I thought we’d head west again for a spell. It’s March of 1943, and Jack Delano is traveling about the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. He captured this image of a westbound freight that had stopped to take on water at Melrose, New Mexico.

I don’t think he could have picked a nicer day to pursue his photography!

Jack Delano spent a bit of time down in Puerto Rico back in January of 1942, no doubt a relief from the winter weather in the northeastern part of the United States. While there he toured the vast sugar industry on the island.

The image below shows one of the many steam powered sugar cane trains at a location near Guánica. The harvested cane is hauled from the fields in the oxen powered carts, then loaded onto the train for the trip to the mill.

The 3-spot appears to be of Baldwin origin, and based on the headlight and its slide valves, I would guess its build dates to the early twentieth century. With a 4-6-0 wheel arrangement, she’s a good bit larger than what us Louisianians were accustomed to seeing in our cane fields.

It’s August of 1940, and the United States involvement in World War II is still more than a year away. Jack Delano recorded this view of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad facilities at Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania from a hillside overlooking the yard. That’s the Mahoning Creek Lake (actually a river) that the yard is wrapped around.

The B&O moves a lot of coal through these mountains. It obviously takes a lot of power to achieve that, with more than twenty locomotives at the ready near the huge coaling tower in the distance. And this hazy day is likely due in part to all of those steamers simmering while they wait.

Apparently Jack Delano would occasionally stop and take a few photographs while traveling to each of his major areas of interest. In the summer of 1941 he was in Elizabeth City, North Carolina where he captured this view of a Norfolk Southern freight sitting near the freight station. It seems to be a beehive of activity, with many workers around.

Locomotive number 134 was a 4-6-0 ten-wheeler, a product of the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1913. She was one of four class D-6 steamers produced that year, and she sported 20″x28″ cylinders and 60″ drivers. Her tractive effort was 31,800 lbs., a bit higher than her sisters constructed in 1911.

At first I thought the steamer had a couple of refrigerator cars in tow, but a closer look at the roof-top hatches causes me to think that these may be ventilated boxcars. Anyone care to venture a guess?

This is another of those photos with several interesting details. There are a number of stake-bed trucks around, presumably hauling goods for loading. In the background one of the trucks is being unloaded. It’s difficult to make out the product, but I wonder if it might be tobacco.

Of interest is the “work bench” in the foreground, with it’s vise. I assume it was N.S. property since it has what appears to be a spare air house lying on it’s deck.

Last weekend I attended a train show over in Ponchatoula, Louisiana. While there I ran across an old friend that I hadn’t seen in perhaps 25 years. He mentioned that he had been checking out the photos that I have posted, and wondered if I’d perhaps post something more local to this area (South Louisiana). I informed him that the vast majority of my slide collection had been lost in the Great Flood of 2016, therefore I had precious little to share. But digging through my “scraps”, I came across this photograph I’d taken of the former Southern Pacific steamer #745.

The #745 is a class Mk-5 Mikado (2-8-2), and was built in the Espee’s shop in Algiers, La. back in 1921. She operated on the Texas and New Orleans subsidiary of the Southern Pacific. She has been restored back to operating condition by the Louisiana Steam Train Association (LASTA) in New Orleans.

In 2005 the #745 and her train were on a tour around the state. It’s the month of May, and the train had been on display in Hammond, Louisiana for the day. In late afternoon I captured this view as the train departed for Baton Rouge, the next leg of it’s trip. Looking north, we see the train backing down the Canadian National’s McComb Subdivision mainline (this is the line between Chicago and New Orleans). The switch in the background is the beginning of the Hammond Subdivision, where she will stop and reverse direction, then head west for Baton Rouge.

Caribou, Maine purported itself to be “the greatest potato shipping point in the world”, and it may well have been in October of 1940 when Jack Delano paid them a visit. This is the small, but stately Bangor and Aroostook Railroad passenger depot in Caribou. And note the line of both single and double sheathed wooden boxcars in the background, at least one of which utilizes truss rods for support. I would imagine that time was certainly short for these well traveled cars.

One detail of this photograph that I really love is the street lamp on the square pole, set prominently up front in this view. It’s the corrugated reflector lamp itself that gets my attention, as I remember their prolific use in small towns of the deep South while in my youth. They were used on poles, and were also suspended from cables stretched across a roadway or drive . . . a nice piece of nostalgia.

It’s an overcast day in October of 1940, and we’re paused in the yard near the Bangor and Aroostook freight house in Caribou, Maine. Jack Delano documented the engineer as he was oiling around his locomotive prior to it’s run. The locomotive wasn’t identified in this photograph, but it appears to be the #403 seen from a different vantage point than the view in this prior post. Note the mix of steel and wooden cars in the background.

It’s a day with heavy overcast, perhaps made more dramatic by this backlit scene on the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad in Caribou, Maine. The brakeman has lined the switch for the #403 so she can ease up to the water penstock to quench her thirst. Today’s train has but a single passenger car, but it still displays the required markers on it’s rear. The train will next move down to the Caribou depot for boarding.

Locomotive #403 is a 2-8-0 Consolidation built by ALCO’s Schenectady Works in November of 1937, hence was still quite new when Jack Delano recorded this image in October of 1940.

I thought I’d move away from Chicago for a bit, and go back a little further in time. Jack Delano traveled up to the state of Maine in October of 1940. While there he recorded several images during his visit to the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad.

The BAR became famous as a potato hauler, and eventually had a rather sizeable fleet of refrigerator cars for that service. The railroad created a striking red, white and blue paint scheme for these cars, then later painted quite a few boxcars with an adaptation of this colorful livery. The railroad also did considerable business with the paper industry, hauling pulpwood, wood chips and chemicals to the paper mills, and finished paper products out.

Pictured below is BAR #191, a 2-8-0 steamer, simmering in the freight yard at Caribou, Maine. She was built by ALCO Schenectady in January, 1921. She’s sporting white flags on her prow, indicating that she’s in charge of an extra today. I would guess that the train is at the start of it’s run since the tender appears to be topped off with it’s coal supply.

Note the roundhouse just behind the engine, and the rather crude telegraph pole at right. And of course, the Ford Model A Fordor 3-window sedan front and center. This is a wonderful scene of days gone by.

It’s early spring, April of 1943, at the Chicago and North Western’s Proviso Yard in Chicago, Illinois. Jack Delano has released his shutter just as a tank car has been cut off at the crest of the hump. It will slowly lumber down into the appropriate track in the yard beyond, this scenario being repeated many hundreds of times each day.

Back in the day when people thought of the meat industry, they thought of Chicago. The city was considered the hub of the meat packing industry, and boasted a huge conglomeration of stock yards. Naturally the railroads played a huge role in this industry, and seen here is one of a constant stream of “cattle trains” coming into the city.

The location is the Chicago and North Western’s yard in Chicago, and it’s December of 1942. The cattle train is shown entering the receiving tracks of the yard while two outbound freights wait in the distance for their departure time.

Photo by Jack Delano.

It certainly looks like a blustery winter day in Chicago when Jack Delano recorded this image in December of 1942. Shown is the Chicago and North Western’s locomotive shop and yard complex located on 40th Street. Several of the road’s streamlined diesel locomotives and passenger cars are seen at right. And if one inspects the photograph closely, a lone steamer is seen working a cut of cars at left.

Mr. Delano was either very lucky or quite patient to snap his shutter just as the sun began to poke it’s rays through the heavy overcast. The dark sky behind the pristine white snow presents an interesting contrast in this composition.