I believe Jim is on this board too.
Dundee has a clay and limestone pit near their plant. However, the gypsum and/or lime they required in their mixture had to come from another quarry. As late as the 1990's and possibly mid 2000's they were getting it from someplace on the D&M (perhaps the gypsum pits around Tawas City).
Up until the mid 2000's the Lafarge Alpena plant received gypsum and/or lime from one of the pits around Tawas City. They were in the same position as Dundee with a local pit for clay/limestone/sand but have to have gypsum shipped from another location.
The large covered hoppers at Lafarge-Alpena bring in flyash. Flyash used to come from local sources (Consumers Power & DTE utility plants) but the State of MI doesn't allow them to use their flyash in cement production anymore so around 1997 they started purchasing it from a plant in Brampton Canada then changed sources around 2012 from a plant in WI.
https://members4.boardhost.com/RRHXHist ... 55212.html
Posted by Jim Chapman on 6/30/2020, 6:13 pm, in reply to "D&M "
I don't recall ever seeing rock trains heading to Dundee Cement. What time frame would this have been? Dundee had their own quarry on site so I don't know why they would need to bring in rock from somewhere else either.
LaFarge North America does still have their operation going in Alpena. I don't see any evidence of rock cars (open hoppers) on site, but they do have a substantial number of three and four bay covered hoppers present it appears (Google maps).
PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...