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Maybe someone up in Midland or Bay City can answer this question
How many time does HESR pick up or deliver cars to Bad Axe, Kinde
I know Big Chief Sugar (Pioneer Sugar in Sebewaing is a big customer for them)

The Bad Axe lines are probably switched 1-3 times per week would be my guess. I'm told they make a run to Croswell Sunday or Monday and then sometimes again around Thursday to the sugar plant.

The elevator in Kinde is switched whenever grain is moving. The have a big elevator there that generates unit trains.

There's also large elevators in Ubly and Ruth.

Ubly also has a plastics plant that gets regular service.

Sugar plant in Sebewaing is major shipper, but so are the huge elevators in Pigeon and Elkton, as is the Tower Automotive plant in Elkton. Lots of elevators between Arthur and Bad Axe that get switched whenever there's grain to move or fertilizer to deliver.

There's also a stone place in Wallace (west of Pigeon) that may still be shipping out sand and stone.

There's a few HESR experts who can prov ide better info.

Unless things have changed for this year, Saginaw-Bad Axe is run Monday night-Friday night. The 805 job picks up were the 800 job left off for the day, quite often in the Arthur area. The 825 job starts out in Bad Axe. They will normally meet in Sebewaing and swap cars there. In years past it seem that both crews go on duty around 18:00.
805 has elevators to switch in Arthur, Gilford, Fairgrove & Akron. They will occasionally move cars around on the connector tracks in Reese. More often than not, 805 will reach Sebewaing before 825 and in that time will switch Bayside Best Beans and the sugar plant as required as long as setting up cars for the arrival of 825.
825 will normally have to build their train before leaving Bad Axe. In Elkton they have the bean plant, an elevator and Tower Auto to switch. As of last year traffic to tower auto was not consistant. Pigeon hosts another bean plant and elevator along with a fertilizer dealer. The stone quarry west of Pigeon does not ship stone regulaly by rail, although HESR does get ballast from there.
As for the lines east of Bad Axe, they are run as needed, seems to be 3 times weekly with more regular operation in grain and sugar beet season.

thanks Don & Jon

I went by Wallace on Tuesday. There were two cuts of hoppers. One was on the spur into the quarry and the other was out on the siding. There was another cut of hoppers in Pigeon, just east of the M-142 crossing. There were hoppers being loaded at the elevator and quite a string of box cars out at the bean plant. There was also a sting of covered hoppers sitting by the elevator in Unionville and six boxcars just south of M-25. In Sebewaing, there were several hoppers between the sugar plant and Co-Op Elevator.

I'm not sure how many of you follow operations as obsesively as I do, but Railamerica recently went to a standardized system of train symbols, or at least was supposed to be going to a standardized system. RA has gone through several phases of symbols on the Chicago Fort Wayne & Eastern just since I've been dispatching for a year and a half now. Supposedly T, L, or Y will be the first designation of the train (to stand for through train, local, and yard job respectively) followed by two letters for origin and destination. For example, what was Roustabout 3, then LIYD, then LIPG, is now called Y-LILI for yard job Lima to Lima. The point of this message, is there any word if HESR or CMGN has gone to a similar system, or are they still using the number based symbols?

Wayne, this is not the definitive answer but the guys who have the scanners and can listen in still identify the CMGN and HESR trains by their old symbols. If there was a change locally would they hear it over the scanners?

Thanks guys. So there is enough bussiness up there to keep HESR busy
Plastic Plant in Ubly and Tower Auto plant in Elton? Dang I can remeber when I was a kid we visiting my Grand Parents in Bad Axe and when driving thru Ubly and Elton you and blink and you can miss the town This was a very long time ago

HESR also operates the track around Vassar and from Saginaw to Brown City. Ethanol plant in Caro (1st in MI) gets switched almost daily. Engines that switch these lines are stationed in Vassar. I believe the go on duty around 8am.

Where does the HESR tie down in the thumb when they are not moving around?

trainjunkie47 wrote:Where does the HESR tie down in the thumb when they are not moving around?

With normal operations, Bad Axe based stuff will tie down back in Bad Axe.
The 800 Job out of Saginaw normally makes it out to the Arthur area and ties down just short of M-15 depending on train length. If they have more time, the 800 job will take the train farther east (I've seen them make it as far as Fairgrove) and the 805 crew will pick it up there.
The 810 job out of Vassar will either tie down back in Vassar or sometimes on the old MC line south of M-81 in Reese depending on what grain traffic from Akron is doing.

