More coal for Bay City?

[Scooterb]

http://www.mlive.com/news/jacitpat/inde ... xml&coll=3

The plant will be an expansion of the utility's Karn/Weadock Generating Complex and anticipated to be operable in 2015.

Consumers selected this area near Bay City from more than 100 potential sites for a host of reasons, including the ability to ship in coal by rail or water, the proximity to customers and the size of the 1,000-acre site.

Possably on line by 2015

[OwlCaboose2853]

Karn/Weadock Generating Complex in Essexville

[trainjunkie47]

I'm really looking forward to the heavy equipment moves that will come in on rail. This should mean more coal train traffic long term as well.

[Turbo1]

There will be more train traffic, the plan is to add a new coal dumper building and a coal yard for the new plant. The pictures show more rail around the facility.

[Norm]

And LSRC had best consider upgrading their track to the facility.

[jukeman]

All the way to Mt. Morris

[OwlCaboose2853]

Dredging to clear Saginaw Bay shipping channel to start

Saturday, September 15, 2007
By ROB CLARK
TIMES ASSISTANT METRO EDITOR

Dredging of the Saginaw Bay shipping channel and the lower section of the Saginaw River is set to begin next week, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Corps announced Friday that two dredging contracts - totaling about $2 million - have been awarded to two different companies that will perform the work.

MCM Marine Inc. of Sault Ste. Marie will dredge about 342,000 cubic yards from the Saginaw Bay shipping channel, according to Lynn Duerod, a spokeswoman for the Corps in Detroit.

The work will take place from the mouth of the River, two miles out into the bay.

Duerod said that work, at a cost of about $1.3 million, will begin next week.

By late September or early October, Luedtke Engineering Co. of Frankfort is expected to begin dredging 50,000 cubic yards from the lower section of the river, Duerod said.

The $632,000 project will take place approximately from the Detroit-Mackinaw Railroad bridge near the Essexville city limits to the Penn-Central Railroad bridge near Liberty Bridge in downtown Bay City.

''It's vital for the shipping traffic to get through,'' said Duerod. ''This is a major shipping channel in the Great Lakes system and it's our goal to dredge it every year.''

Duerod said these section of the bay and river have not been dredged since 2005.

John A. Glynn, vice president of Wirt Stone Dock - which has facilities at 400 Martin St. in Bay City and 4700 Crow Island in Saginaw - said the money designated to dredge this area last year, was diverted for emergency dredging of the Sixth Street turning basin in Saginaw, where at least two freighters ran aground during the 2006 shipping season.

''This year, the focus is back on the entrance to the bay,'' Glynn said. ''It is important to keep the entrance channel at the mouth of the river open. It's a critical point in the river system.''

He said although the area to be dredged this year is deeper than in other parts of the river, it also fills in with sediment more quickly because of exposure to high winds and wave activity.

''If there's a cork on that end, there's nothing coming up the river,'' Glynn said. ''It's especially important ... for the 1,000-footers that need to unload coal at Consumers Energy. If they don't get in, we don't have power.''

Glynn said money has been budgeted to dredge sections of the upper Saginaw River next year.

David Williamson, plant manager at Essroc Cement Corp., 1601 Sailine St., Essexville, said news of the dredging project is timely.

''It's good they get it done this year so shipping can get off to a good start next year,'' he said, noting that a typical shipping season begins in March and runs until the river freezes in December or January.

Williamson said the pending dredging project will take a ''substantial'' amount of sediment out of the river.

''It's not huge or overwhelming, but it is substantial,'' he said, noting that, by comparison, most cement mixer trucks hold 8 cubic yards.

http://www.mlive.com/news/bctimes/index ... xml&coll=4

[SDavey]

LSRC has been working on the tracks from Saginaw to Bay City since the springtime, laying a lot of new ballasts and ties down. The Z126 is running after the 40-Hour MOW guys go home so they can work on the tracks without any interruptions.

Essroc Cement Corp was mentioned in that article from the Bay City Times ships both by ship and rail. They usually generate 15-20 or so cars a day on the Z126 local. It is located about ¼ of a mile down the tracks from Consumers.

[Norm]

I knew they worked on the tracks from Saginaw to BC, but the trackage in Essexville looks real bad.

Just my two cents worth, but they need a new ROW that is more direct to Consumers if they are going to be bringing in more (and heavier) trains.