Coal lost

[donnieland]

haulage of most freight is cheaper, but the modifier of that cost is the water level. iirc for every inch of lower water level the loss of haulable tonnage drops by 10000 tons. the lakes are down some 10 to 16 inchs from a couple years ago, thus the lakers have to carry much less to be able to enter the harbor and dock.
the gr press had a story about lake levels with a picture of a seawall on lake macatawa, the water is 5' away from the wall that was installed in 99 or 2000 when the water was half way up the wall. the story also said that the lakers have to stay on top the channels markers to get to the power plant and to the agg dock so that they don't go aground during the transit.
and now with the loss of funds to dredge, only harbors with freight lakers entering and leaving will be able to apply for the limited funds to dredge from the corp of engineers. the pleasure boat harbors have to provide their own funds to dredge if they want to get in and out of the harbor.

[csxt4617]

Water rates are much cheaper than rail especially when two or more RR';s are involved. I'm really surprised that Consumers never put a dock in at Port Sheldon except the plant originally burned eastern coal and the rail rate the entire route was probably a wash back then compared to a transload in Toledo and also the lack of a deep water harbor in Pigeon Lake.

While on a tour of West Olive a few years back (C&OHS convention), they mentioned the original plans called for a dock, but the NIMBY's put the kibosh on it...I guess NIMBY's aren't always a bad thing

[donnieland]

very true about the nimby's
when the city of wyoming built the water pipeline from lake michigan to wyoming, the buildings and land at the lakeshore intakes had to be the same as the surrounding land. thus the intake screens are inside the brick cottage building, also they built a tennis court at the time. along with a brick garage. things haven't changed to this day. the owners of lakeshore property still try to make all the lakeshore , except for park areas, their private beach only......

[J T]

Hey donnie, is that what that brick structure is at the end of Lk Michigan Dr? I always wondered.

[Turbo1]

The stacker at the plant is broken, actually damaged from a storm thus they cannot use the dumper for the railroad cars.

[Raildudes dad]

Hey donnie, is that what that brick structure is at the end of Lk Michigan Dr? I always wondered.

The structure at the end of the road is the original intake structure for the original GR watermain. You will see another similar building west of Allendale, that's one of the booster stations. The new brick facility on the south side of the road just east of Lake Shore Dr is the GR filtration plant. Originally the water was pumped to the Monroe Ave filtration plant and then to the Coldbrook Street pumping station and into the distribution system. To keep it rail related Coldbrook was coal fired and served by rail (GTW)

[EMDACESteve]

Just heard today from the HESR 740s conductor. Consumers has installed a "temporary system". Supposed to take 3 or 4 days to empty a train. However one of the recent HESR western train's was emptied in one day. Maybe there are two systems. One for eastern and one for western coal.

[J T]

Hey donnie, is that what that brick structure is at the end of Lk Michigan Dr? I always wondered.

The structure at the end of the road is the original intake structure for the original GR watermain. You will see another similar building west of Allendale, that's one of the booster stations. The new brick facility on the south side of the road just east of Lake Shore Dr is the GR filtration plant. Originally the water was pumped to the Monroe Ave filtration plant and then to the Coldbrook Street pumping station and into the distribution system. To keep it rail related Coldbrook was coal fired and served by rail (GTW)

Excellent. Thanks for the info.

[SDavey]

Alright heres what I observed tonight....

HESR brought in a loaded coal train which arrived into Essexville about 1:30am. It had the 5175, 2001, 2014, and 8804 up front, but what surprised me the most was that there was a set of empties ready to head out, which were sitting from North Water and back over the Mud Switch.

I had driven through Essexville eariler in the afternoon and those empties werent there, so im not sure if HESR or SBS spotted them, but my best guess would be HESR.

With the 2014 on the coal train, id say the 8802 will still be on the 740 job for a few more days. Basically Im thinking anythings possible with the coal trains anymore so ill just see what SBS or HESR bring up this way.

[donnieland]

the wyoming water plant is on new holland, approx 1/2 mile inland from the lake. the intakes ( cottage ) is south of new holland off lakeshore dr
still remember the nov day we had to locate the wood cribs at the end of the pipes out in the lake by gurley transit. one on the south property line iron and one crew on the north property line iron turning the angles to intersec out at the cribs, each crew direct a boat with a flagged sight pole to a point on the water, very interresting day and very cold on the bluffs

[csxt4617]

BTW: There was an N956 via Grand Rapids last night. I assume it's going to Essexville, like the others always do.