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Somebody had asked on Michigan Railroads about the G&W Port Inland Operations. There is one public railroad crossing on the line that I know. Myself and nevets found it last year. From what I could tell they do a push pull operation with cars similar to what the LTV? used. Everything is run RCO.



All of these are taken from Public Property and State Land.
Over the Pit


Shoving empty back to the pit





I highly advise that you do not try to find more areas to photograph this operation, we actually got lost twice back in there. During the week the numerous mine roads that are gated are opened and large haul trucks frequently cross. Its quite bizarre are to be out in the middle of the desolate U.P. and all of a sudden a large haul truck comes hauling out of the woods. Access to the bridge over the WC/CN is off limits. I highly suggest not wandering into the woods or off the road around this place they have a lot of security including border patrol as port inland is an international port.

Excellent report CAT. Thanks to you I do not have to risk my life railfanning this neat operation . Those are SD26's, right? I believe the only other ones still in operation are on Pan Am.

AARR wrote:Excellent report CAT. Thanks to you I do not have to risk my life railfanning this neat operation . Those are SD26's, right? I believe the only other ones still in operation are on Pan Am.

IIRC they're SD20's or some variety of rebuild.

Towards the bottom of this link are some Wisconsin Central photos I took in 2001 of the Port Inland operation.

http://webpages.charter.net/wclx/wcday.htm

Kelly

Kelly, was it you that had the photos of the cedarville operation? That was a topic of discussion at an op session a few days ago and I had mentioned that I thought you had some shots from that railroad.

CAT345C, yes. I was there back in July of 2001.

http://railroadfan.com/gallery/thumbnai ... D&user1=on

Got permission to enter property and take photos, caught one train back to get loaded and at loader they had a problem and buried cars in tunnel.

Kelly

Just wondering was this somewhere around Quarry Rd? Went driving back there a year or two back the road I was on turned into a OTR Road...

I don't remember exactly how we got back there, but I believe looking on Bing maps, we came in off of US2 down CR433. At some point we ended up where the area called "Huntspur" is located. We followed Batty Doe Lake Rd for a pretty long ways until it became un-passable. Had I not traded in the 3/4ton for an explorer a few months earler we would have went farther.

Time to leave the Durango and pile into the pick up! We probably would have found our way right to the docks.

The 83 is a former Chicago And Illinois Midland SD20, which ICG rebuilt from a Southern RR SD24.

Where is this place, The UP or something?

In the UP nearest "city/town" is Gulliver south of that on Lake Michigan.

If you type in Port Inland MI on bing maps it will take you right to the bridge over the WC and then you can follow the tracks to the mine or the docks.

Had no idea this little railroad even existed! I knew there was a line up their, but I always figured this was just a branch line owned by CN. I like the paint scheme.

Beautiful pics from an even more beautiful area of our state!

Can't wait to go there!

Is this line busy, or are trains just every now and then? And also, are the trains scheduled?

atrainguy60 wrote:Is this line busy, or are trains just every now and then? And also, are the trains scheduled?

I think they only operate during the mining season wth one or two trainsets running back and forth between the pits and the docks. I would imagine they make a round trip every 3-4 hours or something like that.

Heres a shot of the bridge over the Wisconsin Central mainline back when WC operated the line.



Kelly