by Jeff Smith
A short-line trying to rebuild long abandoned ROW to Toledo: Toledo Blade
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_and ... _Rail_Road
Line pushes to rebuild Mich. trackhttp://www.abrailroad.com/
Railroad says direct route to Toledo makes fiscal sense
LISSFIELD, Mich. — Rebuilding seven miles of railroad track between Riga, Mich., and Ottawa Lake that was torn up three decades ago could save Lenawee County rail shippers millions of dollars in annual freight charges, the president of a local “short line” railroad says.
But Mark Dobronski, who heads the Adrian & Blissfield Railroad, said last week that while such a project “makes financial sense,” his small company can’t finance it on its own. And while the Michigan Department of Transportation included two phases of the track reconstruction in a long-range rail development plan it adopted last year, it listed the project — and several others in southeast Michigan — in a “good-projects” category for which no funding is set aside.
The route involved is part of the old Erie & Kalamazoo, the first railroad built in the Toledo area and often cited as the first west of the Allegheny Mountains.
...
But for two large agricultural shippers in the Blissfield area, Mr. Dobronski said, delivering cargo bound for the eastern United States to Norfolk Southern at Adrian starts a nearly 600-mile detour that could be eliminated if a direct route into Toledo were available.
Instead of going east right away, the A&B president said, grain shipments from Michigan Agricultural Commodities in Blissfield and Green Plains Ethanol is transferred to Montpelier, Ohio, then Fort Wayne, 0cand finally Elkhart, Ind., before being marshalled into eastbound trains.
The roundabout route adds about four days’ travel time and about $500 in extra cost for every carload, he said. Michigan Agricultural ships out thousands of carloads of grain annually, and more than 90 percent of that goes east.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_and ... _Rail_Road
Next stop, Willoughby
~el Jefe :: RAILROAD.NET Site Administrator/Co-Owner; Carman at Naugatuck Railroad
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~el Jefe :: RAILROAD.NET Site Administrator/Co-Owner; Carman at Naugatuck Railroad
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