Baseball and Trains on YatPundit’s Pub 23-May-2019
Proposed engine terminal near Greenwod Cemetery, 1944
Yatpundit’s Pub 23-May-2019
Our first brew in the pub for this episode is New Orleans Baseball. We interviewed S. Derby Gisclair for the history pod, talking baseball. That had me thinking of how baseball fits into a number of potential writing ideas. When I jotted down the starter notes for the segment, three things came to mind:
- Playground moms
- Amateur leagues
- Kickball!
Now, “Playground moms” is just a jumping-off point. Imagine all the things you could do at a public playground. They’re not all “mom” related, Although, the notion of a SAHM in #themetrys being a spy and doing an intel hand-off at t-ball practice is kind of a neat idea. Amateur leagues are a thing as well, particularly if you’re considering a period piece or story. The Commercial League came up in my research and photographs for both the Maison Blanche and Krauss books. These days, amateur baseball focuses more around individuals than company teams. Either way, though, the social interaction has a lot of potential.
So, when I say “baseball”, I don’t want that to be limited to just men on the field. While women play organized softball more than hardball, those games and leagues are just as interesting as writing prompts. At the kid-tween-teen level, taking a girl to softball practice plays out similar to boys teams.
Fictional Railroads in New Orleans
You’ll find me coming back to this as I work out thoughts and designs of my Pontchartrain Railroad model layout at home. While the layout has basic roots in New Orleans history, it’s more of an “alternate history” universe. The idea is, what if railroads maintained their influence from the 1940s? What if both freight and passenger rail maintained their significance? So, it’s not “prototype” as in limited passenger service provided by Amtrak.
There’s also some variations to where railroad tracks are in New Orleans. Here are a couple of diagrams of Mid-City in 1944. The Bernadotte yard was real. The engine terminal and roundhouse were proposed for the location that is now the big Baptist church behind Greenwood Cemetery. What if that facility actually existed?
Pontchartrain Railroad – N Scale
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