MIdnight Meets of LSRC in Tawas
- Larry G
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MIdnight Meets of LSRC in Tawas
Two shots taken of the night action in and north of East Tawas under a near full moon Oct 10/11 2011
North Bound LSRC freight arrives at Baldwin Township about two miles north of East Tawas shortly after midnight on Oct 11. South Bound was on siding waiting for the meet and crew change.
At O1:05 Southbound LSRC freight with #1164 leading trundles towards MP 59 after crossing Newman Street in East Tawas.
On this trip trains ran about every other night during the week. Length varried from short to over 60 cars. Did not observe any unusal cars except for an empty gon on the two car spur near Wal-Mart store. Highrail inspection cars came along near noon during the weekdays between trains.
Link with more story and photos here.http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/r ... ?2,2589045
North Bound LSRC freight arrives at Baldwin Township about two miles north of East Tawas shortly after midnight on Oct 11. South Bound was on siding waiting for the meet and crew change.
At O1:05 Southbound LSRC freight with #1164 leading trundles towards MP 59 after crossing Newman Street in East Tawas.
On this trip trains ran about every other night during the week. Length varried from short to over 60 cars. Did not observe any unusal cars except for an empty gon on the two car spur near Wal-Mart store. Highrail inspection cars came along near noon during the weekdays between trains.
Link with more story and photos here.http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/r ... ?2,2589045
"If I Harp at you, it is only to Spur you on!
- AARR
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Re: MIdnight Meets of LSRC in Tawas
Nice report Larry G. Appreciate you taking the time to post it. Wonder what the crews thought when they see someone taking their picture at 1am
PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...
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Re: MIdnight Meets of LSRC in Tawas
Terrorists in Tawas!!!AARR wrote:Nice report Larry G. Appreciate you taking the time to post it. Wonder what the crews thought when they see someone taking their picture at 1am
- Larry G
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Re: MIdnight Meets of LSRC in Tawas
I don't know what they were thinking! My thoughts at that late night hour is that the Tim Horton's, (open 24/7), is located just off the ROW on the old yard grounds and I would stop for coffee to stay awake at this late hour if I were them. After several hours of 10mph travel, in the dark, it must be hard to stay awake after the meet. Without the TH coffee this reporter would have slept through it!!!AARR wrote:Nice report Larry G. Appreciate you taking the time to post it. Wonder what the crews thought when they see someone taking their picture at 1am
"If I Harp at you, it is only to Spur you on!
- Saturnalia
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Re: MIdnight Meets of LSRC in Tawas
Last I saw, the new high was 15!! Are the track repairs done, and where did those end? They started going 15-20 MPH out of Alpena after they fixed the BAD track!! Nice photos!
Re: MIdnight Meets of LSRC in Tawas
nice pix! as many times as ive run along 23 and those tracks ive never seen a consist- the crew should pay the company to let them work that line , lucky dogs- does it go thru rogers city and to macinaw city? one of the oldest routes in MI?
i dont know where they got the ballast at Alpena , but i found many many whole petrified shells in the ballast
i dont know where they got the ballast at Alpena , but i found many many whole petrified shells in the ballast
- AARR
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Re: MIdnight Meets of LSRC in Tawas
Cut back from Cheboygan to Big Rock early 1980's???kevinm wrote:does it go thru rogers city and to macinaw city?
From Big Rock to Hawks mid 1980's???
From Rogers City to Calcite mid 1980's???
From Hawks to Alpena and Calcite to Rogers City Jct around 2000
PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...
- Saturnalia
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Re: MIdnight Meets of LSRC in Tawas
The tracks stop past the Wye, just before the former crossing with US-23. The old ROW is now part of the snowmobile network. left the main just south of M-32 and Campbell St that went to another LaFarge open-pit mine was also pulled up a few decades ago. ROW also fell into the trail network.
- AARR
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Re: MIdnight Meets of LSRC in Tawas
Is that the branch south of Alpena that went west to Paxton, around 8 miles? That was a shale pit. Until the early 1990's shale was used in the mixture of cement. Flyash almost overnight was substitued for shale and the pit closed and rails torn out around 1994. Of course flyash to Lafarge from some place in Canada has been a huge success story with LSRC accounting for around 2500-3000 cars a year since 1997.MQT3001 wrote:left the main just south of M-32 and Campbell St that went to another LaFarge open-pit mine was also pulled up a few decades ago. ROW also fell into the trail network.
PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...
- Saturnalia
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Re: MIdnight Meets of LSRC in Tawas
During my cabride switching out Lafarge, they said that the Flyash came from a coal plant near Saginaw, we can assume Essexville. One of the last trains a saw this year on the LSRC was a northbound with several dozen flyash loads coming into Alpena. Episode 60 I think. (A good reason to # them )AARR wrote:Is that the branch south of Alpena that went west to Paxton, around 8 miles? That was a shale pit. Until the early 1990's shale was used in the mixture of cement. Flyash almost overnight was substitued for shale and the pit closed and rails torn out around 1994. Of course flyash to Lafarge from some place in Canada has been a huge success story with LSRC accounting for around 2500-3000 cars a year since 1997.MQT3001 wrote:left the main just south of M-32 and Campbell St that went to another LaFarge open-pit mine was also pulled up a few decades ago. ROW also fell into the trail network.
