Freight ops Townline to Wayne

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GP30M4216
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Freight ops Townline to Wayne

Unread post by GP30M4216 »

Over on the Grand Elk Operations thread, posed this question recently when I learned NS was no longer moving overhead traffic for Battle Creek via Kalamazoo and the Grand Elk:
So, sorry to get sidetracked on the NS for a second, but basically what we have here is a similar situation to the setup from about 10 years ago, where all Wayne , Jackson and BC traffic comes from the east, right? How is this traffic being fed to the east end? Something like 38E/39E Elkhart-Wayne? Also, what job now switches Knappen Milling in Augusta?
NS8401 responded with this informative post:
The traffic rides 358 or 332 to Oakwood. The situation is only similar to the direction the traffic comes from. 10 years ago you had rack trains and coil steel trains out of Wayne. B19 handles all that traffic plus all of the Jackson-Lansing-Battle Creek traffic now Between Wayne and Oakwood. You can imagine how big of a train that could be. One day Last week they took 9+ hours to leave Wayne and had 152 cars and over 10,000’ of train. This morning when I was leaving for work around 430 they were still trying to leave. Wayne isn’t really set up for that volume of traffic to leave at once in a super efficient manner. The north pass isn’t long enough for them to fit more than about 100 cars or so. So they have to hand throw at Second street for head room and then close it before they can depart. If they are lucky they have a brakemen to do that for them but there have been times where the conductor is taking a long walk to the head end which can be as far East as Merriman Road or beyond.
So my question is, in addition to B19's move from Oakwood to Wayne and back again with caboose (via Townline, Schaefer and a shove move at the NS Rouge Bridge, I assume), does any other freight traffic travel the east end of the Michigan Line, between Wayne and Townline? I saw a recent photo of a rack train at Dearborn with a UP unit that was not B19. Does B19 also switch the last customer east of Wayne, Cul-Mac Industries? Is a different local based out of Wayne to switch the Michigan Assembly ramps and the other local customers just west of Wayne? Sorry for so many questions, just trying to figure out the latest and greatest on Michigan's newest double track mainline!
Last edited by GP30M4216 on Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Buster Manning
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Re: Freight ops Townline to Wayne

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Last I knew, there was a B17 who worked during the daytime.....

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ns8401
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Re: Freight ops Townline to Wayne

Unread post by ns8401 »

GP30M4216 wrote:
Wed Apr 21, 2021 8:04 pm
Over on the Grand Elk Operations thread, posed this question recently when I learned NS was no longer moving overhead traffic for Battle Creek via Kalamazoo and the Grand Elk:
So, sorry to get sidetracked on the NS for a second, but basically what we have here is a similar situation to the setup from about 10 years ago, where all Wayne , Jackson and BC traffic comes from the east, right? How is this traffic being fed to the east end? Something like 38E/39E Elkhart-Wayne? Also, what job now switches Knappen Milling in Augusta?
NS8401 responded with this informative post:
The traffic rides 358 or 332 to Oakwood. The situation is only similar to the direction the traffic comes from. 10 years ago you had rack trains and coil steel trains out of Wayne. B19 handles all that traffic plus all of the Jackson-Lansing-Battle Creek traffic now Between Wayne and Oakwood. You can imagine how big of a train that could be. One day Last week they took 9+ hours to leave Wayne and had 152 cars and over 10,000’ of train. This morning when I was leaving for work around 430 they were still trying to leave. Wayne isn’t really set up for that volume of traffic to leave at once in a super efficient manner. The north pass isn’t long enough for them to fit more than about 100 cars or so. So they have to hand throw at Second street for head room and then close it before they can depart. If they are lucky they have a brakemen to do that for them but there have been times where the conductor is taking a long walk to the head end which can be as far East as Merriman Road or beyond.
So my question is, in addition to B19's move from Oakwood to Wayne and back again with caboose (via Townline, Schaefer and a shove move at the NS Rouge Bridge, I assume), does any other freight traffic travel the east end of the Michigan Line, between Wayne and Townline? I saw a recent photo of a rack train at Dearborn with a UP unit that was not B19. Does B19 also switch the last customer east of Wayne, Cul-Mac Industries? Is a different local based out of Wayne to switch the Michigan Assembly ramps and the other local customers just west of Wayne. Sorry for so many questions, just trying to figure out the latest and greatest on Michigan's newest double track!
Other than a random extra rack train or MOW move there are no other freights East of Wayne Junction besides the B19 round trip.

Cul-Mac at Venoy Road is switched by B17 usually in the afternoon as needed only 2 miles east of the junction.. the only exception to the above. B17 and B18 are the yard jobs, 17 in the day and 18 at night. I haven’t quite figured out the exact timing on these but this is roughly how it’s laid out. The 17 is the train that goes and fetches B19 if they die like they did this morning. Most of what I’ve seen from B18 involved Wayne Industries moving coil cars and also working the docks and occasionally going west to the few customers that get yet more coils to the west of the yard. I’m sure B17 has a similar list of chores on their shift when they aren’t busy playing fetch.
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ConrailDetr​oit
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Re: Freight ops Townline to Wayne

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Is B19 a 7 Days a week Job?

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Re: Freight ops Townline to Wayne

Unread post by ns8401 »

ConrailDetr​oit wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 5:22 am
Is B19 a 7 Days a week Job?
Yes and some holidays.
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Re: Freight ops Townline to Wayne

Unread post by KenB »

At night there is a loaded rack train E.B. and an mty rack train w.b. for the Ford Michigan assembly plant in Wayne. Do not know symbols or times.

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Re: Freight ops Townline to Wayne

Unread post by ns8401 »

KenB wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 9:50 am
At night there is a loaded rack train E.B. and an mty rack train w.b. for the Ford Michigan assembly plant in Wayne. Do not know symbols or times.
Runs as needed. So far that’s only been the one westbound with the UP unit. They do not run a train a day both directions of solid racks or anything of the kind.
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