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Created in 1947, the L&SM RR was created, to take over operation of the former Pere Marquette lines from Ludington to Midland and down to Toledo. It also operates the line from Saginaw to Port Huron through Vassar, Marlette, and Brown City; other branch lines it currently has are the former PH&D, and what would be in reality the Lake State from Saginaw to Bay City, and all of the Lake State lines north of Bay City. L&SM also owns a little bit of track in Canada, owning track around and south of Sarnia(the CSX lines in real life); the railroad has rights through the Sarnia tunnel to access these lines from MI. This railroad used to run a large amount of auto traffic and auto related products, with the access to the Buick City plant, the Wixom Assembly plant, and other plants that have since shut down. Now, the only assembly plant it serves is the Ford plant in Wayne, which sees nearly daily service. Now, the L&SM hauls agriculture products, including grain trains and even an occasional fertilizer train to Saginaw. It also carries a variety of mixed carload traffic, coal, and chemicals. Last but not least, it runs some stone traffic to and from Alpena and Flint. Eventually, there will be more traffic in the form of potash from the Reed City area, since the company is in the middle of building a long spur to the Hersey mine.

Trains operated by the L&SM:

100 series - mainline freights

100 - Saginaw to Toledo Walbridge(works Flint Mcgrew Yard and Plymouth North Yard) Daily
101 - Toledo Walbridge to Saginaw(works Plymouth North Yard and Flint McGrew Yard) Daily
102 - Ludington to Saginaw Mon thru Sat
103 - Saginaw to Ludington Mon thru Sat
104 - Midland to Sarnia(works Saginaw and Port Huron) Daily
105 - Sarnia to Midland(worksPort Huron and Saginaw) Daily
106 - Bay City to Alpena Mon thru Fri
107 - Alpena to Bay City Mon thru Fri
108 - Wayne to Toledo(turn) Daily

200 series - local freights

200 - Gaylord to Bay City(Mon,Wed,Fri)
201 - Bay City to Gaylord(Tue, Thur)
202 - Saginaw to Bay City turn(Mon thru Sat)
203 - Saginaw to Farwell turn(Mon thru Sat)
204 - Saginaw to Brown City turn(Mon thru Sat)
205 - Saginaw to Flint turn(Mon thru Sat)
206 - Plymouth to Carleton turn(Mon thru Sat)
207 - Plymouth to Flint turn(Mon thru Sat)
208 - Ludington to Manistee turn(Mon thru Sat)
210 - Ludington to Evart turn(Mon thru Sat)
211 - Sarnia to Chatham turn(Mon thru Sat)
213 - Port Huron to St Clair turn(Mon thru Sat)

There are multiple yard jobs, which are under the 300 series. These jobs switch the yards in Midland, Saginaw, Plymouth, Sarnia, and Ludington. Then there are the 400 series trains, which are coal and stone. 500 series is agriculture related trains.

The L&SM interchanges with HESR and MM in Saginaw, CN in Flint, CP in Plymouth(yes, CP), NS in Wayne, and CSX in Toledo. Back to CP, the CP owns the former PM between Chicago and Detroit. There is a difference however: the CP main line bypasses GR, going via Kalamazoo between Hartford and Woodbury. CP still has access to GR from Woodbury, and to Holland from there. However the GR Sub from Holland to Hartford does not exist. This way, the main line freights to/from Canada can bypass grades at Saugatuck and east of GR. Not that this has to do with my RR, I just wanted to explain why and how CP goes through Plymouth and Michigan in general.

Power:

10 ES44AC
12 SD40-2
4 SD45
8 GP40
12 GP38
4 Genset
5 GP9

The spur for the Hersey mine is scheduled to be done by April 1st. There will still be some odds and ends that need to be finished still, but it should all be done by May. Loaded and empty potash trains will each run about once a week in and out of the mine to Toledo, where they will be interchanged with CSX. There will also be some salt business, but not enough for unit trains.

I'm enjoying following this

Sometime later this year, the L&SM will have a new active customer in the form of a scrap yard off of Western Road in Flint, MI. A new spur will be installed, and this will give an additional estimated 450 cars a year of business when the track is finished and everything that needs to be done is done later sometime this summer.

Beginning on Monday, 208 will be renumbered 209, and will be based out of Manistee rather than Ludington. It will switch all industries on the Manistee branch, and will go south to Walhalla as a turn. It will continue to run Monday to Saturday.

Coal has been going strong lately, especially to the Consumers Plant in Essexville. There is a western coal train almost every other day being delivered to Toledo for interchange to the L&SM for the final stretch to the Bay City area. The plant by St Clair has been seeing a few eastern coal trains lately, and the former PH&D branch has also been busy with the western coal coming off of the GTW. With all of this traffic, there will be some major track work starting May, on the PH&D with the replacement of ties, new ballast, and what-not. All of this heavy coal sure has been taxing this little branch.

In other news, the L&SM is having talks with CP about a trackage rights agreement between Plymouth and Rougemere, for access to the Ford Rouge Plant. This could lead to the establishing of two new autoracks a day between Detroit and Toledo with interchange with CSX. CP is actually the second railroad that the L&SM has approached about this, NS being the first. Didn't work out.

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Better say it a 5th time...not sure I got it in 4

MQT3001 wrote:Better say it a 5th time...not sure I got it in 4

I was trying to make a point!

The L&SM will begin running potash trains to the GTW in Port Huron, where the GTW will take the trains to Iowa. These potash trains will run maybe once or twice a month at the least. The first is scheduled to leave the Hersey mine on June 20th, and will go through Saginaw and Vassar to PH. The talks with CP are going decently, and hopefully we will have access to Detroit beginning this winter.

Starting November 1st the L&SM will begin running 109 and 110(auto rack trains) between Detroit and Walbridge Yard south of Toledo. These trains will utilize new trackage rights on the CP between Plymouth and Detroit.