Was there a connection between Baton Rouge and Lafayette before the Athafalay Bridge of I-10? – The defender

The reeds rise from the swamp when the water is low, standing as monuments to the era, when the railway line was the only direct route from Baton Rouge to Lafayette.

And vice versa.

It was long before the Interstate 10 connected the two cities to the Atafalaya Bridge in 1973. Although travelers could take other routes between the two cities, there was no connection through the swamp.

That is, while the Railway of the South Pacific did not build a path that transported trains through the waters of the pool. What happened?

It was not exactly the first question that jumped into John A. Rousseau’s mind as he drove the familiar route between his home Baton Rouge and Acadiana.

Remains of a railway line

“While driving on the interstate, going west and looking over the rail to the right, one can see the remains of the rail tracks,” Rousseau said. “It’s hard to see the rails, but what you can see is the raised foundation that is overgrown in parallel with the interstate. Moreover, as you cross a river, you can see concrete stands that have ever held rail tracks, and by more -In over the young regions, you can see the head of the pylons over the gum that once maintained the railway tracks.

Rousseau also reported that he noticed the remains of electric poles parallel to the tracks.

“Can you give me an idea of ​​what train lines these songs used?” he asked curious Louisiana. “Exactly when was the rail line built? And when were the tracks removed?”

The South Pacific built the railway, but this is the short answer.

The beginning of a route

“Construction began in 1900, and then the Athafalaya pool looked different,” says Brandi M. Landry, a tourism manager at the Athafalay Center for Exit 21 on I-10 near Butte La Rose. “This was before all waterways connected.”

Landry collected information about the railway a few years ago about a historical pavilion at the Welcome Center, which shows the natural landscape, culture and history of the National Heritage of Atafalaya, covering 14 parishes in southern Central Louisiana.

Landry cooperates with the late local historian Kenneth P. Delkham, whose 1987 solo book “Masters of the Pool” documented the railway line and his subsequent village of Atafalaya.

Takes a village

The village was located six miles north of the butt La Rosa on the east coast of the Atafalaya River, beginning as homes for railway workers.

“The train depot was also the post office and there were boards in the city,” Landry said. “And the kids went to school by boat.”

The settlement gradually grew into the village, as the railway became fully functional in 1908.

The southern Pacific railway has acquired all necessary rights to the west of the Atafalaya River, while Morgan’s Louisiana & Texas Railroad and Steamship Co. He owned the rights to the east side.

“However, it was the Southern Pacific Railway line that had complete control over the project, as they rented all the rights and titles of it from Morgan’s Louisiana & Texas Railroad and Steamship Co.”, writes Delcambre.

The work began simultaneously in Ruzh and Lafayet Battan, with the two meeting on the Steel Beam Bridge crossing Athafaia.

Meanwhile, the line was anchored on the west coast of the Mississippi River, named “Anchorage”, near the current location of the port of Baton Rouge. The trucks and passenger trains taking the Athafalay route in the South Pacific were crossed through Mississippi by Yazoo and Mississippi Depot from the center of Baton Rouge to Anchorage.

The depot of trains in the center is already home to the Louisiana Museum of Arts and Science.

“Most specific construction”

“With a distance of 55 miles, it was called the” most specific construction “and that its passing to the Atchafalaya swamp was” unique “, writes Delcambre. “Engineers first had to build temporary trams of wooden piles in porridge. Piles of piles stuck the piles, tracks were laid, and dirt loads were pulled to build a permanent embankment. The dirt was excavated from a place near Lafayet, known as the Yamata on pounds. “

Delcambre cites the engineer for the CR Shaw project, which said Southern Pacific has spent between $ 5 and $ 6 million on maintaining this track, which is built on a 50 -foot -deep streams.

“I don’t know about another engineering feat similar to this (building and maintaining the line),” Shaw told Delcambre. “It was unusual – it was a great engineering problem. The line had never had to be built first. There were 48 miles of trams.”

A black -white photo of the route in the former pellet community is a nightmare like water laps on both sides of the slip on the slopes. The chair was near today’s butt La Rose, where the Center for Welcome is now.

Train

“In our area where the Welcome Center is, you can see more from the track just because of the open water,” Landry said. “In the fall, when the water is low, you can see more of the piles.”

The train wheels abandoned at some of the distances were donated to the Welcome Center.

“The family collected the wheels from the water and donated them to us,” Landri said. “We added them to our pavilion.”

These wheels began to control the tracks with the completion of the Atafalaya Bridge in 1908. The village of Athafalay, exiting from the construction site of the bridge, flourished until its abandonment in 1959.

“From the first day, the railway was ahead of its time, and the people who chose to find the village of Athafalay presented the same enthusiasm,” Delkham wrote. “The levels set by the government were in place, defending the bridge of Bro, Cecilia, Arnawil and, in principle One in places, one part can jump over them.

The Great Flood of 1927

This inadequacy turned out to be fatal in 1927, when the Mississippi River breaks through Levees in Caernarvon, Cabin Teele, Melville and Bayou des Glaises, his waters, stagging Arnawil, number of Bridge, St. Martinville, New Iberia, Jeineret Among the so many others.

These rushing waters from what will become known as the great flood of Mississippi from 1927, also removed the Atafalaya Bridge. The South Pacific decided not to replace it.

“But even after the Flood of ’27, they continued to act by running the train across the river,” Landry said. “The Lafayette train would have reached all the way to the break of the Atafalaya River, then Baton Rouge’s train would have turned and meet with it. They would have transported people. They did this for a few years until it was” not possible to They are already doing.

Too expensive to maintain

Landri’s latest statement sounded one of the CK Shaw, the division engineer who told Delcambre about building the train line.