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| Photos of March 25, 2008 Ops |
| It's still Tax Season at my office, but we are still operating season on the C&M. We had a full operating crew and had a great operating session. |
| The Operators Andy Schnur very reluctantly "volunteered" for the dispatcher's position. I think there was a little pier pressure involved. The Grand Rapids Yardmaster was Steve Williams (his first time as GR yardmaster) and the Mackinaw City yardmaster was Jim Radkey (he has been the MC yardmaster two previous times so he was at least some what familiar with the job. The other operators were John Blunden, David Parks, Les Dahlstedt and two new C&M operators, Bob Moore and Jeff Rogers. The Superintendent was, of course, Bob Osborn. Here are some pictures: |
| Statistics: The total number of cars moved was 237 in a total of 25 different trains: 4 1st class passenger trains 1 2nd class Fast Freight 10 turns (out and back) 5 through freight 3 boat interchanger's (estimated - out and back) Online customer deliveries and pick ups totalled 72 cars at industrial sidings and in addition, we even picked up/setout a total of 10 express loads in our passenger operations. |
| Click images to Enlarge: |
| The move of the day: |
Here is the crew. They made
Here is the crew. They made
Here is the crew. They made
Here is the crew. They made
silk. The mainline and both silk.
The mainline and both Here is
the crew. They made yards
were all busy, but the railroad
run as smooth as seemed to be
pretty clean and free for action
all evening. Good job guys, I
think we made the railroad
some money. Not totally sure
of that, as our bookkeeping
system needs some help,
anyone know a good CPA??
Here is the crew. They made
Here is the crew. They made
Here is the crew. They made
silk. The mainline and both silk.
The mainline and both Here is
the crew. They made yards
were all busy, but the railroad
run as smooth as seemed to be
pretty clean and free for action
all evening. Good job guys, I
think we made the railroad
some money. Not totally sure
of that, as our bookkeeping
system needs some help,
anyone know a good CPA??
| Andy was the dispatcher. He was a little hesitant when he "volunteered" for the position but he did a fine job. Bottom photo shows Andy being busy. |
| northbound #210, the #210 is a pure reefer train originating in Fort Wayne and running non-stop to Mackinaw City where it is loaded onto the "Chief" car ferry and delivered to the Soo Line in the Upper Peninsula. The top two photos are #210 running through Grand Rapids with C-425's 332 and 331 at the point. We need to get those units into the paint shop! The middle photo shows a neat meet in Traverse City setup by dispatcher Andy. Traverse City was pretty full of trains. Not sure any of them were moving, but the town was full of them! Finally the #210 heads up toward Petoskey with its high priority cargo. |
| Jim was the Mackinaw City yardmaster again. He looks like he is having a good time. Just wait until his yard gets jammed! |
| Steve was all business in Grand Rapids. Things look pretty clean look pretty clean now, but wait - the action will get more intense as the session goes on. Both Jim and Steve did a fine job in their yards. |
| Here is David working Pk Yard with whatever Walton Jct cars is in the yard. It runs up to Walton Jct where it loads all of the empty grain cars and works the industrial track. Dave pushed all of the loads through the loading doc, then had to arrange his train and ran back to Comstock Pk Yard with the loaded grain covered hoppers. An enjoyable and prototypical train on the Chicago & Mackinac Railroad |
| class #102, northbound through Cadillac. #102 had to thread it's way though town The above two pictures are of the first as the Cadillac Turn (Les D) was all over the place! The train is made up of the Pere Marquette E-7, plus several head end express cars, an RPO, a Baggage car and a coach. It was two hours late out of Grand Rapids. We had to serve the passenger some of the crew's hard whiskey to keep him happy! |
| Les started with a Cadillac Turn and then road crew skills by running many road freights. As usual Les looks like he is having fun. I think he fakes it!?! |
John is up in
Petoskey working
the Petoskey
Turn. He also
knocked off the
GRI Turn (now
Petoskey working
the Petoskey
Turn. He also
knocked off the
GRI Turn (now
| some time in Traverse City working the Traverse City Turn. Jeff spent his time mostly on the road, running passenger and/or through freights. Bob is shown in Traverse City and Jeff is at the south end of the A/D yard in Mackinaw City requesting clearance to go south. |