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Grand Elk just arrived at Ann St. in GR. Looks like mostly tank cars. Doing a little switching on the spur next to Victor Barnes? No, GDLK delivers loaded tank cars to the frac sand transload yard for transloading. The sand transload is currently inactive as is the one at Mart St. There was some fe...

Plannerdad wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 13, 2021 3:40 pm

GRE at Ann Street has two tracks full of hoppers and one loaded center beam. No train EB, that I saw anyway.

Didn't work today, supposed to be a 2nd in the yard with GDLK bringing 1 more tonight.

One word for any sort of a passenger operation: INSURANCE. Insurance for passenger operations is reasonable and available. However, they need passengers to operate. Covid has made that difficult. The CPMY didn't run a passenger train in over a year. The Class 1's are a different story on insurance.

Mosaic is currently producing potash (and salt) at the existing mine. They are not transloading. It's also interesting to note Mosaic did not renew the mineral rights to the land the new company has leased the rights to. Mosaic sold to Cargill and they only are producing salt. The new company is go...

The casino has no interest. I did a little research on casino visitors back in the Lake Central Railtour days. The sw parking lot was full of tour buses from Michigan. That was before Gun Lake, Firekeepers etc. A couple hours max and they are at the casino. Spend 5-6 hours at the casino and home tha...

The GT/ATSF one was owned by "Frosty" who lived on M-115. I ASSumed they were talking about the one on the siding.They didn't say anything about NDB.I should have picked up on the GT/ATSF id.

It is or was owned by the Mears Group in Rosebush who used it on their plow train for fiber optic cable back when most of the fiber was plowed in RR ROW's. It's been there since they parked their train 30? years. Looking on google earth, the plow train is gone. I think the train was there too IIRC

Agreed. I'll bet money the RR was there first. You better find that cash :shock: I checked some of the old maps. Joslyn Road (or whatever it was named) was there first. RR's were usually pretty good about acquiring deeds to their ROW. Roads tend to be by user if not statutory section line roads. De...

I just looked at it on google earth and yeah it looks like there's approximately 0 customers on that line outside of the assembly plant and they don't produce any substantial volume right now. Also what a screwy route. Why does it cross over Joslyn Rd. 3 different times in as many miles? Stupid. I’...

Plannerdad wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 04, 2021 9:56 pm

GRE Yard at Ann Street is still full and Lowell/King is almost empty. Not sure if they have been east all week.

They haven't, not sure about today

Thanks for taking on my question. I'd like to know more about the cars that pass through Moline on Grand Elk. There's various hoppers, center beams, and boxcars that go through north and south. Where is the origination and destination of each type of car? Give me a car number and I can tell you the...

The Milwaukee Road car is on the s/w side of the road near the Celotex plant. Van Straten Bros. is north of Baraga, west side of the road. You shouldn't miss either if you don't concentrate on the lake

I remember them rolling thru the west side of Grand Rapids. 25mph speed limit Midland to Freeport? TX and return IIRC. I'm pretty sure the details are on the net someplace. Doctor No probably remembers more:)

That Milwaukee Road car has been there many moons. I'm assuming it's still in use by the MOW forces. As for the cars at Van Straten Fabricating further north, they have been there man moons also. Cheap warehousing. Any Tech students that drove back and forth for breaks can testify they have been bee...

KC8RBK wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 14, 2021 2:04 pm

Mid Michigan eb with a loaded beam car almost to 127 at 1400

That car came AA/ GLC / MMRR to Bear. An unusual routing. Most come from the east thru Paines.

Some of us used to occasionally railfan there Sat overnight to Sun. PatC would contact the PD Dept and they were ok with those that wanted to sleep the night in their car in the DPW parking lot next to the tracks.

CSX Customer website says track work, Grand Rapids to Porter scheduled for the first 3 weeks of July .Up to 24 hours delay is possible or similar language.

The customers will be using truck / transload long before any track is laid. The ROW appears to be compromised in several locations and bridges appear to be missing.

Besse does hardwoods and veneers. They no longer list a Newberry operation

The car in the photo is the only one that got the "fancy" MMRR logo. It was painted up for a display for Transportation Week sometime in the late 80's early 90'. The display was set up on the siding at the former SuperFoods (IGA) warehouse on Patterson Ave on CSX. I don't remember all the details an...