L304/305 & JAIL

[Tom49801]

Could someone please explain what route does L304/L305 follow from Lansing to get to the Jackson & Lansing RR (JAIL)? From the Time Table, I see a small dash labeled as "NS" just east of MA (Michigan Ave) mp CH87.2 before the CN Diamond & wondering if this is the route L304/L305 would take off of the Plymouth sub-division. Also, are their customers along the way to Jackson, Mi that L304/L305 handle, or, do they just deliver/pickup cars to/from JAIL's Terminal? Thank you for any info provided.

[donnieland]

hi tom
long ago the pmrr ( csx now ) ran via trackage rights on the nyc rr ( ns and then jail rr )
from north lansing mp 88.3 ( 1969 ett 1 ) to lansing mp 87.4 ( ma ), this was all dt from
ensel to ma, with crossovers at north lansing and ma controled via the nyc op at ma
tower. at ma tower. just south of michigan st were the cross overs where the pm rr mainline
resumed going east to detroit. the east track curved east toward trowbridge ( mc mp 84.8 )
the west track con't south toward jackson and across the gtw rr. 304/05 take the east track
( n/s track ) and curve to the east toward mc and eastward to ann pere ( ho ) and will
turn at brighton ( bn ) or south lyon ( sy ) and return to ensel yard as 305 via reverse routing
the ds had a abs for eb movement only he would line on his ctc ( ctc was completed in 1960
from trowbridge ( mc ) to sheldon rd ( mp 25.7 iirc ) just west of the plymouth ( jy ) diamond
to allow eb movement off the central to c&o tracks. jail will take and pickup cars at ensel
via trackage rights from north lansing to ensel, also if irc csx gained ds control of the tracks
from lansing to north lansing via agreement with the jail rr. the double track was removed after
jail assumed control from north lansing to lansing .

[SD80MAC]

Jackson & Lansing gets on CSX at MA (their own line continues south from MA to Holt and ultimately Jackson, while the Plymouth Sub goes east at MA). J&L trains (Z644, I think) take CSX from MA north/west to North Lansing, diverging onto Main #2. J&L then regains access to their own track at Turner St, on the south side of both CSX mains (CSX’s Ensel Yard is on the north side). J&L has a small yard on the south side of Ensel yard which is where the CSX interchange takes place. Their tracks also continue southwest of here and ultimately wind up at the CN interchange.

L304 and L305 work the J&L interchange by simply coming out of the west end of Ensel on Main 1, backing through the Ensel control point onto Main 2, and then diverging into the J&L owned tracks on the south side of Main 2 to pick up and set out. CSX trains to not travel to Jackson or anywhere on J&L tracks other than those 2 tracks right on the south side of Ensel.

Originally, the J&L was the New York Central, and what is now part of the Plymouth Sub from North Lansing to MA was the NYC mainline, later Conrail. After the Conrail split, this section was sold to CSX while NS got the line south of MA as well as the rest of the line from Turner St down to the CN. NS leased their line to J&L in 2010.

[Tom49801]

Thank you donnieland & SD80MAC for the great info you have provided me regarding the CSX/JAIL ops.

[Manistique]

Originally, the J&L was the New York Central, and what is now part of the Plymouth Sub from North Lansing to MA was the NYC mainline, later Conrail. After the Conrail split, this section was sold to CSX while NS got the line south of MA as well as the rest of the line from Turner St down to the CN. NS leased their line to J&L in 2010.

From what I know, NS still owns the portion of this line from MA to North Lansing (and maybe even from North Lansing to Turner Street). It is leased to JAIL. CSX maintains this portion and dispatches it (JAIL has to get permission from CSX dispatcher to run on it). CSX thinks that they own it and acts like they do but they don't from what I know. But at the end of the day it makes little difference as they run the most trains over it.

[chapmaja]

Are you sure the second main remainded in place until the JAIL took over? It looks like the ROW where the second main would have been seems pretty pristine for have tracks on it as recently as the JAIL takeover.

Also, with regard to the JAIL operations. Looking at the tracks in and around Lansing, they have the line that curves from their line and goes SW to QD and Reid Machinery. How often do they service these customers? Reid actually has a boxcar on their siding, (in both the sat. view and the street view, plus a little critter locomotive on the 2019 street view). It doesn't look like the QD siding is in event decent shape.

