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Cypress Swamp Logging

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  • Member since
    July 2010
  • From: Louisiana
  • 2,310 posts
Cypress Swamp Logging
Posted by Paul of Covington on Sunday, July 22, 2018 4:09 PM

   I came across some interesting sites on logging in the swamps.   The Louisiana Cypress Lumber Company operated near Ponchatoula, La. about 30 miles WSW of here.   Note in some of the pictures near the bottom that the tracks appear to have been built on top of a mat of logs to spread the load on the soft ground.

   In this one,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF3-0NISvs4

there is not much RR activity till near the end, but the process is fascinating.   Note at about 01:35 how they work standing in pirogues in the water to fell the trees.   The whole journey is truly intermodal.

   And there's part 2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxSP08zJ5tE

   The logging in the Ponchatoula area ended in the 1950's, but on Google Earth you can still see radial scars where the logs were dragged to points along the canals to be shipped out:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulofcov/26976707447/in/dateposted-public/

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