Martinrea (Former SKD) Jonesville, MI

[Cinderpath]

I was at the former SKD, now Martinrea plant in Jonesville, MI as was pleasantly surprised how much better the new management is, and they have some big plans for expansion and hiring a lot of people. (Which was great news for a hard hit region economically). I am curious, as I did not get around to the back side of the plant but was wondering if they have a railspur? With the up-coming expansion for some press lines, they will no doubt need a lot of steel coils, which could potentially be a traffic source for INER.

[Buster Manning]

nope, no rail spur there; I'm thinking that there was one some time ago that came off the Ft. Wayne and Jackson's original alignment along the southeast corner of the plant heading north. I know there's plenty of room on the backside to do some kind of spur.

Any new business would be welcome to any shortline nowadays; any idea where the steel coils come from??

[AARR]

Any new business would be welcome to any shortline nowadays; any idea where the steel coils come from??

A lot of options locally for steel coils. SKD also has (or at least used to) a plant in the town northeast of Hillsdale. IIRC HRCR originally went to that town and may have served that plant.

[Buster Manning]

O' Sage of the siding, are you refering to North Adams? If so, I don't know if HCRC ever made it out there; I can remember cars stored on the line behind the airport a LONG, LONG time ago and I think the NYC/PC served the feed mill and a lumber yard there--and the traffic wasn't very much at that....with no spur going into the plant in question

[AARR]

O' Sage of the siding, are you refering to North Adams? If so, I don't know if HCRC ever made it out there; I can remember cars stored on the line behind the airport a LONG, LONG time ago and I think the NYC/PC served the feed mill and a lumber yard there--and the traffic wasn't very much at that....with no spur going into the plant in question

Yes, that sounds familiar. I don't know if HCRC ever made any revenue trips out there or even if the track was in place at the time HCRC started up but I saw it on a HCRC map (not an official map) once upon a long-time ago.

[Steve Hubbard]

HCRC did service the lumbermill once before the tracks were tore up. the track that was behind the SKD plant was known as the Fort Wayne bypass. it connected withthe fort wayne line at Bankers. near the round house.