Lapeer Industrial (LIND)
Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2022 10:43 am
Since the subject of Lapeer Industrial (LI) came up and its viability I will post my very successful paper railroad Lapeer Industrial (LIND)
Service started in the late 90's when I acquired the line (approximately 1 mile) from CN/GTW. I use an ex-GTW SW9 (7010-7015 series) and it is still working fine.
Of the three original customers (Lapeer Grain, Foam Seal and Lapeer Metal Stamping) none remain. In fact, even some of the other customers I developed over the years (Lapeer Truss, Detail Boring, Wilkinson) closed or stopped shipping by rail.
At this time, I have five customers (two are transload). At the former Lapeer Grain spur Hyponex transloads a 3-car block about every 4 weeks of perlite. At the former Detail Boring transload Loc Performance receives a car of steel billets every 2-3 months (unloaded off the main track). Delta Faucet receives 2-3 cars a week of plastic pellets (unloaded off the main track). At the former Foam Seal spur Albar Industries transloads 1-2 cars a week of plastic pellets. The former Lapeer Metal Stamping is now occupied by Grid Logic and receives a carload of plastic pellets every other month or so.
CN sets out and picks up cars on the siding where my line begins. They seem to like my business .
Service is once a week and typically takes 6-8 hours to shuffle all the inbound and outbound cars around.
The former Lapeer Grain has a new owner (both in Imlay City, Lapeer and several other locations). They are looking to build a large feed customer base. I am talking to them about establishing an unloading site at the very end of my line. They could receive a 25 car block from CN at a time and I would shuffle the cars around for them. It would require building at a minimum a 25 car siding at the end of my line and adding another engine. I've identified up to 500 cars of feed business and possible up to 100 cars of fertilizer business. They also have capacity in Imlay City but CN is reluctant/higher priced to give them the switching service they would need to be successful. For now it's discussion only.
For now LIND's future is fine.
Service started in the late 90's when I acquired the line (approximately 1 mile) from CN/GTW. I use an ex-GTW SW9 (7010-7015 series) and it is still working fine.
Of the three original customers (Lapeer Grain, Foam Seal and Lapeer Metal Stamping) none remain. In fact, even some of the other customers I developed over the years (Lapeer Truss, Detail Boring, Wilkinson) closed or stopped shipping by rail.
At this time, I have five customers (two are transload). At the former Lapeer Grain spur Hyponex transloads a 3-car block about every 4 weeks of perlite. At the former Detail Boring transload Loc Performance receives a car of steel billets every 2-3 months (unloaded off the main track). Delta Faucet receives 2-3 cars a week of plastic pellets (unloaded off the main track). At the former Foam Seal spur Albar Industries transloads 1-2 cars a week of plastic pellets. The former Lapeer Metal Stamping is now occupied by Grid Logic and receives a carload of plastic pellets every other month or so.
CN sets out and picks up cars on the siding where my line begins. They seem to like my business .
Service is once a week and typically takes 6-8 hours to shuffle all the inbound and outbound cars around.
The former Lapeer Grain has a new owner (both in Imlay City, Lapeer and several other locations). They are looking to build a large feed customer base. I am talking to them about establishing an unloading site at the very end of my line. They could receive a 25 car block from CN at a time and I would shuffle the cars around for them. It would require building at a minimum a 25 car siding at the end of my line and adding another engine. I've identified up to 500 cars of feed business and possible up to 100 cars of fertilizer business. They also have capacity in Imlay City but CN is reluctant/higher priced to give them the switching service they would need to be successful. For now it's discussion only.
For now LIND's future is fine.