Ann Arbor Railroad Trip

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chapmaja
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Ann Arbor Railroad Trip

Unread post by chapmaja »

I had to work in Dundee today, so I decided to follow the AA from the north side of Dundee up to Pittsfield Jct.

First stop, the engine plant north of Dundee. No cars visible in the plant, and it doesn't appear access into the plant is that frequent due to rail being slightly rusted. Also, the siding into the plant is not available for regular access without moving the cut of tankers out of the way. There is a driveway along the siding with an loading or unloading apparatus next to the tracks. The siding has 6 or 7 tankers on the tracks.

I don't know if this is some type transload, possible crude oil being loaded into tankers, but it wasn't there several years ago when I last went by the plant. Moving farther north, the sidings at Dundee Cement are loaded with tankers, except for what appears to be the unloading track at the cement storage silos themselves. This had a covered hopper visible. The siding north of the cement plant also had a long string of tankers on in.

Moving north to Azalia, I was able to see something yellow on the mainline in the distance. I thought maybe it was a yellow ended autorack on the main in Milan. Wrong.

As I went up Crowe Rd I saw what the yellow was. It was the nose of AA 1337, which was on the mainline with 2373 and a 47 car train, this was parked just north of the Crowe Rd siding. It was a mixed freight with tankers, covered hoppers, including at least one IORY covered hopper which I found interesting. Also there were a couple boxcars and one autorack. I have never seen them parked in this location before. Does anyone know why they would park on the main there rather than in the Milan yard. Is 47 cars too long to find in the yard?

In Milan there was a single autorack in the AA yard along with a short tanker cut. I did catch a CP mixed freight westbound in Milan. The highlight of this train was the third engine, KCS 4006 the Veterans paint scheme locomotive.

Milan's NS "yard tracks" had MOW cars present and several piles of ballast on the north side of the tracks. It looks like they will be doing some work in the near future.

Moving north through Milan I stopped by the old Milan Lumber location. The switch off the AA mainline is still in place, although nothing has like been on the siding in decades, except maybe store MOW equipment.

Urania siding had a cut of mixed cars present, but thing that would appear to be long term storage like they normally have.

I did not go into Saline to see what is near the plant, but Pittsfield Jct had nothing present. The cars that have been stored near the diamond the the Saline Branch are gone.


I will try going by the plant tomorrow as I have to work in Saline tomorrow. I will post an update if I actually go by there.

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AARR
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Re: Ann Arbor Railroad Trip

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You are correct, chapmaja
chapmaja wrote:First stop, the engine plant north of Dundee. No cars visible in the plant, and it doesn't appear access into the plant is that frequent due to rail being slightly rusted. Also, the siding into the plant is not available for regular access without moving the cut of tankers out of the way. There is a driveway along the siding with an loading or unloading apparatus next to the tracks. The siding has 6 or 7 tankers on the tracks.

I don't know if this is some type transload, possible crude oil being loaded into tankers, but it wasn't there several years ago when I last went by the plant. Moving farther north, the sidings at Dundee Cement are loaded with tankers, except for what appears to be the unloading track at the cement storage silos themselves. This had a covered hopper visible. The siding north of the cement plant also had a long string of tankers on in.
PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...

chapmaja
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Re: Ann Arbor Railroad Trip

Unread post by chapmaja »

AARR wrote:You are correct, chapmaja
chapmaja wrote:First stop, the engine plant north of Dundee. No cars visible in the plant, and it doesn't appear access into the plant is that frequent due to rail being slightly rusted. Also, the siding into the plant is not available for regular access without moving the cut of tankers out of the way. There is a driveway along the siding with an loading or unloading apparatus next to the tracks. The siding has 6 or 7 tankers on the tracks.

I don't know if this is some type transload, possible crude oil being loaded into tankers, but it wasn't there several years ago when I last went by the plant. Moving farther north, the sidings at Dundee Cement are loaded with tankers, except for what appears to be the unloading track at the cement storage silos themselves. This had a covered hopper visible. The siding north of the cement plant also had a long string of tankers on in.

I'm correct that it is a transload, or I'm correct that it is crude loading? If it is crude loading, are they slowly loading unit trains a few cars at a time (thus the large number of cars in the vicinity on sidings), or do they do it a few cars at a time?

