Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Today's DM&M


The current-day - well, 2000's anyway - Saginaw Division comprises of DM&M trackage around the Tri-Cities area of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. This includes Meredith Street (MX) in Saginaw, Carrollton and Zilwaukee, Bay City - including Wenona yard - and the branch to Midland, Mich. with Dow Chemical's large facility on the SE side of town. In reality this is the mid-Michigan former Penn Central trackage that continues to thrive today, with a diverse amount of traffic bolstered by large blocks of traffic for Dow. So too in my proto-freelanced world these lines provide the railroad with many revenue carloads to fill out the otherwise bridge-route nature of this secondary trunk on the CP Rail System.

The layout plan - courtesy of Bob Sprague -  fills a good portion of my (roughly) 13 foot by 27 foot basement train room. This dedicated space will someday in the future host monthly operating sessions, but in the interim I have many months - if not, years - of construction ahead of me. No matter, just as the original DM&M's surveying and construction crews battled the forests, wetlands, and weather (not to mention swarms of ravenous mosquitos and black flies) while they graded and placed track across the U.P. will I too make sure and steady progress in 1:87th scale. With the benchwork all up and Homasote subroadbed all down I've got a good head start, at least on the grading part.

The design is a twice-around, round-the-room schematic using the surround-staging concept as promoted by the LDSIG folks over the years. Having lots of hidden trackage can be problematic but access shouldn't be too much of an issue with a low foreground backdrop merely high-enough to block view of the trains parked behind. The four-track staging represents both Detroit to the south and Mackinaw City (and points west) to the north. There is also a provision to add a wye leading to additional staging track under the basement stairwell at a later point. The Midland Branch consists of two, six-foot by 24" sections making up a center peninsula - both double as FREEMO modules so part of the layout can "go on the road" to events.




The track plan was carefully developed using original 1971 Penn Central Detroit Division engineering department station maps and drawings for the area, as well as aerial and satellite photos of the current physical plant. Field trips to the area were also conducted to ensure accuracy, with some modeler's license applied to fit the various LDE's into the space as shown. Bob had to flip the industrial trackage to Gavilon Grain (former Peavey elevator) and the Lafarge cement terminal in Zilwaukee, as well as swap sides of Wenona yard's engine terminal but otherwise the plan is an accurate reflection of the prototype.

Operations will be largely based out of Wenona yard on Bay City's far north side, with locals to Midland and Saginaw operating daily from this mid-sized terminal. Road freights will swap blocks here, and a daily Detroit-Bay City manifest will round out the traffic into this facility. Interchange with foreign roads such as the Huron and Eastern, Lake State Railway and Canadian National will provide additional traffic, as well as seasonal unit grain moves and all-rail ore trains heading south. The Amtrak trains I noted in an earlier post will likewise require track time as they traverse the mainline.

Contemporary CP diesel power will be featured with GE ES44AC, EMD and GMD SD40-2, and GP38-2 locomotives, Union Pacific engines in pooled service, Amtrak GE P42 Genesis units on the varnish, and the occasional HESR and CN motors on transfer runs. On rare occasion, the famous Milwaukee Road #261 has been known to dust the right-of-way with her cinders pulling excursions to and from the scenic vacation areas in the northern areas of the Great Lakes. Quite a bit of variety to keep guests and operators entertained that is for certain.

My next installment will get into more details about the railroad, and hopefully show some in-progress photos as I go along with construction. In the meantime keep 'em upright and on the rails!

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