Guy,

I wish I could help you with something era specific, but that's way before my time (literally). As a Baton Rouge native, I'll be watching this closely.

Thanks,

Its just a matter of poking the right holes in the right levee to get the flow going. With what I have now, I'm going on with the track plan and once I get some preliminaries, ill pdf them and post them up here. I want feedback on it so if you have time give a look and let me know what you think. I have wanted to do this area as a layout for years, I remember in my teen years walking and driving the areas that still had track, and felt it was a pretty busy rail served area at one time. Of course with the big paradigm shift to trucks, and highways, the LCL traffic al but evaporated by the end of the 60's. And with this are with the building of the Superdome, the huge IC wharehouses went, and by the early 80's Poydras yard was gone. Interesting to note, that not only IC served this area but also the KCS/L&A, and the Frisco had trackage rights into the area as well. So, I'm thinking a switching layout served by a staging yard would be a lot of fun and ripe for operation. So, yeah ke a eye out ill have some goodies, and share any information I get.

you might want to take a look at the New Orleans facilities Cliff Powers modeled on his Mississippi, Alabama and Gulf.  He doesn't do Poydras, but does do NOUPT in all its former glory, and much of the supporting infrastructure (which AFAIK backed up to Poydras).

Yes, great idea ill do that. I'm very familiar with his work which is needless to say incredible. I wish I had the room to do the old ICRR terminal in all its glory days, but space limitations have a way of toning down dreams. I could fit more of what I want with n scale, but another close friend Art Houston woke me up from that dream. I figured ove the years that surely mechanisims and better track had brought n scale up to a acceptable level of operating standards, as to be usable for a switching layout design, but from what he told me from what he experienced recently was tantamount to a excersize in futility. That coupled with the fact I'm not getting any younger and n scale not getting any bigger {lol}, I think its going to be HO scale all the way. I am going to maybe throw up some of the maps and aireal photos of the area I've been collecting to work from soon. I'm sure anyone interested in the ICRR in this area would like to see some of this stuff. Till next time....

Being a died in the wool N scaler - who runs on big layouts and small switching layouts, and it soon to handlay some track . . . to each his own.  As long as you get the model railroad you want -its all good.

See, now I get this. I guess ill have to try and find a n scale layout and see before making my final decision, cause id l9ove to get more of the area in on the plan. The only thing is the old age factor starting to hit me. So ill probably do HO, but if I can just see it in operation, get a hands on feel before my design goes to cad, might not be a bad idea.

I see you have jumped in with both feet. Try and contact Buddy Stall and look for history surrounding Falstaff Brewery. They had a lot of cars that went through that yard. I would also go to IC historical society site.

Yeah art, this is great. Thanks for your guidance, its right on as usual. What's it been, like 35 or more years and never a bad suggestion yet. Lol. Those photos you sent last night are awesome, and love the list of businesses and residences along poydras st. In that time period. Starting to print stuff now so I can start sketching out a few ideas.

Guy

Posting your images inline is better than using attachments ... here's your image inline:

Don't you agree it's much better with the image posted directly in the post? Here's how.