Kalamazoo this AM (36E & the police)

[GP30M4216]

Caught a couple trains through town this morning. When I turned my scanner on around 10:45, I caught the end of a conversation between BO Tower and the headend crew of 36E, something about needing the police north of the diamond. 36E had come to a stop. I missed some of this conversation as Amtrak 351 was just coming into the Kalamazoo Station and was stomping on their conversation. Not sure of what was going on, I went to Botsford Yard first to see if anything was moving. The 3065/3066 team had just finished sorting out the setouts at the east end of the yard, and had split their power to each end of B-1-G, just three Thiele tankcars, to go to the northside later this morning. This was around 11:00AM.

After this jaunt by the yard, I headed up to see if I could find 36E. It's been a long time since I've been along the tracks north of Patterson. Even though B-1-G only had 3 tank cars today, there were a whole bunch up in North Yard, so maybe when they return, they'll have more.
Unfortunately, it was tank cars as far as the eye can see...if that business ever goes, I hate to think of what may happen to the line north of BO. Mosel Yard is not really a yard any more either, by the way. It's pretty much the main with one siding which has the switch at the south end near the "semaphore," but then drifts off into the weeds north of the crossing. No other rails were visible. Kinda sad that entire trains used to be based out of here - and not all that long ago (Early Conrail years, right?)

Anyhow, 36E was stopped just north of Mosel, and fit nicely between that crossing and the crossing near block station COOP. There were a couple police cars parked along the length of the train - apparently they had picked up some sort of "passenger," but I don't know any more details. I did drive the length of the train though:

NS 3545 D8-40B
NS 7085 GP50 high hood
59 cars

If they had not run that extra 36E northward yesterday, today's version would have been over 100 cars! I didn't do an exact consist count so as not to look suspicious, but here's a few notes:

Well over half of the cars were the usual Auto Parts 86' or 60' high cube boxcars for GM. I counted 6 Stanley tankcars in a row - Corn Sweetener I think? Also noted 5 lumber cars and about a half dozen gondolas (low side and high side) for scrap. Throw in a few covered hoppers and a couple standard size boxcars and you have today's train. I don't know if they ever found their "passengers", and at 11:30 received permission to continue northward, getting an updated Form D from RC to Mill.

I also caught Amtrak 350 at the Kalamazoo Station. That 95mph territory west of town is really showing its stuff! By calling the 800 number, Julie said 350 would be 9 minutes late, but would make up 7 minutes along the way so as to arrive into Kalamazoo at 11:32, or two minutes late. However, the train actually arrived closer to 11:25, 5 minutes early! They departed exactly on time at 11:30 for Battle Creek. Hopefully they can maintain their schedule the rest of the way to Pontiac. NPCU 90200 is leading the train with a Horizon Dinette, three Horizon coaches, and Genesis 126 shoving on the rear. There's a lady engineer in the cab today, too.