Thumb Railroad Trip

[GreatLakesRailfan]

It's been a few years since I had an opportunity to do much driving around the Thumb looking for trains, but Jetlink's daily updates on his bicycle trip last week served as a reminder that I hadn't been up to Silverwood/Clifford/Vassar recently.

We left the Port Huron area around 10:30, intentionally getting a later start on the trip (my wife's employer cancelled work around 9:30 because of a water main break in PH, so she came along for the ride).

We started in Brown City, where we saw 6 covered hoppers at the big elevator on the east side of town. I didn't see anything else in Brown City. In Marlette, there was a single covered hopper and about 3 tank cars on the east end of town. I didn't see anything at the elevator.

In Vassar, the yard was completely empty. The siding along the ex-Port Huron Sub was empty. The only indication that the railroad was active was the parking lot of hirail work trucks at the station/office. I don't recall ever seeing the yard in Vassar completely empty before.

From Vassar we went up to Richville and saw empty tracks. In Reese, there were a couple boxcars on the siding southeast of town (the elevator that used to be at the end of that siding is missing several key structures - it doesn't look like it will be receiving service anymore). To the northwest of the diamond, there were (probably storage) cars in the distance (from M-81l on both tracks. We didn't get a closer look at what was up there. I did not see any power on the wye, as was typical in the past.

At Arthur, there was a boxcar and 2 covered hoppers at the elevator.

We drove thru Saginaw to check out the diamond at Mershon, Carrollton and Zilwaukee (didn't see much) and headed up to Bay City. I hadn't realized that HESR had built a new shop at Winona, but it looks pretty nice.

From Bay City we headed back to Reese, and checked out Towerline (Road) on the way - there was a train on the west side of Towerline Road #2144 leading 3526, both long hood forward, tied down.

It didn't look like anything had changed in Reese, so we headed east, following the old PM toward Bad Axe. The elevator at Gilford had 3 newer CSX (boxcar logo) covered hoppers and 3 tank cars on the siding on the south side of the elevator, 3 tankcars in the siding on the north side of the elevator and about a dozen older covered hoppers in the siding west of the road.

I didn't see anything in the sidings at the Fairgrove elevator on Bradleyville Road. On the north side of Fairgrove, the old ADM(?) elevator (blue building) had small signs with the Star of the West logo but the big sign on the south side is just about completely bleached by the sun. There were no cars spotted here or at the Co-Op's fertilizer plant across the road.

I didn't see anything spotted at either of the elevators in Akron.

The elevator in Unionville is still there, but the siding appears to be very overgrown, if it even reaches the elevator anymore.

In Sebewaing, there was a single covered hopper (TPW 462203) and about half a dozen boxcars in the siding, near the sugar plant. I didn't notice if there were any cars at the Bayside Best Bean plant, but there was activity around the plant. There were definitely tank cars at the sugar plant, but it's hard to see much from the road. The Co-op elevator near the sugar plant didn't have any cars.

In Pigeon, there were a couple boxcars on the west side of the big elevator downtown. I didn't see anything in the siding west of where the diamond would have been. There were no railcars at the feed mill on the west side of town. There were 6 boxcars on the siding north of the Bean plant north of Pigeon, and at least 3 boxcars spotted back in the plant.

In Elkton, there was a 50' boxcar in the siding and a couple black gondolas, but it didn't look like there were any cars spotted in the Tower plant. It was probably removed quite a while ago, but I did note that there's only one track into the plant now, not 2 as in the past. The Co-op elevator by Tower didn't have any cars on its track.

The big Co-op plant east of Elkton had a single covered hopper away from the elevator. It may have had CAIX reporting marks.

At Bad Axe, H&E 2145 was tied down next to the engine house. There was a UTCX covered hopper on the engine house lead (UTCX 53856). It looked like there may have been a grain train in Bad Axe, as most of the tracks had covered hoppers in them. A couple cars numbers we saw included TPW 460397, NOKL 820375 and TPW 461567.

South of Bad Axe, the fertilizer dealer by the airport didn't have any cars on their siding. The factory in Ubly had 2 covered hoppers. I don't remember seeing anything at the elevator, but the big collision shop next to the elevator kind of overshadowed the elevator...

We didn't make it into Deckerville. Minden City's elevator is still technically standing (the 3 cement silos anyway) but the tracks weren't completely rusted over, so something has probably run up to Ruth recently. My mother-in-law lives several miles north of Carsonville so we stopped by her house instead of going through Deckerville or McGregor. In Croswell the tracks were also not rusted over, but we took the bypass and didn't get a look at what was in the sugar plant or the new fertilizer plant.

Ironically, we passed West Tappan (west end of the double track west of Port Huron on the Flint Sub) on the way home and just missed catching an eastbound freight train (the crossing activated just after we crossed it). There's not really a good place to watch trains near that crossing, so we kept going, but I did notice that the first car behind the power was an empty centerbeam flatcar, followed by at least one or two tank cars...

All in all, it was a good day. We managed to stay behind the severe thunderstorms that went through Huron County this afternoon, although we had to skip the side trip to see if there was anything at the elevator in Kinde. I had hoped to catch something moving by going on a weekday instead of on a weekend, but I think that we probably would have had a more productive day on a weekend, if the trip wasn't more about the trip than actually seeing trains...

[AARR]

Thank you for the excellent report. You did a great job detailing what you saw.