Michigan Southern, around White Pigeon, today

[GreatLakesRailfan]

Had to go over to the Bronson area today, on the way back, I poked around Sturgis and White Pigeon a little bit.

Didn't see much of anything in Sturgis, just a lot of empty rail. I did note that the north/south line that runs through there appears to end at the scrap yard that buts up to the toll road, but I assume that everyone already knew that. I also noted that there appears to be a pretty new industry just north of the end of the line, a south facing switch leading to a siding next to a warehouse or something. I took some pics of the condition of the tracks, bud unless anyone wants to see 'em, I'm not gonna put 'em up online.

White Pigeon was another story. That town is crawling with motive power! Unfortunately, half of it's dead. All that I saw in town was the 908, sitting by the Michigan Southern's engine house:



I also noted that the 101 was sitting back by what I believe is the Little River Railroad's shed:






The yard was a lot emptier than I remember having seen it before. I think there were 10 cars sitting around, at most. In the past, the place has been packed with cars, almost all lettered ALAB. Today, most of the cars sitting around were lettered ALAB, but the only prior owner of the cars was CN, as opposed to several different former owners as noted in the past.





The dead alcos were still in the same place they were the last time I was in town. I took a shot of the extra truck near the 66 in case anyone hadn't seen it yet:







The 466 looked to be in worse shape than before. On both sides, the doors(?) on the long hood were partially removed.



I was kind of surprised to see that the 101 appeared to be spotting ALAB boxcars at what I had thought was the Little River's building, but that building also seemed to be rather different looking that it had been in the past:





One other thing of note that I saw was this sign on the building right to the south of the MSO engine house. I don't recall having seen this in the past, although I could easily have missed it.



Before leaving town, I headed over toward the Morris Leasing(?) end of town and got a shot of the equipment sitting over there:



And it appears that someone wanted some of the space along the tracks cleared out. The road used to take a 90 degree turn and head north at this point, although I couldn't find anywhere that it came out to the main road later:



Unfortunately, I didn't have time to do much else and nothing was moving on the CN in Edwardsburg or Granger on the way back, which was a little disappointing, but was ok, since I'd gotten so much other good stuff.

[leo28150]

My guess on the Little River building is that when they left town, they sold Pioneer the building and it looks like it is being used as a rip shop.

I can't seem to place where you took the last photo; any hints where this trackage is?

[GreatLakesRailfan]

The road that runs west of the old LRRR shop building, there is a building with a sign that identifies it as a candy company, take the road west as far as it goes. It now goes farther than it did- that's the last picture- taken from the corner where the paved road makes a 90 degree turn and runs up to US12. Although you can't see it in the picture, there is a large field that appears to have been cleared out, and has several large, cut-up logs sitting in the middle of it. It looked (to me) like a fairly recent change, almost as though the wood had yet to be disposed of or shipped out.

Also, I'm curious if anyone knows how the track is laid out in White Pigeon. The Morris equipment appears to be stored on a wye, is the other end of that wye connected to anything? Also, in the last pic I included, it appears that there is track both following the dirt "road" as well as track branching away and running on the other side of the tree line. Is that some sort of additional yard or storage space? Or perhaps does it have something to do with the interchange with the NS? In the past when I've visited town, I've always seen the NS interchange cars (I assume) on a track that runs south from the MSO trackage area. Would this have changed in the past 6-12 months?

[GP30M4216]

Charles-
go to http://maps.google.com and when the page loads, type "white pigeon, mi" in the search box. Once the map appears, click on "satellite" in the upper right corner and zoom in on the area you wish to examine. About the second or third highest magnification should get you the detail you want to see. Good photos. Do you have one of the diamond in Sturgis you could post?

[leo28150]

The trackage where the Morris equipment was used to be where Morris unoaded unit gravel trains. At one time there was a wye that the north leg was pulled LONG ago (possible pre-PC). The way I understood the story, Gordie Morris put the north leg back in to connect with his track to access NS without using Pioneer (MSO) to spot his cars---to make it a short story, Gordie and Pioneer didn't always get along.