January 1st, 2020
We started the year in Galveston, took the Bolivar Ferry, which is free and state-run in a place where socialism is anathema, and worked our way into Louisiana on the hunt more for crawfish than trains.
Galveston, Texas
Galveston is a significant industrial port, cruise port, and tourist town on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. The island is home to several railways, an enormous single track bridge with its own authority shared by UP and BNSF, and a century-old tram.
video
We went out to see the bridge and were immediately greeting with a lengthy BNSF coming onto the island as my first train for 2020. Not much in the way of publicly accessible views of the bridge on the island side, but we found a place at the end of a public road surrounded by no trespassing signs -- so clearly others have tried to go a little further.
video
Immediately after the long southbound arrived at Galveston, a short BNSF took off to head back to the mainland. We went back out to the bridge to watch it sans video, but the bridge failed to lower properly and the train was stopped on the bridge for a while before we left to explore other parts of the island.
