The local currently known as L301

[TSS]

Living at the far end of L301’s territory, I want to confirm my current and historical knowledge:

Today, L301 is called at Wyoming Yard in GR, and drags all the Holland traffic to Holland, then works west from there. Does L301 deliver all of Y121’s cars to Waverly? What’s the division of labor between the two?

Historically, wasn’t (that which became) L301 based out of Benton Harbor? Or was that a separate switch job? Assuming it was 301, when did it move from there? After the factories closed, or years later when the yard was removed?

I thought I heard the base moved to New Buffalo after that. I remember seeing lots of sand cars in New Buffalo circa 2013. Was it based there to move sand cars between storage in New Buffalo yard and the sand plant at Livingston?

If it was ever based in New Buffalo, when did it move to GR? Was it after the Livingston sand plant shut down mid-decade?

[SD80MAC]

L301, formerly D700, is advertised to run from Grand Rapids to Sawyer and back. It used to be advertised all the way to New Buffalo, and was the highest paying job on the Chicago Division due to the mileage ran and the kind of service the pay rate dictated (road switcher). Yes, they handle all of the traffic to and from Holland for Y121. Sometimes if L301 is short on time or annulled, they will skip the Waverly pick up/set out, and Y121 will run to Grand Rapids and back with their cars. All 301 does is pick up and set out in Waverly, Y121 does all of the switching and customer work. For a time, 326 and 327 would do the Holland pick up and set out, but eventually it was decided that it made more sense for D700/301 to do it.

D700 was for years based out of Benton Harbor. I think it was 2006 or 2007 when they closed Benton Harbor and moved the job to Grand Rapids. Was always a 3 man job due to the hours of switching that they used to do at the sand plant in Livingston. D700 died a lot back then, and D900 recrews were fairly common. The train used to run late at night to avoid Amtrak. The sand plant at Livingston shut down in 2014ish, IIRC.

It was never based in New Buffalo to my knowledge, at least not since they closed the New Buffalo Yard in the early 80s. The yard there in recent decades has been used for storage of un-needed and bad order cars. Used to be a lot of old sand hoppers in there that have since been scrapped.

[TSS]

L301, formerly D700, is advertised to run from Grand Rapids to Sawyer and back. It used to be advertised all the way to New Buffalo, and was the highest paying job on the Chicago Division due to the mileage ran and the kind of service the pay rate dictated (road switcher). Yes, they handle all of the traffic to and from Holland for Y121. Sometimes if L301 is short on time or annulled, they will skip the Waverly pick up/set out, and Y121 will run to Grand Rapids and back with their cars. All 301 does is pick up and set out in Waverly, Y121 does all of the switching and customer work. For a time, 326 and 327 would do the Holland pick up and set out, but eventually it was decided that it made more sense for D700/301 to do it.

D700 was for years based out of Benton Harbor. I think it was 2006 or 2007 when they closed Benton Harbor and moved the job to Grand Rapids. Was always a 3 man job due to the hours of switching that they used to do at the sand plant in Livingston. D700 died a lot back then, and D900 recrews were fairly common. The train used to run late at night to avoid Amtrak. The sand plant at Livingston shut down in 2014ish, IIRC.

It was never based in New Buffalo to my knowledge, at least not since they closed the New Buffalo Yard in the early 80s. The yard there in recent decades has been used for storage of un-needed and bad order cars. Used to be a lot of old sand hoppers in there that have since been scrapped.

Thanks for the info! I appreciate it.

[~Z~]

There was a bit of time somewhere between 2006 and 2008 that D700 was based in Holland, and started their work going west, ending up in Holland for the night.

[SD80MAC]

There was a bit of time somewhere between 2006 and 2008 that D700 was based in Holland, and started their work going west, ending up in Holland for the night.

Right you are. IIRC they also tried that for a bit in the 2019-2020 era as well.

[kd_1014]

There was a bit of time somewhere between 2006 and 2008 that D700 was based in Holland, and started their work going west, ending up in Holland for the night.

Right you are. IIRC they also tried that for a bit in the 2019-2020 era as well.

Correct. Then they had D702 replacing Y121 in Holland, which would do all the customer work and yard switching, as well as run to Grandville to work Buzzi and Standale Lumber.

[GP30M4216]

There was a bit of time somewhere between 2006 and 2008 that D700 was based in Holland, and started their work going west, ending up in Holland for the night.

Right you are. IIRC they also tried that for a bit in the 2019-2020 era as well.

Looking back through this board’s fabulous search function, it looks like the D702 Waverly based setup continued into the summer of 2021. In addition to all the customer work between Holland and Wyoming, all the Holland customers, Hamilton Branch and working as far west as Sawyer, they also did the daily Holland-Wyoming block exchange. Saved $$$ by needing one less engine/set of engines west of Wyoming but was often recrewed at night.

I have some earlier notes squirreled away on D700 operations in the mid 2000s. I’ll have to look for them. With the hopeful-new customer coming online at Livingston, it will be interesting to see how much switching time that adds to the current L301 long runs west and if any ops changes take place as a result.