Looking at the tracks going north, they split back into double track at roughly Porter Street, then runs as two tracks until Turner Rd. Just west of Turner, a track splits off to the south side. Is this the JAIL's lead onto their tracks to Saginaw Yard (or what's left of it). There is also a line which is buried in the grass which comes off this line, crosses Turner and heads south to just north of M-43 / I69 BL. This is the Old Town Spur, which does have one occassional customer on it, correct?

Back up to Turner, there is a second from west of Turner (from roughly Washington St to east of Spikes St), which is double tracked. One track (north) has a bunch of tanks and covered hoppers on it, is this the JAIL/CSX interchange track? Also, right near Spikes St there is a customer, Heart Truss and Engineering, with a single centerbeam on the spur. Is this a JAIL customer or CSX customer? After the JAIL line curves down towards Sagainw Yard, I see PADNOS Lansing has a siding, and a centercab. Do they still get rail service? What about ALRO Steel just south of PADNOS on the east side. The siding is still in place, but my understanding is ALRO isn't big on rail service company wide.

Finally we get down to Saginaw Yard. Does JAIL uses this primarily for car storage now? At one time I know it served the auto plants under Conrail (and maybe that lasted into NS ownership), but the plants are lone go with the tracks remaining). The tracks then continue before curving east to Hollow Yard where there is some interchange with CN in Lansing.

It is sad looking at Hollow Yard and along the CN tracks and seeing what used to be a robust amount of tracks in several states of decay / removal from what once had to have seen a ton of traffic in and out between the power plant and the auto plants. The one remaining auto plant doesn't have any direct rail service, and the power plant, to my knowledge is decommissioned (but the towers are remaining up, correct?)

[LansingRailFan]

Are you sure the second main remainded in place until the JAIL took over? It looks like the ROW where the second main would have been seems pretty pristine for have tracks on it as recently as the JAIL takeover.

Also, with regard to the JAIL operations. Looking at the tracks in and around Lansing, they have the line that curves from their line and goes SW to QD and Reid Machinery. How often do they service these customers? Reid actually has a boxcar on their siding, (in both the sat. view and the street view, plus a little critter locomotive on the 2019 street view). It doesn't look like the QD siding is in event decent shape.

Looking at the tracks going north, they split back into double track at roughly Porter Street, then runs as two tracks until Turner Rd. Just west of Turner, a track splits off to the south side. Is this the JAIL's lead onto their tracks to Saginaw Yard (or what's left of it). There is also a line which is buried in the grass which comes off this line, crosses Turner and heads south to just north of M-43 / I69 BL. This is the Old Town Spur, which does have one occassional customer on it, correct?

Back up to Turner, there is a second from west of Turner (from roughly Washington St to east of Spikes St), which is double tracked. One track (north) has a bunch of tanks and covered hoppers on it, is this the JAIL/CSX interchange track? Also, right near Spikes St there is a customer, Heart Truss and Engineering, with a single centerbeam on the spur. Is this a JAIL customer or CSX customer? After the JAIL line curves down towards Sagainw Yard, I see PADNOS Lansing has a siding, and a centercab. Do they still get rail service? What about ALRO Steel just south of PADNOS on the east side. The siding is still in place, but my understanding is ALRO isn't big on rail service company wide.

Finally we get down to Saginaw Yard. Does JAIL uses this primarily for car storage now? At one time I know it served the auto plants under Conrail (and maybe that lasted into NS ownership), but the plants are lone go with the tracks remaining). The tracks then continue before curving east to Hollow Yard where there is some interchange with CN in Lansing.

It is sad looking at Hollow Yard and along the CN tracks and seeing what used to be a robust amount of tracks in several states of decay / removal from what once had to have seen a ton of traffic in and out between the power plant and the auto plants. The one remaining auto plant doesn't have any direct rail service, and the power plant, to my knowledge is decommissioned (but the towers are remaining up, correct?)

ALRO gets cars of flat steel

Padnos receives and ships cars of scrap, all via CN.

Saginaw Yard has a new transload going bin behind the baseball diamond. It’s almost finished.

Reid hasn’t shipped anything out in 2+ years

QD hasn’t received cars since 2019? 2020? And has shut down that plastic bottle operation. I know that adbf approached them about buying that building to use as a transload but QD declined.

[SD80MAC]

The second main was pulled between MA and North Lansing shortly after the Conrail split.

