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If you let them know it bothered you, you are giving them what they wanted.

Super Chief wrote:Some hopper cars east of Niles depot are Amtrak ballast cars, remember a few years ago the eastbound passenger train almost hit them head-on because a signal maintainer shunt the circuit and gave them a proceed signal and routed them into the siding and he was in the bungalow.

I recall the issue in Niles with Amtrak a few years ago. The cars I spotted in Google Maps look to be different than the ballast cars Amtrak uses. These cars are on a spur that is basically next to the Amtrak yard, but the loading area is next to Paragon Tempered Glass, although this doesn't appear to be the customer loading the cars. It almost looks like it is dirt of some sort. Were they loading dirty dirt from Niles recently? It's basically at the corner of Terminal Rd and Renaissance Dr.

NS3322 wrote:

J T wrote: Were someone's emotions affected or something?

A little.
I was more worried about the spread of false information.

Because that false railfain information would affect the lives of people how?

The hopper cars in question in Niles were empty old woodchip gons being loaded with shredded tires. I don’t know if they still load there or not.

Perhaps this is the business that moved to WMRR

Firemedic Mike wrote:The hopper cars in question in Niles were empty old woodchip gons being loaded with shredded tires. I don’t know if they still load there or not.

MQT1223 wrote:The Chicagoland Railfan group on Facebook

This thread should've ended right here. How is it two pages?

Schteinkuh wrote:

MQT1223 wrote:The Chicagoland Railfan group on Facebook

This thread should've ended right here. How is it two pages?

I was wondering the same thing.

NS3322 wrote:

Schteinkuh wrote:

MQT1223 wrote:The Chicagoland Railfan group on Facebook

This thread should've ended right here. How is it two pages?

I was wondering the same thing.

Because nothing makes a foamer/railfan happier than rumors (or in this case a joke turned into a rumors)

Rumors

Wabash1070 wrote: roomers

So while that post on facebook may have been a joke, I can speak to this issue truthfully.

About ten years ago I spoke to a CSS official who was a friend of mine. He's no longer with the railroad. I asked him that, given the expansion to Kingsbury and north side Michigan City, would CSS think about picking up the freight rights to Niles, Coldwater, or further up the road?

His answer was that it had not been studied formally at the time. Also, at the time, the biggest constraint was the lack of power with ITCS equipment, evidently only a few of the orange geeps have ITCS, and they either didn't want to spend the money to equip more or couldn't spare them.

Since this conversation (think it was 2008), they've bought the black SD38's and leased the blue geeps, and PTC has become compulsory on their system. Whether there is a PTC-and-ITCS compatible system, I'm not sure, but it wouldn't surprise me given that the PTC on Norfolk Southern from Porter to Chicago is not ITCS.

CSS has no need for ITCS equipped engines because they don't operate over the ITCS equipped Amtrak Michigan Line(AML). The beginning/eniding point for the AML ITCS is at Chesterton.
NS does need ITCS equipped engines because they do operate over the AML.

DaveO wrote:CSS has no need for ITCS equipped engines because they don't operate over the ITCS equipped Amtrak Michigan Line(AML). The beginning/eniding point for the AML ITCS is at Chesterton.
NS does need ITCS equipped engines because they do operate over the AML.

They don’t need ITCS for the section of AML they serve local customers on in Michigan City?

SD80MAC wrote:

DaveO wrote:CSS has no need for ITCS equipped engines because they don't operate over the ITCS equipped Amtrak Michigan Line(AML). The beginning/eniding point for the AML ITCS is at Chesterton.
NS does need ITCS equipped engines because they do operate over the AML.

They don’t need ITCS for the section of AML they serve local customers on in Michigan City?

I was confused on that aspect as well.

Per Amtrak's filing with the FRA:

The Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad operates over a very short distance on the Michigan Line in the Michigan City area (MP 228.0 to MP 228.79. They operate three days per week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The President of Chicago South Shore & South Bend Railroad has agreed by letter (Appendix A, p. 52) to operate during a night-time window between 11:45 pm and 5:30 am central time when no Amtrak passenger trains operate thereby providing temporal separation between CSS&SBRR freight trains and Amtrak passenger trains.

Amtrak and the Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad are hereby requesting FRA to grant an exception as provided by §236.1006 (b) (4) (ii) with the additional condition that temporal separation will be provided as described above.

SD80MAC wrote:

DaveO wrote:CSS has no need for ITCS equipped engines because they don't operate over the ITCS equipped Amtrak Michigan Line(AML). The beginning/eniding point for the AML ITCS is at Chesterton.
NS does need ITCS equipped engines because they do operate over the AML.

They don’t need ITCS for the section of AML they serve local customers on in Michigan City?

Ouch
The swing bridge.

SInce there are people here that obviously are aware of that end, let me ask a question I've been trying to remember the answer to.
What is/are the locations on the AML that aren't tall enough for double stacks?

On the east end, the Ann Arbor railroad bridge has been noted to potentially be too low. They have run double stack rerouted this way before, and they obviously cleared it, but I believe I heard the distance between the top of the train is not enough for regular service or something along those lines.. they fit, but it's sorta tight. I just remember there being talk of "to run double stacks, the grades on the NS (at the time) Michigan line would need to be changed, or the Ann Arbor Bridge would need to be higher. This may be incorrect as the last time we had an intermodal rerouted was probably about a decade ago, but it was one of the "potential problem" spots.

Ypsi wrote:On the east end, the Ann Arbor railroad bridge has been noted to potentially be too low. They have run double stack rerouted this way before, and they obviously cleared it, but I believe I heard the distance between the top of the train is not enough for regular service or something along those lines.. they fit, but it's sorta tight. I just remember there being talk of "to run double stacks, the grades on the NS (at the time) Michigan line would need to be changed, or the Ann Arbor Bridge would need to be higher. This may be incorrect as the last time we had an intermodal rerouted was probably about a decade ago, but it was one of the "potential problem" spots.

On the west side of Michigan double-stacks have been not so surgically removed from detouring eastbound freight trains.
I just don't remember what obstacle does the dirty deed.
That is why their is a high car detector right after leaving the Chicago Line.
https://goo.gl/maps/guU1RWjqWK72
Which leads me to another question. Is there a high car detector for westbound traffic somewhere west of Kalamazoo?

DaveO wrote:
That is why their is a high car detector right after leaving the Chicago Line.

Which leads me to another question. Is there a high car detector for westbound traffic somewhere west of Kalamazoo?

Found a Conrail timetable online.
No mention of a high car detector for traffic heading west on the Michigan Line.
The high car detector at Porter shows it set for 18 feet 4 inches.

DaveO wrote:

DaveO wrote:
That is why their is a high car detector right after leaving the Chicago Line.

Which leads me to another question. Is there a high car detector for westbound traffic somewhere west of Kalamazoo?

Found a Conrail timetable online.
No mention of a high car detector for traffic heading west on the Michigan Line.
The high car detector at Porter shows it set for 18 feet 4 inches.

I got lucky at a show last year and picked up the 2017 Amtrak/MDOT timetable for the Michigan Line. No mention of a high-car detector west of Kalamazoo that I've seen. I don't really think it would be needed, as I thought NS rerouted trains via the GDLK and then onto the AML instead of sending them via Porter. This was back before ITCS was extended east of town.