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AARR
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Re: Ann Arbor Railroad Trip

Unread post by AARR »

You are correct on both. It's a transload and it's crude oil. They were loading 25 cars a week (blocks of 6, 6, 6, 7) but you know how those things can change.
chapmaja wrote:
AARR wrote:You are correct, chapmaja
chapmaja wrote:First stop, the engine plant north of Dundee. No cars visible in the plant, and it doesn't appear access into the plant is that frequent due to rail being slightly rusted. Also, the siding into the plant is not available for regular access without moving the cut of tankers out of the way. There is a driveway along the siding with an loading or unloading apparatus next to the tracks. The siding has 6 or 7 tankers on the tracks.

I don't know if this is some type transload, possible crude oil being loaded into tankers, but it wasn't there several years ago when I last went by the plant. Moving farther north, the sidings at Dundee Cement are loaded with tankers, except for what appears to be the unloading track at the cement storage silos themselves. This had a covered hopper visible. The siding north of the cement plant also had a long string of tankers on in.

I'm correct that it is a transload, or I'm correct that it is crude loading? If it is crude loading, are they slowly loading unit trains a few cars at a time (thus the large number of cars in the vicinity on sidings), or do they do it a few cars at a time?
PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...

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Standard Railfan
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Re: Ann Arbor Railroad Trip

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Does anyone know where the loaded crude tank cars are delivered?

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AARR
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Re: Ann Arbor Railroad Trip

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I heard the tank cars were sighted at a refinery in PA but that was a while ago
Standard Railfan wrote:Does anyone know where the loaded crude tank cars are delivered?
PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...

chapmaja
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Re: Ann Arbor Railroad Trip

Unread post by chapmaja »

Now that we have the discussion about the crude transload out of the way, let's look at the IORY cars on the AA train south of Milan.

Does anyone know where these are coming from and where they are heading to?

Does the IORY serve an ethanol plant at all? Could these be DDG heading from an ethanol plant to the feed place that opened in Owosso? Would the IORY supply cars that would take the DDG from the A&B up to Owosso? Would that routing even make sense going from the A&B to the IORY to the AARR to the GLC?

Just thinking about why an IORY car would be on the AA

Raildudes dad
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Re: Ann Arbor Railroad Trip

Unread post by Raildudes dad »

Car number? I might be able to trace it.

chapmaja
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Re: Ann Arbor Railroad Trip

Unread post by chapmaja »

Oil Tanker GATX 212989 was one of them at the crude place in Dundee.

I wasn't able to get the IORY car number.

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AARR
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Re: Ann Arbor Railroad Trip

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IORY services a couple ethanol plants so your speculation that DDG is moving to the feed plant in Owosso is a possibility.
chapmaja wrote:Does the IORY serve an ethanol plant at all? Could these be DDG heading from an ethanol plant to the feed place that opened in Owosso? Would the IORY supply cars that would take the DDG from the A&B up to Owosso? Would that routing even make sense going from the A&B to the IORY to the AARR to the GLC?

Just thinking about why an IORY car would be on the AA
PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...

Raildudes dad
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Re: Ann Arbor Railroad Trip

Unread post by Raildudes dad »

chapmaja wrote:Oil Tanker GATX 212989 was one of them at the crude place in Dundee.

I wasn't able to get the IORY car number.
Delivered to American Refining group in Bradford PA

chapmaja
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Re: Ann Arbor Railroad Trip

Unread post by chapmaja »

After posting on the IORY South End discussion on the Ohio Board it has been determined these IORY cars are likely not DDG, but instead or fertilizer cars. The question is where would these fertilizer cars be heading to be unloaded. I don't think they were unloaded on the AA, meaning they had to be bridge cars to the GLC. Were they going to someplace on the GLC or were they possibly going to the MMRR and Breckenridge? If they were going to the MMRR it would make for an interesting routing. CIND to IORY to AA to GLC to MMRR. Talk about an alphabet soup routing.

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AARR
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Re: Ann Arbor Railroad Trip

Unread post by AARR »

GLC has a few small places that receive fertilizer but they also have been handling more overhead cars for HESR (I hate saying HESR...CMGN forever!) including fertilizer for Saginaw, Bay City and in the thumb.
chapmaja wrote:After posting on the IORY South End discussion on the Ohio Board it has been determined these IORY cars are likely not DDG, but instead or fertilizer cars. The question is where would these fertilizer cars be heading to be unloaded. I don't think they were unloaded on the AA, meaning they had to be bridge cars to the GLC. Were they going to someplace on the GLC or were they possibly going to the MMRR and Breckenridge? If they were going to the MMRR it would make for an interesting routing. CIND to IORY to AA to GLC to MMRR. Talk about an alphabet soup routing.
PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...

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