Working on the MAL

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Racer
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Re: Working on the MAL

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Today, the Vista Cavern was scrapped on site of the CSX/MAL interchange track. This was defenatly coming after my previous report of inspecting the car when I worked for Railmark. It is a shame that it is gone, but there was plenty of time for the work needed to be suitable for the CSX interchange. We had to move all of the equipment out of Walled Lake before the Vista Cavern could be worked on. The last remaining artifacts of the MAL is officially gone. Such a shame for a railroad that didn't need to go in the first place.

- FIN -
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Re: Working on the MAL

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One of these days I will have to find the photos from when I worked there of the baggage car, kitchen car, 416 and a few others getting scrapped.
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Re: Working on the MAL

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Chrisracer8903 wrote:Today, the Vista Cavern was scrapped on site of the CSX/MAL interchange track. This was defenatly coming after my previous report of inspecting the car when I worked for Railmark. It is a shame that it is gone, but there was plenty of time for the work needed to be suitable for the CSX interchange. We had to move all of the equipment out of Walled Lake before the Vista Cavern could be worked on. The last remaining artifacts of the MAL is officially gone. Such a shame for a railroad that didn't need to go in the first place.

- FIN -


Ahh well—this was bound to happen. I wish something was done to save it too!
:(
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Re: Working on the MAL

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In this coming May, it will be a year since the MAL was ripped-up (Took about 2-3 weeks to remove) and they have not removed any crossings, Wixom Road and M-5 signals are still in place, and there has been no signs or reports online about the proposed bike trail. Does it take this long to put in a trail? It seems like they worked really quickly to remove the railroad, but after a month it all just stopped - especially since the STB filing was 2 years ago. Anyone have any ideas?
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Re: Working on the MAL

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CAT345C wrote:One of these days I will have to find the photos from when I worked there of the baggage car, kitchen car, 416 and a few others getting scrapped.
Like this Mike

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See ya

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Re: Working on the MAL

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Chrisracer8903 wrote:In this coming May, it will be a year since the MAL was ripped-up (Took about 2-3 weeks to remove) and they have not removed any crossings, Wixom Road and M-5 signals are still in place, and there has been no signs or reports online about the proposed bike trail. Does it take this long to put in a trail? It seems like they worked really quickly to remove the railroad, but after a month it all just stopped - especially since the STB filing was 2 years ago. Anyone have any ideas?
Lots of variables....funding, community support/opposition, construction... may take several years.

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Re: Working on the MAL

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The grant may have been for ROW acquisition only. In that case, there will another grant application for design and construction.

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Re: Working on the MAL

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That's correct. The Commerce/Walled Lake/Wixom segment grant was only for ROW acquisition. The communities need to find funding for the development of the trail. West Bloomfield is supposed to be developing the trail segment east of Haggerty. I haven't seen any recent updates on that.

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Re: Working on the MAL

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NoviRailfan wrote:That's correct. The Commerce/Walled Lake/Wixom segment grant was only for ROW acquisition. The communities need to find funding for the development of the trail. West Bloomfield is supposed to be developing the trail segment east of Haggerty. I haven't seen any recent updates on that.
The segment from Haggerty Road to Woodpecker Lake was removed around 2010 (I think). It's been nothing but an overgrown dirt path as the rest of the line is now. It amazes me how these 4 communities are trying to build a trail that they have NO MONEY to build and should be spending their money on other civics.

It's too bad they didn't try to find another buyer for this line until the cities found the money to prove they could do this project from start-to-finish. I don't mean to rant, but why must they spend taxpayer's money on a project that has a benifit to only a few people, yet gives nothing back to the community, and attracts crime - especially in that area.
Last edited by Racer on Tue Feb 05, 2013 10:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Working on the MAL

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Chrisracer8903 wrote:
NoviRailfan wrote:That's correct. The Commerce/Walled Lake/Wixom segment grant was only for ROW acquisition. The communities need to find funding for the development of the trail. West Bloomfield is supposed to be developing the trail segment east of Haggerty. I haven't seen any recent updates on that.
The segment from Haggerty Road to Woodpecker Lake was removed around 2010 (I think). It's been nothing but an overgrown dirt path as the rest of the line is now. It amazes me how these 4 communities are trying to build a trail that they have NO MONEY to build and should be spending their money on other civics.
Because everybody that lives along that railroad is stuck on themselves and think they are the greatest people in the world. When I was cutting rail at Halstead for the company to tear that crossing out I got yelled at by more than 5 people because I was making too much noise. Why did you buy a mansion by a railroad track?! When I was loaned to the road crew that removed the crossing and replaced it with ashpalt my job was to be a flagman with the traffic. I can't tell you how many people went around me while displaying stop and just drove through the work zone because they didn't feel they needed to stop.
Last edited by CAT345C on Tue Feb 05, 2013 10:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Working on the MAL