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Re: MIdnight Meets of LSRC in Tawas
Recently, LSRC has picked up flyash traffic from Essexville to Lafarge. It is transloaded in Bay City, I think.MQT3001 wrote:During my cabride switching out Lafarge, they said that the Flyash came from a coal plant near Saginaw, we can assume Essexville. One of the last trains a saw this year on the LSRC was a northbound with several dozen flyash loads coming into Alpena. Episode 60 I think. (A good reason to # them )
But most of the flyash comes from Canada. It is interchanged by CN to HESR in Durand who takes it to Bay City where LSRC picks it up and takes it to Lafarge.
Or has something changed recently that I am not aware of
PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...
- Saturnalia
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Re: MIdnight Meets of LSRC in Tawas
They only mentioned Essexville, and the've only been getting it in BULK shipments, and the Lafarge spurs were they park them were com pletly loaded this summer, along with every other track inside the plant, so they left a dozen or so inside the Alpena switching yard! Also, look for 2 boxcars on the southbound trains, as this summer 2 were parked next to the roundhouse, and they said those should be southbound at somepoint in the near future, if they havn't already gone.AARR wrote:Recently, LSRC has picked up flyash traffic from Essexville to Lafarge. It is transloaded in Bay City, I think.MQT3001 wrote:During my cabride switching out Lafarge, they said that the Flyash came from a coal plant near Saginaw, we can assume Essexville. One of the last trains a saw this year on the LSRC was a northbound with several dozen flyash loads coming into Alpena. Episode 60 I think. (A good reason to # them )
But most of the flyash comes from Canada. It is interchanged by CN to HESR in Durand who takes it to Bay City where LSRC picks it up and takes it to Lafarge.
Or has something changed recently that I am not aware of
- AARR
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Re: MIdnight Meets of LSRC in Tawas
This is more new business from Decorative Panel(formerly Alpena Harboard / Louisianna-Pacific / Albiti-Price). The irony is they tore out the spur a few years ago to the plant and now they get some business from them but they have to transload it. Maybe they could have left the spur in a little longer to see if business developedMQT3001 wrote:Also, look for 2 boxcars on the southbound trains, as this summer 2 were parked next to the roundhouse, and they said those should be southbound at somepoint in the near future, if they havn't already gone.
PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...
Re: MIdnight Meets of LSRC in Tawas
When spurs are on private property it doesn't matter.AARR wrote:This is more new business from Decorative Panel(formerly Alpena Harboard / Louisianna-Pacific / Albiti-Price). The irony is they tore out the spur a few years ago to the plant and now they get some business from them but they have to transload it. Maybe they could have left the spur in a little longer to see if business developedMQT3001 wrote:Also, look for 2 boxcars on the southbound trains, as this summer 2 were parked next to the roundhouse, and they said those should be southbound at somepoint in the near future, if they havn't already gone.
Semi-retired railroader
Re: MIdnight Meets of LSRC in Tawas
From what I've heard, the new owner of the former Fletcher Paper Plant building didn't like having train tracks right in front of the building. He had some grand scheme of turning the old plant into condos or a hotel or something like that. Anyways, word of mouth is that he called the FRA, who I guess shut down the line, but not before the Lake State retaliated and parked a bunch of cars for storage right by the building. That certainly caused some tempers to flare. There was an article about that in the Alpena News that I wish I could find.Maybe they could have left the spur in a little longer to see if business developed
As far as the actual removal of the line, the City of Alpena completely redid Fletcher Street a few years back and tore out all of the "street running" tracks in the process. Even though most of the rails for the branch are still in place, the Alpena Power company has slowly started to take over the ROW with power lines. Slightly off topic, the rumor I've heard is that when the construction crews started tearing up Fletcher Street and digging deeper, they found some old narrow gauge rail and I think parts of a rail car.
Anyways, so when the line got ripped out there was talk of the LSRC building a new spur into DPI that loosely followed the old BCG&A line, coming off of the north side of the yard and servicing the north side of the plant rather than the south. That never materialized
From what I'm told from D&M/LSRC retirees, the reason that the Lake State stopped servicing DPI (or whatever it used to be called) is because the LSRC and DPI couldn't agree to a set switching schedule. DPI wanted to be switched at a certain time, and the LSRC had a "we'll switch you when we switch you" philosophy.
It's sad, really. I have fond memories of Alcos running through the streets here in town.
- AARR
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Re: MIdnight Meets of LSRC in Tawas
I am a little surprised if LSRC took that attitude, but then again they have been eager to rid themselves of the lower trafficked lines on their system and DPI fits that description.LSRC wrote:From what I'm told from D&M/LSRC retirees, the reason that the Lake State stopped servicing DPI (or whatever it used to be called) is because the LSRC and DPI couldn't agree to a set switching schedule. DPI wanted to be switched at a certain time, and the LSRC had a "we'll switch you when we switch you" philosophy.
PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...
Re: MIdnight Meets of LSRC in Tawas
Foss Yard in Bay City is where the cars are transloaded. Its right there at the LSRC swing bridge and only about a mile from Consumers at that spot.Recently, LSRC has picked up flyash traffic from Essexville to Lafarge. It is transloaded in Bay City, I think.
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Re: MIdnight Meets of LSRC in Tawas
GTW6401 - do you know how many carloads they are shipping? Per a coal to flyash formula I found the plant in Essexville should make about 500-700 (can not remember the exact amount) carloads of flyash per year.GTW6401 wrote:Foss Yard in Bay City is where the cars are transloaded. Its right there at the LSRC swing bridge and only about a mile from Consumers at that spot.Recently, LSRC has picked up flyash traffic from Essexville to Lafarge. It is transloaded in Bay City, I think.
PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...
Re: MIdnight Meets of LSRC in Tawas
I have no idea on the amount being shipped, just know they are using the old siding there.