I&O North today

[Fred]

Thought train operated tues-thurs-sat Delta to Flat rock & Return but I read they ran last friday so my question is what is their current schedule and have they come north today Thanks for any & all input

[Chip]

No one here really knows. Best I can tell is it’s run as needed. I’ve noticed traffic in general in and out of Flat Rock seems to be a little lower than usual lately.

[GP30M4216]

You are asking questions which have vexed a subset of interested railfans for more than a decade! Once upon a time I lived in Ann Arbor and it wasn’t that hard to jump down to Carleton or Diann to wait and see if the I&O was running. We even had an I&O engineer post in this board somewhat regularly at one point. These days we don’t have anyone who regularly catches the I&O Flat Rock turn, and the reports that do get posted here or on various Facebook groups seem to be sporadic. A Tuesday run seems to be common. But there are also sightings for Thursdays/Fridays/and Saturdays over recent months. Maybe if they run Thursday they also run Saturday, it if they don’t go Thursday they run Friday instead and skip Saturday? With a line that parallels nothing, they don’t have to go at the fastest speed to make a chase essentially impossible. I’d love it if we had more regular reports of Flat Rock turn action!

Here’s the southbound I&O job cruising along at Raisinville in 2010:
https://youtu.be/XSps8psBpOQ?si=F-263A9cp4H6klwq