TRRS 451: LSRC 325 Switching Lafarge Alpena Plant & More

Lake State Railroad's train 325 is a weekday yard and customer switcher in the small city of Alpena in Northeastern Lower Michigan.
Handling all switching duties on the Huron Sub, this crew predominately works Lafarge and Specification Stone.
Over two days, we cover their movements as they work. At Lafarge, was watch them work into the massive plant over ancient trackage, with plenty of interesting industrial scenes.
Next, we watch them in the yard as they work to spot cuts for Specification Stone, a quarry located just north of the LSRC Alpena Yard.
Other occasional customers in Alpena include Georgia Pacific, and a stone transload, neither of which are included in this edition.
This video is the third in our 4-part LSRC Alpena 2015 miniseries. Check out these links below for the other videos!
1. Ep. 449 Intro Video: • TRRS 449: Lake State R...
2. Ep. 450 Train 327 Alpena Inbound: • TRRS 450: Lake State T...
3. Ep. 451 Train 325 Alpena Yard Switcher: • TRRS 451: LSRC 325 Swi...
4. July PMT Train 326 Sunrise Side Shortline: • LSRC - the Sunrise Sid...
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Recorded with a Sony PJ790 Camcorder
Edited with Cyberlink PowerDirector 13
Copyright 2015 Thornapple River Rail Series

[@tomroise9426]

Nice video. Great industrial switching footage. So little of these out there Thank you

[@danielsharon524]

Norfolk Southern local used to service the Lafarge plant/quarry in Texas, MD using the MTA's light rail tracks which I assume run on NS right of way as it used to be the old MD & PA RR (aka ma & pa) which north of the area is now a rail trail but there is still a section of the old track north of Warren road & west of York Road. There was a crossing on Beaver Dam Road to get into the plant that was torn up a few years back. Not sure why they stopped servicing the place by rail but it was neat seeing freight on the light rail tracks. Once in a while the NS locomotives I assume wouldn't be able to get back down into Baltimore to get off the light rail track before it started running (they only had about a 4 hour window from 1-5AM) and they'd park them on the old track where light rail diverged from the right of way north of Warren Road. Not sure but there may still be some freight service on the light rail tracks closer to Baltimore.

[@fridaynighthikes]

10:46. Street running on dirt. Gotta love it.

[@ThornappleRiverRailSeries]

I was gonna say... "street" running implies street...haha!

[@ichabod0391]

It looked like early on, that car was going to try and race the train at that crossing...!

[@captainjohn787]

An impatient, reckless driver --- in my state (and probably all other states, for that matter) you would be ticketed for passing on a double yellow centerline, with the fine increased for doing it at a railroad crossing.

[@RustBeltRailroad]

Outstanding work!!!

[@bobparks7197]

An excellent video

[@JP-dj2ro]

Good video.

[@YardLimit]

Great video!

[@saintswillwin1013]

LSRC 1164 was built 7/1966 as SAL 624 (Seaboard Air Line) became SCL 1539 (Seaboard Coast Line), became TM 1164 (Texas-Mexican), became FURX 1164 (First Union Rail) www.rrpicturearchives.net/LocoPicture.aspx?id=91393 LSRC 1178 was built 12/1970 as BO 3745 (Baltimore & Ohio) became CSX 6521, became TM 1179 (Texas-Mexican) became FURX 1179 (First Union Rail).

[@rjl110919581]

thank you for detail video

[@daveyboy_]

Very informative, this video has a 'Sunday ' feel to it. I m guessin cause it looks like the plant was closex

[@ThornappleRiverRailSeries]

Nope it's just highly automated

[@richardtrudeau7363]

Lots of Deer in that area.

[@randysrockandrollrailroad8207]

Very Cool

[@Luan1559]

Very nice, dude! I'd love to live in US.

[@soarinskies1105]

alright Michigan, we have one the worlds largest cement making plants.

[@josephhoppe6984]

So that's where all those NDYX hoppers go...

[@soarinskies1105]

I have a question thornapple, It's fine if you don't know the answer but hear me out . Two years ago on July 31 2015 some one posted a video of a south bound Lake State train bound for bay city that was passing through East Tawas Michigan in the morning hours, and I mean the actual morning hours like when it's light out, judging by the lighting in the video it was some time around 9 am or so, which confused me because I thought the lake state southbound train bound from alpena to bay city always passed East Tawas Michigan at night, oh and this train was full loaded too, it wasn't just two locos, this was a full train of cars from lafarge and specification stone, and there were a lot of them, not sure if they were loaded. Do you know what might have caused this to happen and if so what are the circumstances that would have to occur for this to happen again?

[@ThornappleRiverRailSeries]

Probably just a random event. Sometimes "stuff happens" and trains get delayed. While the Huron Sub is an exceptionally regular line, just about anything could have happened to delay them by 6-12 hours.

[@drumkidstu]

Looking on google maps I got I was able to figure out where Specification Stone and the Lafarge Plant were located. I could not find where the stone transload and Georgia pacific spurs are. Any pointers?

[@bennydonajkowski9610]

drumkidstu stone transload happens at the yard in Alpena, there is not a gp plant in Alpena, dpi is a hardboard plant but no longer served by rail

[@christopherescott6787]

Both units must be ex CNR

[@engineerjeffery4582]

Are there truck's

[@coalandsteelrailroadvideos1342]

What Old switcher In one part of the video was used for?

[@ThornappleRiverRailSeries]

Shifting around the flyash cars for unloading. I think they have another switcher or a trackmobile for switching around the cement cars farther back in the plant

[@byronhandy7902]

U could've at least showed the train going thru the new signals instead of stopping right before it.