Modeling the "Fargo Area Rapid Transit" in O scale 3 rail.
The map found at the following link should help you. Of course, those marked CR would now be NS or CSX.
http://michigan.gov/documents/MDOT_Official_Rail_130897_7.pdf
Actually, the lines marked Conrail are - Conrail (Conrail Shared Assets).
Are you sure Detroit is part of Canada now? I was at the Detroit airport last week and all of the signs were in English and Japanese....
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Clutch Cargo wrote:Wisconsin got the UP back finally.
Tell me more.
tatans wrote:Michigan was officialy closed last thursday, Detroit is now part of Canada and G.M. is moving to Peru.
Boyd wrote:Last map I saw didn't show much. How much of the rail lines into Michigan still exist?
Relative to when?
Lots of trackage has been torn up since the 1970s, especially after Conrail's formation. Deregulation apparently made abandonments a lot easier after 1980, and a lot of once-strong secondary lines of all of the major railroads disappeared. I'd say that most of the retrenchment was done by 1990, except that disappearance of some industries continued to be followed by the disappearance of the railroads that once served them.
Mainline traffic is virtually impossible to find in Michigan, since it's out of everybody's way (check the maps). Detroit and environs is still a destination, hence some lines between there and Toledo (which is on the way to places), and NS' ex-Wabash line to the other end of the Midwest (sorry, Mookie!). Detroit to Chicago is handled by CSX (the midpoint, Grand Rapids, shows just how far out of the way things can get!), and by Amtrak (NS trains go through Elkhart and Toledo, usually), and by the CN through Durand, which is just as far off the beeline as Grand Rapids. CN has a viable main line that connects Chicago and Toronto. That, and what's left of Michgan industries, captures Michigan railroading in a nutshell.
The Upper Peninsula, as far as railroads go, might as well go back to Wisconsin--Wisconsin Central, anyway. They're lucky to have anything at all--lumbering and mining have all but played out, and pulpwood is about the only commodity that one sees coming from most points. Even the UP left the U.P. after only a few months.
Most of the recent retrenchments by major railroads have been in the form of spinoffs, rather than wholesale abandonments. CSX has gotten rid of a few major portions of its former Pere Marquette network this way, and NS tried to unload the most direct Chicago-Detroit route in the state--but failed because folks saw some handwriting on the yard-office walls.
Since 1990, Michigan has become a leader in rail-trails, by virtue of some major abandonments. Let's hope that the tourism industry, which long ago foresook some of the elegant passenger trains to the north, will permit continued improvement of this network.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
Carl, I think your characterizations are dead on. Detroit really is a terminal operation instead of a main line operation, albeit on a very large and complex scale. When I spent some time there a few years ago, I was surprised by the large scale of the carload business that remains -- oh, what once was!
Four amazing sights I saw in Detroit:
1. Standing on an overpass near the abandoned Packard complex. I turned slowly 360 degrees and as far as I could see in all directions were abandoned brick factories, left standing as if a neutron bomb had killed the people but not the buildings.
2. Neighborhoods with streelights still glowing but where an average block might have only one big old brick house remaining, everything else knocked down or burned down, piles of rubble in the streets requiring you to detour around like a city in France in 1944.
3. The tremendous amount of carload business to and from Chrysler and Ford on the north side, and at Ford at River Rouge and the steel mills at Rouge and Zug Island -- surrounded by miles and miles of abandoned yard, main, siding, industrial spurs, factories ...
4. The four parallel main lines to the south, two of them flipping sides at Trenton!
RWM
A correction to a previous response - Kalamazoo is the midpoint between Chicago and Detroit and is frequented by 8 Amtrak trains a day which run on Amtrak rail between Porter, Indiana and Kalamazoo where they jump on NS rail for travel to the East side of the state. Amtrak ridership on these lines continues to grow, fueled by high gas prices and the presence of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
CSX has a reasonable amount of traffic that flows mostly north to south on the west side of the state - going as far north as Grand Rapids and then heading east through Lansing and back south to Detroit. The former CSX out of Grand Rapids to Ludington and other places north has been sold to a short line (can't remember which).
NS traffic in the state primarily moves south to north in the western portion of the state, going as far north as Grand Rapids. On the east side of the state the flow is more varied, but little or no mainline traffic exists. If you overlay the CSX Michigan footprint with the NS, they are quite similar.
The only mainline traffic through the state is on the CN line which runs from Chicago North East across the state, crossing into Canda at Port Huron. Traffic on this line seems to have lessened in the past couple of years as the economy has softened, but still provides excellent railfan opportunities. I can't speak much to the Detroit area, only that it's traffic will be a direct proportion to what the auto industry is doing. Despite our states' efforts to diversify the economy around here, we're still primarily an auto-driven state.
Railway man....
The devastation in Detroit is so complete that that the "ring" around downtown Detroit is interpreted by satellite photography interpretation software programs as "agriculture/forested" due to the greenspace.
Correction - Wisconsin was forcibly required to take the UP back. Now we're trying to teach the native Yoopers the language.
On a more serious note - From Green Bay, CN runs north to Menominee MI, then east to Sault Ste Marie, MI / Ontario. From Escanaba, the Ore line runs north to the mines in the Ishpeming, MI area.
