What is Plaster Creek

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MikeB89
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What is Plaster Creek

Unread post by MikeB89 »

Tonight while waiting for Amtrak to come through Grandville I heard what seemed to be another train somewhere on approach at a signal at Plaster Creek.

I honestly have no idea where this is. Was wondering if anyone knows where this signal is.

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Talk
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Re: What is Plaster Creek

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Plaster Creek is a Creek in the Grand Rapids Area

Just East of Judd Street, The Signal is just visible to the East, You can see the bridge there too. First Signal out of Wyoming Yard

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Saturnalia
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Re: What is Plaster Creek

Unread post by Saturnalia »

FWIW Plaster Creek gets its name from the gypsum deposits and associated mining in the area. The Michigan Natural Storage company off Judd St by CSX uses some of the old mining caverns to warehouse refrigerated and frozen products.
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Re: What is Plaster Creek

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Saturnalia wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 11:57 pm
FWIW Plaster Creek gets its name from the gypsum deposits and associated mining in the area. The Michigan Natural Storage company off Judd St by CSX uses some of the old mining caverns to warehouse refrigerated and frozen products.
Thank you so much for the information regarding this.

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Re: What is Plaster Creek

Unread post by MikeB89 »

Talk wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 11:43 pm
Plaster Creek is a Creek in the Grand Rapids Area

Just East of Judd Street, The Signal is just visible to the East, You can see the bridge there too. First Signal out of Wyoming Yard
Thank you as well. Glad to know this for future reference.

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Re: What is Plaster Creek

Unread post by AARR »

MNS warehouses frozen products in undergrounds caverns? I've heard of bulk stuff stored in underground caverns but not frozen products.
That would be neat to see.
Saturnalia wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 11:57 pm
The Michigan Natural Storage company off Judd St by CSX uses some of the old mining caverns to warehouse refrigerated and frozen products.
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Raildudes dad
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Re: What is Plaster Creek

Unread post by Raildudes dad »

They also offer dry storage underground. One use is protection of irreplaceable records / documents. https://www.naturalstorage.com/
Plaster Creek was also the location of Plaster Creek Tower. Dispatchers were located there before Jacksonville.

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Re: What is Plaster Creek

Unread post by LansingRailFan »

AARR wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 8:51 am
MNS warehouses frozen products in undergrounds caverns? I've heard of bulk stuff stored in underground caverns but not frozen products.
That would be neat to see.
Saturnalia wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 11:57 pm
The Michigan Natural Storage company off Judd St by CSX uses some of the old mining caverns to warehouse refrigerated and frozen products.
There’s no frozen products down there but there is document storage, GFS uses it to store things. It’s also where Founders stores there beer while it’s aging in barrels like KBS, Backwoods Bastard etc...

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Re: What is Plaster Creek

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G-Root Liska wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 11:38 pm
Tonight while waiting for Amtrak to come through Grandville I heard what seemed to be another train somewhere on approach at a signal at Plaster Creek.

I honestly have no idea where this is. Was wondering if anyone knows where this signal is.
The other train you were hearing was D705-23 at Plaster Creek mp CGT 2.0 in the Grand Rapids Terminal. D705 had reported from Pleasant Street mp CH151.3 @ 10:32pm while he was still on the last portion of the Plymouth Sub-Division & about 2 1/2 miles before Plaster Creek. D705 runs daily westward from Detroit to Grand Rapids (D706 runs eastward daily from Grand Rapids to Detroit).

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Re: What is Plaster Creek

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Tom49801 wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 12:12 pm
G-Root Liska wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 11:38 pm
Tonight while waiting for Amtrak to come through Grandville I heard what seemed to be another train somewhere on approach at a signal at Plaster Creek.

I honestly have no idea where this is. Was wondering if anyone knows where this signal is.
The other train you were hearing was D705-23 at Plaster Creek mp CGT 2.0 in the Grand Rapids Terminal. D705 had reported from Pleasant Street mp CH151.3 @ 10:32pm while he was still on the last portion of the Plymouth Sub-Division & about 2 1/2 miles before Plaster Creek. D705 runs daily westward from Detroit to Grand Rapids (D706 runs eastward daily from Grand Rapids to Detroit).
Well I'll be. I've been trying to catch this train for months. I knew a train came up from Detroit sometime in the evening but wasn't sure which time.

Looks like I can attempt it tonight once again.

