Historic Houma, La., train bridge is leaving town

Standing 12 stories tall, Houma's old steel train bridge that crosses the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway is an iconic fixture to those who grew up here, The Daily Comet reports. They remember the trains crossing the bridge in the 1970s and 80s or climbing atop the huge rust-covered structure following its permanent closure in 1991. After this year, however, the lift bridge will once again operate over the Intracoastal Waterway, though this time in Freeport, Texas.

Crews hired by Union
Pacific, which owns the bridge, will dismantle the span, starting Nov. 20 with
the moveable base, which is nearly 260 feet long. The bridge wasn’t dismantled
in the past two decades because the company hadn’t found a use until now,
according to Raquel Espinoza Williams, a Union Pacific spokeswoman.

The bridge’s departure
marks another piece of history, like the old railroad line, that’s leaving
Houma, something local residents said is tragic to see. Lee Gautraux, 44, a
train and railway enthusiast since childhood, said he rode his bike to watch
the trains run on the tracks near his family’s house. He watched the current
bridge being built and became friends with the tender and the station agent at
the yard on Barataria Avenue and Main Street.

While the center component
of the bridge is being removed, the ship channel will be closed to industrial
traffic from Saturday morning to Monday morning, said Todd Cook, the bridge
removal project manager for PCL Civil Constructors. Few recreational boats
travel the pass, but notice will also be posted at the nearby South Houma Boat
Launch next to Jim Bowie Park, according to the Houma U.S. Coast Guard office.
Once removed, the span will be put onto a barge, and the towers on either side
will be dismantled later, Cook said.

Train bridges are examples
of engineering feats at their finest, said Clifford Smith, owner of local
engineering firm T. Baker Smith. From the windows of his company’s first office
on Van Avenue, the 75-year-old Smith said, he would watch trains pass once or
twice daily in the late 1960s.

"In civil engineering, they
teach you about steel," Smith said. "Everything is about building a railroad
bridge because it’s one of the strongest structures."

The rail line through
Schriever was laid in the pre-Civil War era, as part of tracks that stretched
from Algiers west to Morgan City, said Gautraux, who hosts a train-specific
website under the alias "RailGoat." In 1870, a branch was extended from
Schriever along La. 311 into downtown Houma, he said. Another extension was
laid in 1930 from Barataria Avenue to Magnolia Street, across the Intracoastal
Waterway, into the area that’s now Grand Caillou Road and Industrial Boulevard
and ending at what was known as the Colley Switch. The first train bridge
crossing the Intracoastal Waterway turned at its center like a turntable, which
meant the base jutted out into the ship channel. As barges and boats got
bigger, the bridge and its base became a navigation hazard, and so the existing
span was built, Gautraux said.

The rail line primarily
served the agriculture industry, transporting sugar, molasses and bagasse in
and out of Houma’s farms and mills, Gautraux said. In the late 1950s and 60s,
the oil-and-gas industry relied on the lines, shifting the focus from what
Gautraux called "white gold" to "black gold."

The rail line was
abandoned, he said, after then-owner Louisiana Delta Railroad couldn’t operate
it at a profit, likely because of a slump in the oil industry in the 1980s, he
said. Moving the bridge was tossed around once the train tracks closed,
Gautraux said, but the idea was shelved amid the South Pacific and Union Pacific
merger.

"It was a very bad move,"
he said of abandoning the railroad. "Houma is now the largest city in Louisiana
without rail access."