Winona Yard in Bay City, Mich.

Any historical questions can be posted here. Answers would certainly help as well :)
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dmitzel
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Winona Yard in Bay City, Mich.

Unread post by dmitzel »

Rather than double-post I wrote this in another board http://members4.boardhost.com/RRHXHisto ... 88953.html looking for info on yard operations at this northern Detroit Division terminal of the Penn Central, later GTW's Saginaw Sub following Conrail Day. If anyone has insight they can share on terminal operations at Winona during its heyday please give me a shout out.

Thanks!
D.M. Mitzel
Div. 8-NCR-NMRA
Oxford, Mich.

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Atkinson_Railroad
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Re: Winona Yard in Bay City, Mich.

Unread post by Atkinson_Railroad »

Fairly certain the name is spelled Wenona.

My memory of the yard is from hanging around the location as a kid in the 1970s.
I remember the friendly people there who didn't seem to care a trespasser was watching what was going on.

Unit trains, pulled by dirty black Penn Central locomotives would crawl through Bay City on rickety rails out to the power plant
and return to the Wenona yard for layover.
I don't know that there was any particular "heyday" for the yard during the PC era. It seemed pretty sleepy most of the time.

The yard certainly has lots of history to dig into considering it dates back to the original Jackson, Lansing and Saginaw Railroad.

John

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dmitzel
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Re: Winona Yard in Bay City, Mich.

Unread post by dmitzel »

John,

You're right, my bad... Wenona Yard is correct - must be my maternal Minnesota roots showing themselves.

If not PC recollections anyone have memories of GTW operations before the sale to CMGN? How about current HESR operations? This just seems to be a very model-genic yard, not too big to shrink to HO scale as a smaller-sized division point terminal.

Thanks!
D.M. Mitzel
Div. 8-NCR-NMRA
Oxford, Mich.

Tim
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Re: Winona Yard in Bay City, Mich.

Unread post by Tim »

The yard tracks were rather short so during the PC era one usually had to double two tracks to make up a southbound train BD-1. The unusual part of this was there was an air line under the road so you didn't have to block the crossing while making the terminal air test.

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