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Re: What is Plaster Creek

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G-Root Liska wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 12:54 pm
Tom49801 wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 12:12 pm
G-Root Liska wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 11:38 pm
Tonight while waiting for Amtrak to come through Grandville I heard what seemed to be another train somewhere on approach at a signal at Plaster Creek.

I honestly have no idea where this is. Was wondering if anyone knows where this signal is.
The other train you were hearing was D705-23 at Plaster Creek mp CGT 2.0 in the Grand Rapids Terminal. D705 had reported from Pleasant Street mp CH151.3 @ 10:32pm while he was still on the last portion of the Plymouth Sub-Division & about 2 1/2 miles before Plaster Creek. D705 runs daily westward from Detroit to Grand Rapids (D706 runs eastward daily from Grand Rapids to Detroit).
Well I'll be. I've been trying to catch this train for months. I knew a train came up from Detroit sometime in the evening but wasn't sure which time.

Looks like I can attempt it tonight once again.
The Grand Rapids Terminal arrival time for D705 & the departure time for D706 varies quite a bit. The best way to gauge the times is by following the CSX posts on railroadfan. There was a post made the other day saying on or about April 24th they want both D705 (in Detroit) & D706 (in Grand Rapids) crews to have an 11am starting time to get their train together for departure. During their travels 99.9% of the time both of these trains have car set offs / pick up work to do at Lansing. When the new 11am start times do go into effect, we'll get a better feel for when these trains will be near/in Grand Rapids.

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Re: What is Plaster Creek

Unread post by MikeB89 »

Tom49801 wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 1:13 pm
G-Root Liska wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 12:54 pm
Tom49801 wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 12:12 pm


The other train you were hearing was D705-23 at Plaster Creek mp CGT 2.0 in the Grand Rapids Terminal. D705 had reported from Pleasant Street mp CH151.3 @ 10:32pm while he was still on the last portion of the Plymouth Sub-Division & about 2 1/2 miles before Plaster Creek. D705 runs daily westward from Detroit to Grand Rapids (D706 runs eastward daily from Grand Rapids to Detroit).
Well I'll be. I've been trying to catch this train for months. I knew a train came up from Detroit sometime in the evening but wasn't sure which time.

Looks like I can attempt it tonight once again.
The Grand Rapids Terminal arrival time for D705 & the departure time for D706 varies quite a bit. The best way to gauge the times is by following the CSX posts on railroadfan. There was a post made the other day saying on or about April 24th they want both D705 (in Detroit) & D706 (in Grand Rapids) crews to have an 11am starting time to get their train together for departure. During their travels 99.9% of the time both of these trains have car set offs / pick up work to do at Lansing. When the new 11am start times do go into effect, we'll get a better feel for when these trains will be near/in Grand Rapids.
Totally.makes sense to me. Someone else did post that this train is highly unpredictable. Someday hope to catch it.

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Re: What is Plaster Creek

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LansingRailFan wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 10:54 am
AARR wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 8:51 am
MNS warehouses frozen products in undergrounds caverns? I've heard of bulk stuff stored in underground caverns but not frozen products.
That would be neat to see.
Saturnalia wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 11:57 pm
The Michigan Natural Storage company off Judd St by CSX uses some of the old mining caverns to warehouse refrigerated and frozen products.
There’s no frozen products down there but there is document storage, GFS uses it to store things. It’s also where Founders stores there beer while it’s aging in barrels like KBS, Backwoods Bastard etc...
Their website says Judd St has 3,500,000 cu ft of freezer, 580,000 cu ft of cooler and 900,000 cu ft of dry. Hall St is the old Bestaman Produce facility (bought by Heeren Bros.) , just cooler space and Comstock Park is an Van Eerden Food Service with freezer space also.

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Re: What is Plaster Creek

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Tom49801 wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 12:12 pm
The other train you were hearing was D705-23 at Plaster Creek mp CGT 2.0 in the Grand Rapids Terminal. D705 had reported from Pleasant Street mp CH151.3 @ 10:32pm while he was still on the last portion of the Plymouth Sub-Division & about 2 1/2 miles before Plaster Creek.
For clarity's sake, the Plymouth Sub ends at the WAS Seymour, and the Grand Rapids Sub ends at the EAS Grandville. Between those two points and up to Turner Street via Fuller is the Grand Rapids Terminal Sub.

