Meridian & Bigbee River in Meridian, MS

Mississippi & Skuna Valley in Bruce Jct, MS

South Shore in McManus, LA

Tangipahoa & Eastern in Fluker, LA

Tremont & Gulf in Termont and West Monroe, LA

I am not sure which are in SOUTHERN Louiaiana or if any are loggers.  Some shore do have right interestin' names!   This listing would NOT include private trackage of logging tram lines which are not common carriers.

 

[dehusman]

Most of the logging I am familiar with in that area is pulpwood, not lumber logging.

Dave H.

[orsonroy]

The IC had a lot of log and pulp operations in the south, especially in LA and MS, mostly concentrated around the branches off their old Yazoo & Mississippi Valley lines. In 1952, the IC rostered 823 log cars and 1322 pulpwood cars, which was a very large number of special-use cars for the time. In addition, during peak seasons the IC could use most of their 28,000 GS gons to handle pulpwood (all of their pulp cars were really just converted composite side GS gons anyway).

Somewhere on one of my Green Frog DVDs is a sequence with a LA shortline pulling pulp out of the pine barrens behind steam, and waiting for an IC steam freight to cross at grade. Great stuff!

[Sperandeo]

Now you're talking about my home state, and I have some firsthand recoillections from railfanning in the 1960s. There was a Louisiana logging connection with the Illinois Central operated as nearly as I can recall by Gaylord Container (not, as I originally wrote, Calcasieu Paper), a Georgia-Pacific Corp. subsidiary, on a former IC branch on the north side of Lake Ponchartrain. This is due east of Baton Rouge and not what Louisianans would call south Louisiana. (That's below the west bank of the Mississippi and was Missouri Pacific and especially Texas & New Orleans/Southern Pacific territory.) Gaylord's railroad was a pulpwood rather than a lumber operation, and ran east from the IC main at Hammond to Covington and perhaps as far as Mandeville. In the '60s it used a green and yellow Georgia-Pacific RS-1. The ICG later bought the branch line back to connect with its former Gulf, Mobile & Ohio line in Slidell, La.

The Louisiana Eastern was a grandly named gravel pit railroad in Amite, La., and in the 1960s home to the extensive steam engine collection of its owner, Paulsen Spence. He had a dream of building a steam-powered trunk line railroad to bypass New Orleans to the north, but nothing ever came of it. (It did give this Louisiana boy the chance to see such exotica as a brace of Nickel Plate Road Hudsons in person if not in steam.)

There was once some kind of logging or pulp operation that connected with the IC at Ponchatoula, La., south of Hammond, but it was abandoned by the time I was exploring the IC line in the early 1960s. All I ever saw of it was a four-wheel internal-combustion switcher and an old pump handcar.

The Feliciana Eastern connected with the IC main at Day, La., and ran one mile east to Mitchell, but I never saw it operating and don't know what kind of business it did. At one time it owned an ex-IC 2-6-0, shown in Vol. II of Mallory Hope Ferrell's "Slow Trains Down South."

The Louisiana Southern was a Southern Ry. subsidiary serving refineries and other industries along the east bank of the Mississippi below Chalmette (where the Battle of New Orleans was fought). NS was still operating the Louisiana Southern line before Hurricane Katrina, but that whole area ended up under water and I don't know if the line still exisits.

Merry Christmas,

Andy

[billy]

Thanks Andy

I wasn't aware that you were from LA.  Nice to hear from someone at home.

The one company you refer to, Gaylord Container, used to be Crown Zellerbach, and operated the mill in Bogalusa in Washington Parish.  I know there were several small lumber co. railroads to the east and west of Tangipahoa Parish, but they were quite old and I can't seem to find any information on them.  One was owned by the Genesee Lumber Co north of Hammond.  One was the Louisiana Cypress Co in Pontchatoula.  Several of the lumber co's had their own private railroads.  Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond printed a book, but it was more of a history of the development of various small communities thanks to these small railroads; and it doesn't give any information on rolling stock.  I want to model a generic version one of these roads, but I need more information.  The local libraries aren't able to provide much help.

Thanks much for your answer and information, and Merry Christmas to you and yours.

Will

[Sperandeo]

You're right, of course, Billy,

It was Crown Zellerbach and not Georgia Pacific. It was also a long time ago. I definitely remember, though, a trip I made with Louis Saillard to photograph that RS-1 cutting through pine woods. And the relics I recall at Pontchatoula were probably from the Louisiana Cypress railroad. Louis was much more knowledgeable about all those short lines and loggers than I was, and has written a bit about them.

Merry Christmas,

Andy