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CAT345C wrote:[....my job was to be a flagman with the traffic. I can't tell you how many people went around me while displaying stop and just drove through the work zone because they didn't feel they needed to stop.
Yeah, no kidding! My experiences were bad as well when I was trying to get traffic to stop for a train. There were a few instances where cars and even a byclists would go through my red flag when 1512 was beginning to enter the crossing and sounding the horn. There was one time where a mini van almost hit the brakeman flagging (I was riding in the cab) at the Wixom Road crossing while making the interchange with CSX. From my flagging experience, Wixom Road and Pontiac Trail seemed to be the worst crossings yet Pontiac Trail's crossing signals were still working until the last train. Even though Wixom Road's were not working, there is a reason why the brakeman is out there flagging the crossing. :x
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Re: Working on the MAL

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Chrisracer8903 wrote:
CAT345C wrote:[....my job was to be a flagman with the traffic. I can't tell you how many people went around me while displaying stop and just drove through the work zone because they didn't feel they needed to stop.
Yeah, no kidding! My experiences were bad as well when I was trying to get traffic to stop for a train. There were a few instances where cars and even a byclists would go through my red flag when 1512 was beginning to enter the crossing and sounding the horn. There was one time where a mini van almost hit the brakeman flagging (I was riding in the cab) at the Wixom Road crossing while making the interchange with CSX. From my flagging experience, Wixom Road and Pontiac Trail seemed to be the worst crossings yet Pontiac Trail's crossing signals were still working until the last train. Even though Wixom Road's were not working, there is a reason why the brakeman is out there flagging the crossing. :x
I think it would have been funny to have a bond wire break after the railroad left... I know those signals were still activated after Railmark moved out. Who you gonna call?
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Re: Working on the MAL

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That actually happened. I got stuck for at least 30 minutes on M-5 because the crossing got activated and the gates effectively blocked anyone from getting around it. The Oakland County Sheriff's deputies came out and broke off the gates. That's why they are lying beside the crossing. It made for a massive traffic jam.

The claim that converting the railroad to a trail will lead to increased crime is the same claim made about every rail to trail conversion. It's bogus and it's not backed up by facts. West Bloomfield has started work on their segment already. Here's information about it.

http://www.westbloomfieldparks.org/park ... ject.shtml

It was a shame to see the MAL go away but if there was really a financial case to be made for the railroad, I doubt it would have be sold off simply to allow the rail-trail to go in its place. It doesn't sound like it had any significant traffic and when it reached the abandonment stage, I believe there was only one active shipper reported on the line.

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Re: Working on the MAL

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The ONLY reason it was abandoned was for the owner to pay off some of his massive debt by scrapping it. The line had decent potential. Darn shame.
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Re: Working on the MAL

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That's what I have heard as well. I also heard that shipping cement (Like 350 cars worth or something like that) from Alpena was possible to cement facilities such as in Walled Lake.
Last edited by Racer on Wed Feb 06, 2013 2:44 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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Re: Working on the MAL

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Merry Chrismas
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Re: Working on the MAL

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Potential doesn't pay the bills unfortunately. There was an era not too long ago where the Class 1's looked at the short lines as their partners and encouraged trans-loading etc on the short lines. Those days are over. The Class 1's and large regionals want to keep it all now days. 50 cars a year, if priced to cover costs would be far more expensive than truck delivery plus the truck driver unloads his own truck. Add in debt expense and the business could not be profitable :( . I'm not defending the owners business practices but this property would be a tough go for anyone.

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Re: Working on the MAL

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Raildudes dad wrote:Potential doesn't pay the bills unfortunately. There was an era not too long ago where the Class 1's looked at the short lines as their partners and encouraged trans-loading etc on the short lines. Those days are over. The Class 1's and large regionals want to keep it all now days. 50 cars a year, if priced to cover costs would be far more expensive than truck delivery plus the truck driver unloads his own truck. Add in debt expense and the business could not be profitable :( . I'm not defending the owners business practices but this property would be a tough go for anyone.
I read about that trend as well. Doesn't seem fair for their so called "shortline partners".
Last edited by Racer on Tue Feb 05, 2013 11:16 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Working on the MAL

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I drove through Walled Lake yesterday while on my way to an appointment and the rails at all the crossings have been removed and resurfaced with asphalt except for M-5. In addition, the GTW signal at the CSX interchange in Wixom was gone, too. Anyone know if it was saved?
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Re: Working on the MAL

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As I previously stated, I just don't think there was much potential seen for the line. It sounds like APT was a solid customer. I know that they were one reason that the grant funding for the rail-trail was postponed a year. But beyond that, it sounds like most of the potential customer base was speculative. I think the biggest obstacle was the location of the rail line. Where the tracks ran didn't provide many locations for many potential customers. I'm sure that people looking at the line factored that into their financial projections. I'm guessing that no one wanted to pay Railmark what they wanted to get out of the line and the bottom line was that the line was worth more to them as real estate than it was a working railroad.

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