Also, CH 151.7 is equivalent to CG 0.7. This dates to when the lines from Chicago and Detroit were built by different railroads, and fed directly into Grand Rapids Union Station (CH measures from Fort St in Detroit, CG from GRUS). The line from Detroit followed the GR&I starting at Pleasant Street and the line from Chicago turned north between Oakland and Century Avenues - you can still see where it cut through some of the buildings. Eventually, the Pere Marquette merger accelerated the lines' combination, and today's mainline started as just a connection between the two roads, not really intended to be the mainline per se. Combine this with the total mess of trackage down there back in the day, and the connection curve at 131 and Century wouldn't be quite so sharp!
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Re: What is Plaster Creek

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Raildudes dad wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 1:29 pm
LansingRailFan wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 10:54 am
AARR wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 8:51 am
MNS warehouses frozen products in undergrounds caverns? I've heard of bulk stuff stored in underground caverns but not frozen products.
That would be neat to see.
There’s no frozen products down there but there is document storage, GFS uses it to store things. It’s also where Founders stores there beer while it’s aging in barrels like KBS, Backwoods Bastard etc...
Their website says Judd St has 3,500,000 cu ft of freezer, 580,000 cu ft of cooler and 900,000 cu ft of dry. Hall St is the old Bestaman Produce facility (bought by Heeren Bros.) , just cooler space and Comstock Park is an Van Eerden Food Service with freezer space also.
Yeah. The above ground area is where the freezers are located. In the caves it’s all cool and dry. It’s pretty neat down there. I’ve been down several times for work.

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Doktor No
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Re: What is Plaster Creek

Unread post by Doktor No »

I put a lot of freeezer cars in MNS. Everything from various vegetables to french fries.
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Re: What is Plaster Creek

Unread post by donnieland »

the s curve
working in the eng. dept. at the city of wyoming 40 some years and designing federal street project
i would meet with mdot quite a bit. had a few talks about the s curve during the late 70's and 80's. the thing to
remember back then a survey crew had a dumpy to determine elevations and a gurley for alignment, turning angles, etc
the sharpness of the s curve downtown was the product of two or three pi's of streets and 1/4 cors being
off by a few degrees or less and not catching the error before the prelim plans were completed, to lessen the
sharp curves, mdot needed to acquire the sullivan warehouse building almost at the prc of the s curve.
sullivan and mdot couldn't reach a deal on the property and mdot built the s curve using the property they had purchased.
and sullivan painted a 30' x 60' sign with an ad for his capets for sale, the bottom being approx. 10' above the roadway for
all northbound traffic and seen from the rear view mirrors of southbound traffic, thus due to the sharpness of the curve
and excess super needed the speed was limited to 45 and then 50 mph for safety of travel.
also pertaining to the storage mines at the oval ( judd st ), during the cold war of the 50's and 60's that is where the leaders
of the cities were to take shelter during an attack, about as good a plan as the old duck and cover under your wood school
desks during a nuke attack
don baxter

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Re: What is Plaster Creek

Unread post by MikeB89 »

Tom49801 wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 1:13 pm
G-Root Liska wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 12:54 pm
Tom49801 wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 12:12 pm


The other train you were hearing was D705-23 at Plaster Creek mp CGT 2.0 in the Grand Rapids Terminal. D705 had reported from Pleasant Street mp CH151.3 @ 10:32pm while he was still on the last portion of the Plymouth Sub-Division & about 2 1/2 miles before Plaster Creek. D705 runs daily westward from Detroit to Grand Rapids (D706 runs eastward daily from Grand Rapids to Detroit).
Well I'll be. I've been trying to catch this train for months. I knew a train came up from Detroit sometime in the evening but wasn't sure which time.

Looks like I can attempt it tonight once again.
The Grand Rapids Terminal arrival time for D705 & the departure time for D706 varies quite a bit. The best way to gauge the times is by following the CSX posts on railroadfan. There was a post made the other day saying on or about April 24th they want both D705 (in Detroit) & D706 (in Grand Rapids) crews to have an 11am starting time to get their train together for departure. During their travels 99.9% of the time both of these trains have car set offs / pick up work to do at Lansing. When the new 11am start times do go into effect, we'll get a better feel for when these trains will be near/in Grand Rapids.
Well needless to say since I've tried catching D706 many times and could never get him yesterday was my official day and got him. I was really excited about it. Boy was he really long and I enjoyed it. Got to meet some railfans as well when I went down to Judd street to see Q326 in the yard.

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