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I was extraordinarily lucky to catch the MSO while driving through Sturgis Friday evening. I'm glad I took the "scenic route" home .

Here was see PREX #907 crossing U.S. 12 with one gondola car for OmniSource.



Thanks to slow track speed, it was really easy to outrun the train. Here we see the train passing Magnolia Avenue.


Running behind industrial buildings, the train continues south on the old GR&I headed for OmniSource.



The train arrives at the OmniSource spur.



The GP9 backs into OmniSource to drop off the gondola.



After dropping off the gondola the locomotive then proceeded south. Heading towards Frank Miller and Sons.




After a lengthy conversation with whom I assumed was the owner of Frank Miller and Sons, the Pioneer boys tied down and left.

Thanks for posting your chase, Crow.

Pretty cool. Thanks for posting Nicholas

Wow, great report about the operation along the hard-to-catch former GR&I! This line was looking pretty distressed for several years when Frank Miller & Sons was the only customer. Now, Frank has a new spur in addition to his old one, and Omnisource is back open for business again, and things look a bit brighter around Sturgis.

In your 2nd photo, of the short train crossing US-12, is the black fence on the right surrounding the moved LS&MS brick Sturgis depot building? I haven't seen many pics of that building in its new location and am wondering if you took any. It's always a bit sad when a depot gets moved away from its rails, but in this case, it found some nearby different rails to be placed beside! And the location continues the tradition of a rail stop at that location, where the PRR freighthouse once stood.

It's been a number of years since my last chase of the MSO. I posted several of my trip reports on the RRfan Wiki page for MSO in an effort to help track their moves, but these are probably quite out of date now. Here's a link to my most recent trip report, from 2011 (which also included a lengthy chase of the INER): viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20795

Thanks again for documenting this!

GP30M4216 wrote:Wow, great report about the operation along the hard-to-catch former GR&I! This line was looking pretty distressed for several years when Frank Miller & Sons was the only customer. Now, Frank has a new spur in addition to his old one, and Omnisource is back open for business again, and things look a bit brighter around Sturgis.

In your 2nd photo, of the short train crossing US-12, is the black fence on the right surrounding the moved LS&MS brick Sturgis depot building? I haven't seen many pics of that building in its new location and am wondering if you took any. It's always a bit sad when a depot gets moved away from its rails, but in this case, it found some nearby different rails to be placed beside! And the location continues the tradition of a rail stop at that location, where the PRR freighthouse once stood.

It's been a number of years since my last chase of the MSO. I posted several of my trip reports on the RRfan Wiki page for MSO in an effort to help track their moves, but these are probably quite out of date now. Here's a link to my most recent trip report, from 2011 (which also included a lengthy chase of the INER): viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20795

Thanks again for documenting this!

Thanks for your kind words! Yeah the tracks look a little better than they did ten years ago. Yes, the black fence is what surrounds the old LS&MS depot. I did take photos of the depot, but not a lot (I was too distracted by the train ). My original plan was to just stop at the depot, I did not expect the train!

Here is a link to all of my photos (including photos of the misc cars stored by Abbott Nutrition): http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/archiv ... ?id=129660

Here is a photo of the depot: