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I heard that Amtrak had a ballast train out working around Jackson, MI today on the Michigan Central. Might be out working on saturrday. Amtrak 33 is the power. Anybody see it? Got any more information?

Heard the two Charter Wire cars amy leave Ann Arbor, MI on Saturday, May 04, 2013. Might be on #353.

Saw it from 127 at Miller aka East Jackson Friday evening, think it worked Saturday also. On a side note the AMTK building on Brooklyn road will soon be expanding it parking area.

Amtrak AmCab 9645 led Shuttle #463 south from Springfield, Mass. to New Haven, CT this afternoon.


Regarding the ballast train - Amtrak gets a lot of their ballast stone from a Tilcon quarry right out here in my neighborhood, courtesy of a direct interchange between the Branford Steam Railroad (which switches the Tilcon quarry) and the interchange track in Branford. Amtrak has a large track dept. yard here in New Haven where they stage a lot of ballast and rail trains, and assemble CWR in a series of old retired boxcars.

Rode 351 today. Amtrak 38 solo power on the head end, amfleet, 4 horizons, amfleet on the tail. Lots of ties, plates, and spikes staged between Battle Creek and Kalamazoo. Got to see them laying new continuous welded rail on NS between 483 and about 475. Saw an empty and a full rail train staged too. Also saw another crew laying rail of from another rail train. Neat to see the whole operation from one end to the other. According to my GPS We could make 110 with only one unit but it took noticeably longer to get there.

Ballast train was 30 cars and went back empty to Elkhart on 39E. all orange Amtrak cars

Amtrak 352 had 32 leading and 38 trailing. 1 amfleet coupled to each engine and 3 horizons in the middle. 352 met 353 at the platfoms in Niles at about 15:34. Amtrak 353 had 35 on the head end and 36 on the tail end.

Saw Amtrak heading east while I was taking a patient to Chelsea Hosp. Also, lots of track work going on by the Jiffy plant.

354 e/b just arrived Battle Creek, 28 leads with 34 on the tail end.

Riding 351 yesterday (5/14) turns out there was a geometry car on the rear. Didn't find out until we got to Kalamazoo and heard BO tower gave 351 permission to set it out in the interlocking. Looked back on the train later on and it was still there or maybe there was two and only one got set out ?

There were lots of Amtrak Maintainers working at Chelsea, Albion, Marshall and Galesburg and lots of new ties along the Michigan Line.

Coming back on 354 we met 355 at CP Custer where we had to go into Main 1 and let 355 clear then back up and proceed from the rusty rail.

Train #30 went through Chesterton, IN eastbound at 8:29pm.

Amtrak #30 went through Chesterton, IN at 8:34pm.

Amtrak #30 went through Chesterton, IN at 8:23pm. There was what looked like a blue passenger car at the end.

Amtrak #30 went through Chesterton, IN at 8:20pm eastbound.

355 started from Detroit tonight due to 353's incident at Maple Road in Ann Arbor.

http://annarbor.com/news/amtrak-train-s ... er_default

Tonight's (anAMd tomorrow's) Pere Marquette has AMTK 822 only. They were running it with AMTK 406, the other unit from the 40th Anniversary Exhibit train, but they seem to have left it behind.
Here it is crossing the St. Joseph River in St. Joseph, MI about 45 minutes ago:

#30 went through Chesterton, IN eastbound at 8:06pm.

355 w/b with AMTK 29 leading with 26 at the rear, waiting for a clear signal at CP Baron while an e/b CN freight crawls into the CN Battle Creek yard.