Topic starter
26/08/2007 4:33 pm
Greetings From New Orleans ,
I am not so sure if anyone would be interested in this but the powers that be in the state , have finally started the long awaited process of widening the Huey P. Long Bridge . Unfortunately when I say widening the bridge , I am not refering to the horizontal distance between the bridge piers themselves , but the actual highway spans that cross the river . If you've never crossed the river on the Huey P , well its not for the weak of heart . First of all , the bridge I believe was completed in or around 1935 , and the style of automobile of that day was just simply not as wide as what is on the road today . Consequently , the bridge and the traffi lanes are quite narrow , without shoulders and with a train track inbetween the opposing lanes . Therefore it becomes quite an adventure when one crosses the bridge , in heavy rush hour traffic , with a screaming freight train going down the middle of the bridge and shakeing the the entire structure and You , while peering over the guard rails and viewing the Mississippi River , about one hundred and fifty feet below , in low river . So , going to work , and crossing the Huey P , is just not an adventure but actually one of lifes ordeals that will take your breath away . So , the first phase of this projecct is to widen the piers themselves so that at a latter date , the traffic lanes can then also be widened . I have a number of pictures of the progress being made and it really is an engineering achievement and if anyone is interested in seeing more pictures of this endeavor , please let me know and I will e-mail them to you .
Smoothe Sailing !
Ted Davisson
27/08/2007 1:41 am
Darn straight that's a scary bridge!
The first time I was on that thing was during a driving rainstorm (at night) and I almost turned my Buick into the river, not knowing a train was heading down the center...I thought it was a truck heading right for me!!!!!!!!!!
27/08/2007 4:18 am
The Railroad on the Huey P. Long bridge with pics
There's also the railroad version of the Hughey P. Long Bridge. The track is 4.9 miles long, end to end and double tracked. A lot of the time, only one track is in use with maintenance taking place on the other one. Today, it carries trains of the Union Pacific but before the mergers of the 1980's and '90's, the bridge served Missouri Pacific (ex-Texas & Pacific RR) and Southern Pacific (ex-Texas & New Orleans RR).
On June 19, 1980 (my birthday), I spent about five hours sitting on the bridge on a sleeping car that I had sold to the National Railways of Mexico. I was riding it on a Missouri Pacific freight train, en-route to Laredo, TX for delivery to the Mexican railroad. The car was just ahead of the cabooses (they had 2 for some reason that day). The MoPac had picked the car up from Seaboard Coast Line at their Gentilly Yard in NOLA. Once on the bridge, the train stopped and there we sat.
As the sun came up I got off the train and shot several slides from the bridge. We were stopped on the eastern approach so you can get a good idea of the immense size of this structure. You can make out the NO skyline in one scene at dawn and then you can see the bridge in the distance with the eastbound automobile lane dropping down to ground level.
It was a long night but I'm glad I had the experience.
-Jim Herron
27/08/2007 9:11 am
I, for one, am glad to see you back, Ted.
27/08/2007 12:20 pm
Interesting pix, Jim. Did you see Avondale Shipyard just upriver from the bridge on the West Bank? Quite impressive from above. If you look at your city -in -the -background pix, the 'new' bridge, the GNO, is there. It is about 10 river miles between those bridges, but only about 4 by land, due to the bends in the river.
Topic starter
28/08/2007 3:10 pm
Thanks Alan ,
Thanks Alan ,
Nice to be " back " and quite inpressed with the new steamboats.org format . It appears that a great deal of time and effort went into this and its a real pleasure to get re-acquainted with both my old steamboat and river buddies .
Smoothe Sailing !
Ted Davisson