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I just moved to Marshall and notice I am living near the Norfolk Southern Michigan mainline. Anyone know what MP Marshall is at? Also how often do freights plow through here and when? What is the speed limit in this area for Amtrak trains? Just trying to figure out so I can time it right to catch some Amtrak action..

I think Amtrak speed limit is 79mph. I think three in each direction.

Freight is one train a day in each direction. The same train that goes by westbound will come back eastbound in a couple hours or so. But I don't know what time.

If you go to Amtrak.com you can enter "Battle Creek" and see the train times there. Then you can figure the time pretty close thru Marshall. Yes, it will be 3 trains each way per day. Should be something like morning, early-afternoon and evening westbound. Noonish, late-afternoon and late-evening eastbound. That's based roughly on the train times thru Kalamazoo.

According to my old PC timetable, Marshall is milepost 107.5.
Battle Creek is 120.6.

You should check out the library in town for some history of Marshall. The Michigan Central had repair facilities and a huge depot located there, The DT&M had a roundhouse,depot and a freighthouse there also.
Part of the DT&M roundhouse was moved to Greenfield several years ago and rebuilt . There are no remains of the Michigan Central buildings and a very faint glimpse of part of a DT&M building can be seen just behind Marshall Welding just west of Kalamazoo Avenue on Industrial Road
here is a bing map look at the area.
http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?v ... ll%2C%20MI
If you go east on Pearl street off of Kalamazoo Avenue there is a parking lot and a nature walk which follows the ROW (I think Marshall calls it the river walk.) it goes from Kalamazoo Avenue to Stewarts Landing on the East side of town which has a scenic view of the Kalamazoo River with the NS Michigan line on the other side ,You can watch the trains coming for about a mile and running along side the river

I think Pearl street is part of the DT&M right of way if you follow the path it will take you under the tracks where they cross over Rice Creek and the trains wil pass over just a few feet above you.
Marshall also had the interurban running down through the middle of town .
Hope this helps you find a good viewing spot.
TZ

Ok, so I figure that probably going from Battle Creek to Marshall by train probably takes what, 15 min?

Tazer, sounds like you might find this interesting, if you didn't catch it before:

http://s448.photobucket.com/albums/qq20 ... G_0215.jpg

I've noticed from onboard Amtrak that the tracks just east of Kalamazoo Ave on the north side of the main are still there.

Did Eaton ever get railroad traffic? are there any customers left in Marshall or no? It looks to me like the lumberyard and the feed elevator used to get rail service...

chessiefan1980 wrote:Did Eaton ever get railroad traffic? are there any customers left in Marshall or no? It looks to me like the lumberyard and the feed elevator used to get rail service...

Yes, Eaton used to have rail traffic inlcuding a carboard plant and canning plant. I'm sure they had an elevator, lumber, oil, etc. at one time.

There's an elevator a few miles west of Eaton that shipped by rail up until a couple years ago but now nothing.

I'm not aware of any active customers in Marshall although I heard they transloaded fertilzer there at one time for someone.

I believe ( I may be mistaken as I work freight, not passenger) that the speed for Amtrak is only 60 through Marshall due to the curves and such. I know for a fact it is 50 for freight and trust me, that's plenty. The 107 signal and Marshall detector are right there at the Old US 27 crossing. Marshall St. or whatever the hell it's called. Right there by the brewery.