MQT Ludington/Manistee ops

Locomotive identification, railfan locations, frequency information, etc. can be found here.
GP30M4216
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MQT Ludington/Manistee ops

Unread post by GP30M4216 »

It's been a minute since I've railfanned the upper end of the Marquette. I've only been to Manistee once since Marquette started operation and although I've seen MQT in Ludington, the most recent photos I have of trains there still bear "CSX" on the sides.

I was up that way today - not for railfanning, unfortunately, but I did get to see a couple railroad-related locations and this trip sparked a few questions.

Manistee:

I had wanted to spin by the roundhouse on 3rd Street but the day didn't work out that way. However, I did see a lineup of tankcars north of US-31 on the north side of the river. I recall yellow tankcars once commonly parked on the spurs between the 31 crossing the drawbridge tender's caboose house. Do these tracks get used for anything nowadays?

Ludington:

I noted two Geeps, the orange one and one of the MQT yellow ones, tied up at the yard office. The yard, at very quick glance, looked stuffed with cars. Continuing down PM Hwy, I noted several covered hoppers on the spurs at Cal-Chlor, along with several on a spur track I didn't remember, which makes sense, because it doesn't show up on any of the aerial imagery and is, in fact, new. It extends south from the Cal-Chlor spurs parallel to the Oxy main track and ends just shy of PM Hwy crossing. If you look at Google Street View, you can see a track crew building the spur, dated October 2019. Is this a new Cal-Clor track, or some other business?

So my additional real questions:

What are the MQT operations out of Ludington these days? The wiki references some old info and I'm not sure it's accurate. When does the road freight head east to Baldwin? I recall seeing them in Baldwin around lunchtime one day last summer, but the wiki suggests it's a night run. What does a typical weekday look like for MQT in Ludington? Do they have a regular routine - such as build the road train, round trip to Baldwin, yard the train, switch industries, or something like that? Or is it more take-it-as-it-comes? I'm hoping to get back up there some time soon!

And just to inspire some old school interest, here's a CSX D712 heading around the NE end of the lake back in August 2005.
Image

GP30M4216
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Joined: Wed Oct 27, 2004 10:35 pm
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Re: MQT Ludington/Manistee ops

Unread post by GP30M4216 »

Anyone have insights on the weekday Marquette Rail ops in the Ludington-Manistee-walhalla sector? I know the road freight comes up to Baldwin from GR to exchange cars daily, but do trains actually meet there, or are strings of cars just left off and later picked up. Are their daylight road trains from Ludington or Manistee to Walhalla, or is it more daylight yard and switching work at both terminals and a night run to Walhalla and east? Thanks for any insights!

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