Old BN Fan, congratulations on your being able to see the glass as half full! As a Michigan native with a bilingual sister-in-law (English and Yooper), I've been around long enough to see a lot of things that are there no longer. Hence my first question about how relatively the originator of this thread was speaking. I remember three ports for cross-lake ferry service on the west Michigan shoreline, and two no-longer-existing lines that once led to them.
Remember, your NS business in western Michigan was all stuff that they wanted to get rid of last year.
Amtrak Michigan service is one of the few bright spots, and it's great to see the traffic base rising. I know that routes today are doing much better than they were in the days before Amtrak, but I remember the routes that were lost after 4/30/71--and a few that were lost before then, too. They need to consider restoring service along CSX from Grand Rapids via Lansing to Detroit (or maybe just Plymouth, or via Howell to Ann Arbor). Yes, that midpoint is Kalamazoo, which underscores what I was saying about how out-of-the-way the two major freight providers largely within the state take their freight. No wonder the trucks on I-94 have no competition!
Marquette Rail (MQT) is the company that took over the CSX from Grand Rapids to Ludington and Manistee. One of the bigger customers in Ludington is Dow Chemical. Remember when trains could run directly from Dow in Ludington to Dow in Midland? The line even rated (poor-man's) CTC!
Michigan, sadly, just doesn't fit today's railroading, with few exceptions.
By da way, da Yoopers call us trolls--accordin' to dem, we're trolls because we lived below da bridge.
I know for sure there is still great pie and other cherry products, Interlochen Arts Academy, and the Leelanau Peninsula. And there be tracks up there, too.
(MDOT's February, 2006 map is here: http://www.glcrailroad.com/pdf/MDOT_Official_Rail.pdf )
"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo Possum "We have met the anemone... and he is Russ." Bucky Katt "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." Niels Bohr, Nobel laureate in physics
CShaveRR wrote: Boyd wrote:Last map I saw didn't show much. How much of the rail lines into Michigan still exist? The Upper Peninsula, as far as railroads go, might as well go back to Wisconsin--Wisconsin Central, anyway. They're lucky to have anything at all--lumbering and mining have all but played out, and pulpwood is about the only commodity that one sees coming from most points. Even the UP left the U.P. after only a few months.
What about the LS&I and the iron mining industry? I have not really kept up with their status since visiting them in the 1970s, but I see there is another thread on LS&I replacing their U30Cs. The Copper Country of the Keweenaw Peninsula of the Upper Peninsula has no active railroads, but it sure has an intriguing historical legcy of what once was a railroad/mining empire. There are abandoned roadbeds everywhere up there plus many artifacts.
Here is an excellent site on the Copper Country:
http://www.coppercountryexplorer.com/
Bucyrus wrote: CShaveRR wrote: Boyd wrote:Last map I saw didn't show much. How much of the rail lines into Michigan still exist? The Upper Peninsula, as far as railroads go, might as well go back to Wisconsin--Wisconsin Central, anyway. They're lucky to have anything at all--lumbering and mining have all but played out, and pulpwood is about the only commodity that one sees coming from most points. Even the UP left the U.P. after only a few months.What about the LS&I and the iron mining industry? I have not really kept up with their status since visiting them in the 1970s, but I see there is another thread on LS&I replacing their U30Cs. The Copper Country of the Keweenaw Peninsula of the Upper Peninsula has no active railroads, but it sure has an intriguing historical legcy of what once was a railroad/mining empire. There are abandoned roadbeds everywhere up there plus many artifacts.Here is an excellent site on the Copper Country: http://www.coppercountryexplorer.com/
CCI owns the LS&I. I think it is a really neat little railroad. My father-in-law works at the Tilden mine, and I have yet to take a tour or anything when we go up there.
Thanks for the response Carl!
I also fondly remember the carferry's that carried trains across Lake Michigan, in particular the C&O operation at Ludington sending trains across to three ports in Wisconsin.
I also agree with your West Coast assessment for Amtrak - it would be great to see the Pere Marquette trains (Chicago to Grand Rapids) continue over to Lansing and then down to AA and Detroit.... sadly there is talk of re-routing these trains to GR via Kalamazoo instead of the current route closer to the lake.
And yes, you can't hardly throw a stone across I-94 w/o hitting a truck!
Good luck under the bridge!
Tom
The traffic on the CN-GTW Mainline had a plateau in the 1990's, but it has only gradually declined. One will still be able to see quite a few trains.
The local train from Battle Creek to Kalamazoo is the biggest casualty since the paper mill business has almost completely moved out of Kalamazoo and the GM Stamping Plant closed. It is now less than 10 cars per trip. It used to be between 20-30 cars per trip everyday.
Andrew
Watch my videos on-line at https://www.youtube.com/user/AndrewNeilFalconer
The former Pere Marquette line now known as the CSX Saginaw Sub used to see a lot of automotive manufacturing traffic. Most of that is gone. In my last two visits to the area I haven't seen a train on the line, although I did hear one come through in the middle of the night.
When I was young I can remember three trains coming through in the 20 minutes or so it took me to walk to school.
Looking to see trains ? You will see plenty on the GTW system between Port Huron and Battle Creek . Also between Port Huron and Detroit .
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.