[MiddleMI]

Someone should sketch-up a diagram of all the tracks at Ensel and such, or mock-up a Google aerial.

And, yeah, the main between Michigan Avenue and North Lansing was pulled decades ago. And, in fact, signifcant parts of it are owned by other property owners, now. For instance between Michigan Ave and Shiawasse, only about a third of it is owned by the railroad.

[GP30M4216]

Looking at the tracks going north, they split back into double track at roughly Porter Street, then runs as two tracks until Turner Rd. Just west of Turner, a track splits off to the south side. Is this the JAIL's lead onto their tracks to Saginaw Yard (or what's left of it). There is also a line which is buried in the grass which comes off this line, crosses Turner and heads south to just north of M-43 / I69 BL. This is the Old Town Spur, which does have one occassional customer on it, correct?

Back up to Turner, there is a second from west of Turner (from roughly Washington St to east of Spikes St), which is double tracked. One track (north) has a bunch of tanks and covered hoppers on it, is this the JAIL/CSX interchange track? Also, right near Spikes St there is a customer, Heart Truss and Engineering, with a single centerbeam on the spur. Is this a JAIL customer or CSX customer? After the JAIL line curves down towards Sagainw Yard, I see PADNOS Lansing has a siding, and a centercab. Do they still get rail service? What about ALRO Steel just south of PADNOS on the east side. The siding is still in place, but my understanding is ALRO isn't big on rail service company wide.

The one remaining auto plant doesn't have any direct rail service, and the power plant, to my knowledge is decommissioned (but the towers are remaining up, correct?)

The track that diverges from CSX Main 2 just west of the Turner Street crossing on the south side is the JAIL's primary access to and from the west side Lansing Belt. It joins the Old Town Spur (former LS&MS remains) at this point. Friedland Recycling is the lone customer just south of Caesar Chavez Ave, in Old Town and they haven't received any traffic since late 2021 or early 2022, I believe. The spur looks like a bit of a wildflower sanctuary at this moment.

Back to Turner and heading west, the south most two tracks at the JAIL's, those tankcars and covered hoppers seen in the google aerial imagery were storage cars on the north track, while JAIL would utilize the south track to get by. There is one CSX siding on the south side of the Mains and the end of Spikes is a great place to view it. This CSX siding is where JAIL-CSX interchange cars are staged. I believe the overnight L304 job is the one that typically works the JAIL interchange. Speaking of Spikes Stret, yes, Heart Structural Truss is located just to the east. This is a CSX customer, despite diverging from the JAIL track. I'm not sure of all the history, but at one time there wasn't a switch here, it was a diamond served directly from the CSX south siding, and had a tilting target! These photos were posted on the Lansing Railroad Archaeology page back in 2020:

https://scontent-ord5-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/ ... e=650F7636 (looking east)
https://scontent-ord5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/ ... e=650F9239 (looking west)

At some point they simplified the track plan and CSX kept the customer. Heart regularly gets centerbeams of lumber for truss construction. The Padnos and Alro questions have been answered by others. Meanwhile, the Eckert Powerplant south of downtown Lansing is closed, but Winkin', Blinkin', and Nod still stand while BWL figures out what they are going to do with the facility and property.

[MiddleMI]

Back to Turner and heading west, the south most two tracks at the JAIL's, those tankcars and covered hoppers seen in the google aerial imagery were storage cars on the north track, while JAIL would utilize the south track to get by. There is one CSX siding on the south side of the Mains and the end of Spikes is a great place to view it. This CSX siding is where JAIL-CSX interchange cars are staged. I believe the overnight L304 job is the one that typically works the JAIL interchange. Speaking of Spikes Stret, yes, Heart Structural Truss is located just to the east. This is a CSX customer, despite diverging from the JAIL track. I'm not sure of all the history, but at one time there wasn't a switch here, it was a diamond served directly from the CSX south siding, and had a tilting target! These photos were posted on the Lansing Railroad Archaeology page back in 2020:

https://scontent-ord5-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/ ... e=650F7636 (looking east)
https://scontent-ord5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/ ... e=650F9239 (looking west)

At some point they simplified the track plan and CSX kept the customer. Heart regularly gets centerbeams of lumber for truss construction. The Padnos and Alro questions have been answered by others. Meanwhile, the Eckert Powerplant south of downtown Lansing is closed, but Winkin', Blinkin', and Nod still stand while BWL figures out what they are going to do with the facility and property.