Edit- This is info current to last year, things may have changed since then.

I have seen them tie down at the Pioneer Sugar plant in...That town who's name escapes me. I have also seen them leave locomotives in Vassar over the weekend.

Don Simon wrote:Wayne, this is not the definitive answer but the guys who have the scanners and can listen in still identify the CMGN and HESR trains by their old symbols. If there was a change locally would they hear it over the scanners?

That's where I'm curios, it's not unheard of to hear trains referred to as their old symbols for years and years. When BNSF changed to alpha-numerics, it was common for the trains to be called by their old numbers. I'd like to see a copy of their orders to show for sure they are called those numbers. It's easier to say 702 then it is to say T-BCDU, know what I mean?

It's easier to say 702 then it is to say T-BCDU, know what I mean?

I know what you mean Wayne...it's easier for me to the former GTW lines CMGN than that other four letter acronymn, know what I mean

cnw8835 wrote:With normal operations, Bad Axe based stuff will tie down back in Bad Axe.
The 800 Job out of Saginaw normally makes it out to the Arthur area and ties down just short of M-15 depending on train length. If they have more time, the 800 job will take the train farther east (I've seen them make it as far as Fairgrove) and the 805 crew will pick it up there.

The Croswell job (runs to the sugar plant in Croswell...) sometimes reminds me of B1G, in that it gets to it's farthest away point (or almost there) and then ties down for the night- like B1G ties down in Dowagiac or Niles every so often...

Over the last month or so, while living in the Bay City area, I've spotted the HESR moving cars or tied down a couple miles west of Arthur far more than I've found them east of Arthur. I've come to the conclusion that they do a fair amount of switching on the sidings between Towerline Road and Portsmouth Road, just east of Saginaw. I have photos of 3865 and 3867(?) tied down near the junk yard on Towerline Rd, and several shots of other locos in the same area in the evening hours. However, all this activity has occurred during weekdays.

For what its worth, I've also seen them tie down in Carsonville on the return trip to Bad Axe, although that was one time, two years ago.

Also, I don't recall hearing any train numbers over the scanner. That's not to say they don't mention the numbers, just that I don't catch 'em.

HESR has a handful of customers between Saginaw and Arthur that require some tricky moves because the only passing siding is at Towerline Rd. I think there's the scrap yard, steel place, place that gets newsprint, place that ships recycled paper bales, and elevator in there somewhere. I may be wrong...

There is a place that gets boxcars just east of the I75 overpass, but I don't know if they get loads or empties...just that I usually see four or five in the place at a time. There's an industrial park there, east of I75, and there may be more than one customer there. I haven't explored it at all yet though...

GTWTD3 wrote:I'm not sure how many of you follow operations as obsesively as I do, but Railamerica recently went to a standardized system of train symbols, or at least was supposed to be going to a standardized system. RA has gone through several phases of symbols on the Chicago Fort Wayne & Eastern just since I've been dispatching for a year and a half now. Supposedly T, L, or Y will be the first designation of the train (to stand for through train, local, and yard job respectively) followed by two letters for origin and destination. For example, what was Roustabout 3, then LIYD, then LIPG, is now called Y-LILI for yard job Lima to Lima. The point of this message, is there any word if HESR or CMGN has gone to a similar system, or are they still using the number based symbols?

I know this is kind of a long time late answer, but I was reading through past posts (saturday boardum, LOL) and it triggered my mind, I believe the train symbols are still numeric, I have heard them say "800" on the scanner as well as 740, 702/701, and even 704.

There is a place that gets boxcars just east of the I75 overpass, but I don't know if they get loads or empties...just that I usually see four or five in the place at a time. There's an industrial park there, east of I75, and there may be more than one customer there. I haven't explored it at all yet though...

It could be the place that handles ingots. But I'm not sure if they're in or outbound.

Don Simon wrote:

There is a place that gets boxcars just east of the I75 overpass, but I don't know if they get loads or empties...just that I usually see four or five in the place at a time. There's an industrial park there, east of I75, and there may be more than one customer there. I haven't explored it at all yet though...

It could be the place that handles ingots. But I'm not sure if they're in or outbound.

Should be inbound. That facility is where the ingots are melted, then put in vats, and trucked to Saginaw Metal Casting Operations. There the vats are poured into foams blocks, where the metal actually melts the foam. This style of casting, known as the "lost foam process" has eliminated a majority of sand moulds for casting at this facility.