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GREL mystery solved? KZLA/LAKZ are on the train sheets. KZLA carried GM auto parts from Kalamazoo straight into GM in Lansing. It usually left late afternoon with a pair of GP38-2. Scouting the web for KZLA I can across a short piece in Conrail In Brief about KZLA. It lists Grand Rapids as one of t...

Those are interesting sheets. GREL was in Botsford for an hour. I remember the track being there but never saw anything move out the South Haven industrial. There is a move onto the South haven on these sheets. Its interesting to use the sheets to follow yard job activity. At this time a morning jo...

That's a curiosity. They missed having the pick ups ready a few times an left them for the next day. I asked about GREL and Bruce said it wasn't possible. Never say never. There were a pair of B36-7's there one day on the old round house lead. Someone from the power desk called ticked that they wer...

Love it - thanks for sharing those stories! I have some train movement sheets from BO in 1982, it sure was busier then with the yard crews, although when I was watching in the early/mid 90s the road freights were more consistent/frequent with 8 per day. On the handful of times I was at BO to watch L...

Very interesting, thanks for the details! What time frame was this? Why was ELGR/GREL forbidden to work South Yard? The only time I saw South Yard used for anything but storage was one night when GREL picked up something like 18 cars. I heard it on the scanner and drove down there to watch at Cork S...

Just by chance i happened to be searching for something completely different and stumbled across this photo. It shows the 1941 NYC Mercury in Kalamazoo with both the BO tower barely visible in the far right and another tower. I believe there were 2 towers in Kalamazoo correct? Disclaimer: NOT MY PH...

The summer I rode around with the yard job the conductor was Carl Edoff and brakeman was Gary Waskiewicz both ex-PRR guys from Grand Rapids. The engineer was usually either R.C. Moore or Art Lusher. R.C was an NYC guy from Jackson I think. Art was from Elkhart. Would you mind sharing what you remem...

Those notes on unique operations at Botsford are very interesting! I'd love to hear more. I never got past the door with Bob Biddle. I got to know Al Johnson the best, I miss shooting the breeze with him up there. I bought a set of golf clubs from him one time, and passed up other buying opportuniti...

I wonder how many times I heard "keep'm coming ELLA" and was out the door within a few minutes...
I can't remember the terminology used when BO would tell a crew the CN bulletin was out to be picked up. "order's in the hoop" or something like that

I always appreciated Bob Biddle answering calls as "B.O. in the tower" or "Bo Tower".

The Michigan Railroads site shows it was abandoned in 1978, which sounds about right to me.
The line was served by Conrail, but under subsidy, north of the James River plant in Parchment.
The line to Doster/Richlard was known as the "Richland-Doster-T", due to its appearance on maps.

Thats a bummer - doesn't seem like that long ago that Dowagiac and Niles had a decent number of customers.
Tom - thanks for all the scanner info! I need to get a new one and that is very helpful.

Are they trying to justify the giant control tower at the airport? Ridiculous.
If this comes to pass, I wonder if they'll rebuild the Mueller Plastics siding. As far as I know, its never seen a carload.

Not sure if this has already been covered, but my brother works at Pfizer in Portage and told me the power plant has been converted to natural gas. Conrail did good business with that coal, even moving in mini unit trains once in a blue moon.

1TrackMind wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:54 pm

Yes CN serves Glendenning. Emerald LC Howard is and ex International plant.

I did a quick search - Union Camp was acquired by International Paper, so must be the same place.

Wiki is currently up to date concerning current customers. http://railroadfan.com/wiki/index.php/Grand_Elk#Grand_Elk_Customers Thank you! So CN serves the L.C. Howard Glendenning Rd. and Factory St. Warehouses? correct Is CN serving Glendenning for certain? The GTW only operated over the former PRR...

I have a couple questions about GDLK customers: Is this a correct listing of CN/GDLK jointly served customers? Allnex Fabri-Kal L. C. Howard Kilgore Rd. Green Bay Packaging Arvco Container (CN Only?) Also are are Fresh Solution Farms in White Pigeon, Clark Logic in Constantine, and BlueLinx in Gran...

MQT1223 wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 20, 2021 8:12 am

So along with the ongoing track removal projects at Wyoming Yard

Whats being removed at Wyoming Yd? I believe they removed the old piggyback tracks but thats all I've heard.

As to the centerbeams interchanged to NS at Milan I mentioned earlier, some are going to Home Depot in Romulus and others are going to a customer on CSX, I’ll have to look further into where that final destination is. It must be pretty local though. They come off the GLC. Interchange at Milan amoun...

Raildudes dad wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 06, 2020 1:16 pm

That is 47 days in transit, 17 day bad ordered. And folks wonder why customers pay more for truck delivery? I know for a fact a project was shut down over this lumber not showing up in a timely manner.

Thanks for the run-down, I enjoy reading these. Incredible.