What is this CSX south siding you keep speaking of short of the two we see in the Google aerials? Are you saying that the track in which we see cars stored continued west?

[Manistique]

Speaking of Spikes Stret, yes, Heart Structural Truss is located just to the east. This is a CSX customer, despite diverging from the JAIL track. I'm not sure of all the history, but at one time there wasn't a switch here, it was a diamond served directly from the CSX south siding, and had a tilting target! These photos were posted on the Lansing Railroad Archaeology page back in 2020:

These are great photos. There are so few taken of this line.

All I can figure about Heart Structural is that they got tired of the PC or Conrail service and switched to CSX! But I think it goes way back before that, probably to Pere Marquette times. It is odd especially since that track on the Belt Line/Manufacturers Railroad was very busy at one time. And I am sure there were other customers along this track too.

Heart always had a couple centerbeams spotted there when I worked on JAIL. They never "asked permission" to run on our line to get to it when they switched it. After I left JAIL I heard that JAIL asked CSX about Heart and CSX gave them the business. This would be around 2011 or so.

Old maps show a long spur along the River just south of here that the Manufacturers Railroad had all the way to the road on the east, on the south side of the river. It came off the mainline at the bridge. There were a lot of companies located on that river strip at one time.

[pudgy]

What is this CSX south siding you keep speaking of short of the two we see in the Google aerials? Are you saying that the track in which we see cars stored continued west?

Currently, this "south siding" is known as L07. A yard track owned by CSX. It runs from just west of the crossing at Turner St to 100 yards east of MLK Blvd. There used to be a couple switches off this track by Spike St where an 8 and 9 track connected in, but now only 8 is connected at the east end of the Jail tracks and used for storage when needed.

L07 is where the Jail and CSX interchange cars.

[pudgy]

Heart always had a couple centerbeams spotted there when I worked on JAIL. They never "asked permission" to run on our line to get to it when they switched it. After I left JAIL I heard that JAIL asked CSX about Heart and CSX gave them the business. This would be around 2011 or so.

Heart Truss is very much still only served by CSX. Has a special lock on the switch that only CSX has access to. The rest of the tracks use CSX standard locks that the Jail has keys for with their trackage rights across CSX in Lansing.

[LansingRailFan]

Heart always had a couple centerbeams spotted there when I worked on JAIL. They never "asked permission" to run on our line to get to it when they switched it. After I left JAIL I heard that JAIL asked CSX about Heart and CSX gave them the business. This would be around 2011 or so.

Heart Truss is very much still only served by CSX. Has a special lock on the switch that only CSX has access to. The rest of the tracks use CSX standard locks that the Jail has keys for with their trackage rights across CSX in Lansing.

I heard the old owner of adbf tried suing CSX for the heart truss business.

[railroader and son]

The new transload that JAIL has in Lansing is for ZFS Ithaca,Soybean oil coming down for loading.

[Manistique]

The new transload that JAIL has in Lansing is for ZFS Ithaca,Soybean oil coming down for loading.

Isn't this why the owner, isn't it ZFS?, bought JAIL? Glad that Saginaw Yard is doing something other than car storage. It is a very large yard with a lot of open acreage all around it where autoplants once stood.

[LansingRailFan]

The new transload that JAIL has in Lansing is for ZFS Ithaca,Soybean oil coming down for loading.

That’s incorrect. That transload is happening in Cavanaugh Yard and there’s no facility needed. It’s just a tanker truck, a pump and a cut of tank cars.

[LansingRailFan]

The new transload that JAIL has in Lansing is for ZFS Ithaca,Soybean oil coming down for loading.

Isn't this why the owner, isn't it ZFS?, bought JAIL? Glad that Saginaw Yard is doing something other than car storage. It is a very large yard with a lot of open acreage all around it where autoplants once stood.

ZFS still would rather load at their own property instead of truck it. GLC has been having them transload in Clare for some reason. So they are trucking to Clare but also some cars are going out on their own road out of Lansing.

[railroader and son]

Was told the Lansing transload is for car's that have been taking a week or 2 to get in Ithaca. ZFS is expanding currently with 2 new storage bins hopefully operational by fall,with 2 more in the spring. Plus plan's to add a soy oil food grade refining facility within the next 5 years. ZFS owners are owners in the A&B group also.