Railroad Days Festival

The Louisiana Railroad Days Festival is a festival held annually in DeQuincy, Louisiana during the 2nd weekend in April. The Railroad Festival has been the highlight of the year in DeQuincy since it first begun in 1983. The festival celebrates DeQuincy’s rich history and railroad heritage, along with the present role of the railroad industry in the city of DeQuincy, as well as the region and the state. It is held in the center of town on the grounds surrounding the DeQuincy Railroad Museum (1923 KCS Depot).

The festival starts on Thursday afternoon and ends late Saturday night. There’s always a bunch of rides, carnival games, food booths, church booths, activities, and live entertainment. There’s also a flea market, a children’s bicycle parade early on Friday, a big parade through town on Friday afternoon, and a concert every evening, with the biggest one on Saturday night. The festival is family oriented, no alcohol, and is admission free, making it one of the most family friendly festivals in Louisiana.

We bought a whole roll of tickets for the Louisiana Railroad Days Festival this year, we’re going to ride ourselves sick!

The Railroad Festival is like DeQuincy’s favorite and most observed “holiday”, next to Christmas. The whole town shuts down on the weekend of the festival.

DeQuincy, Louisiana

A tiny, close-knit town in Southwest Louisiana with a population of only 3,152. It’s the town I proudly call home, where everyone knows your name. Small Town U.S.A. Patriotic, pure American. A place with a hometown feel, where you will always find a warm welcome and old-fashioned hospitality.

Our town’s motto is “Small City, Big Heart”, and our football team is the DeQuincy Tigers. The Railroad Days Festival is the highlight of the year, and our weekly newspaper is The DeQuincy News. Everybody knows everybody, and everybody calls you friend. Country music, fried chicken, greens and cornbread, we’re as Southern as you can get. Rolling hills and tall pine trees. Bible Belt to the core. We talk with a heavy Southern drawl, because everything sounds a little better with a twang. “Y’all” is a proper noun, and “Ain’t” is definitely a word.

DeQuincy is a railroad town, established in 1903 at the crossing of two company lines: the KCS going north and south, and Union Pacific east and west. We are famous for our historic 1923 KCS Depot, which is now home to the DeQuincy Railroad Museum. It’s the center part of our town, and is what our town is known for. Our other attraction is the historic 1914 town hall, jail, and fire station building, which is now home to the DeQuincy Town Hall Museum. DeQuincy is ranked as the safest town in Louisiana, which is something we are very proud of. We take much pride in our little town. We’re proud of our heritage, and we stay true to our roots.

Life is always better in DeQuincy.
GO TIGERS!!!

Out-of-towners: “Hey, are you from somewhere around DeQuincy?”
Me: “Yeah, I live in DeQuincy.”
“How’d y’all know?”
Out-of-towners: “You’ve got that DeQuincy accent, LOL! You’re turning one syllable words into two!”

DeQuincy, Louisiana, aka. “Train Town U.S.A.”

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