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On the CNW and CB&Q cabooses were called "way cars". Barry

The extra units are probably being sent back west fresh from servicing/periodic/inspections in St. Paul to handle eastbound loads. Much of this line was mtys west and lds east. Barry

Actually this track is in pretty good shape considering it's in good alignment, no battered joints, cross level appears to be good and tie condition is okay. For the size of rail (85-90#/yard) and the heavy cars running over it I think it's fine. Keep in mind heavy grain trains average 12-16,000 tons along with heavy ethanol tanks which riding on this lite rail is good at 25 MPH max. speed. Compared to other countries even branch and short line railroads haul heavier and longer trains. I have run on and managed short lines where the track was so bad (before re-habilitation/ballast/ties/rail) that the locomotive would tip to almost 25 degrees and I had to stand up in the middle of the cab as engineer to avoid falling out the window in summer. Some lines were so bad that we celebrated by having breakfast the next day because we made a run the previous day without derailing or going on the ground. This the truth and not kidding. Yep, that track and those switches are in great shape for the traffic handled. BTW, I thought the depot (can also be called a station) was still there,... probably as a crew, on duty location for the local/switch crew and track MOW guys. Ah the "fun" of operating on old, midwest, branch/shortlines where Monday you are engineer, Tuesday, track man, Wednesday conductor, Thursday, mechanical /locomotive/car repair and Friday whatever is left from the previous day's activities but hoping for an "early quit" to go home for a long weekend so you can forget you work for the railroad! Barry

Yep, we Yankees do cause a bit of confusion but we like to keep things simple and easy. A few more terms: Bad Order refers to an egine or car which needs repair. RIP means repair in place usually at a Rip track where carmaen make the repairs. Beans means go to eat! On the Hogs means a crew member has exceeded the limit the federal hours of service allows. Dead Head means to get paid to travel to another location where he will work a train. Run can either refer to the process of moving a train or the trip of an engineer operating a locomotive. Similar to your driver driving a train. Spur a single ended track track usually and industry spur. Siding not a runaround track but one, usually double ended and used only for the meeting and passing of trains. Yard Limits refers to a portion of the main track (not yard tracks) which provides for authority for any number of trains and engines to freely operate on the main track at Restricted speed not excedding 20 MPH. Station a place designated in the timetable. These are just a sampling from the many operating and safety rules I can recall after teaching, training and coaching railroaders over the years which was combination of being an officer and also engineer/conductor/carman/agent/operator, clerk/ piggback manager/ DSLE (Road foreman of Engines)/consultant etc.. Barry

John, yes your railroad looks a little like New Ulm but needs lots of trees and a creek since this isn't Kansas anymore. There were/are four yard tracks there and a few spurs so if you added another double ended yard track it would be closer, maybe another spur for a liquid/granular fertilizer dealer like the Blair Line one with a tank or two, add a couple of large bins to the grain elevator and a large Pike Stuff warehouse with mechanical, coolers for a cheese manufacturer/warehouse. Yes I did work for the: Illinois Central, Peoria&Eastern(NYC), ChicagoNorthwestern, Soo Line, Columbus&Greenville (Mississippi), Milwaukee Road, Illinois Terminal, Illinois Central Gulf, Soo again, Wisconsin Central, Minnesota Commercial, Progressive Rail, Wisconsin Northern, Kansas & Oklahoma and retired from Watco after fifty years as a railroader. Looking forward to seeing your progress on New Ulm. Since retirement I have been working on a small, simple short line freight/steam, passenger, excursion HO railroad based on the Monticello, Il. Railrod Museum. It's mostly an around the walls 20'X20' layout with extentions through walls to two other rooms in our finished condo/basement. Barry

New Ulm is noted for flour and cheese and it looks like they still get jumbo reefers, grain hoppers and tanks for fertz./gas. CP also serves a scrap yard and aggregate pit...not much if any boxcar traffic. At one time this was the CNW main line west to Rapid City hosting the Dakot 400 streamliner in the 50s. I know there was roadswitcher based there but not much of a yard or any engine facilities. I believe the M&STL also had a branch through there but it's been gone for years. Barry, in Minnesota and also at one time a CNW man.

Some comments regarding the video as I was a Trainmaster/engineer/conductor for the WC from start up in 1987 until 1996. The job shown was a Marquette-Trout Lake (connection with Chicago-S.St. Marie main uisin sing SDL-39s (former Milw. Rd. units) good for rough branch line track as shown. Leaving Marquette the train had a couple of mty boxes for KC at Munising for paper ldg, a flock of mty covered hopers which had brought up clay to the iron ore mines at Ispeming( west of Marquette) to be used as a binder in making taconite ore which the WC did not participate inhauling. At Munising they split the power to back down into the KC tissue plant to p/u a ld box of tissue, an mty cholrine tank(?) and a couple of mty, clay slurry tanks. At Forrest Center or Shingleton I can't remember which on the video, they p/u a boxcar ld.of lumber and then that would be it until they reached the junction at Trout Lake where they would s/o their train and p/u inbound cars for the branch After lunch they would head back to Marquette peddling any cars for stations along the line. Outside of covered hoppers tanks of chemicals and a few boxes the only other cars would be large LPG tanks of gas for Lanse (west of Marquette) and maybe a misc. gon of scrap or machinery flat. The cars the modeler listed earlier would all be incorrect for this job in the 80/90s. A further note about the illustrated operation. While the crew was very effecient and safe the engineer clearly was violating the max. track speed which as I recall was 25MPH and usually 10 in most spots. Up date for 2015. The track is not gone from Munising Jct. to Maquette as is the roundhouse and turntable there. The CN sold off the SDL-39s (we called them "baby six wheelers") to a road in South America and the CN/WC now gets into the Ispeming and west track by running on a former CNW now CN route. With the gradual elimination of many Wisconsin paper mills (who uses paper anymore with the growth of the internet?) it's anybody's guess how long the little mill will survive. Such is the sad state of upper Wisconsin/Michigan railroading in 2015: not much to haul outside of a little paper, the chemicals, some frack sand, propane, a little pulpwood and some misc. commodities too big and heavy for a truck. Barry

Good comments all. Safety is the most important thing on all railroads large or small but some roads comply more readily than others. It really comes down to the employee in the field deciding to comply with the rules and operate within the boundaries set by management or deciding not to. The oil business including the associated frac sand business will be with us for atleast the next 50 years regardless of any new pipeline construction. The oil companies have come to appreciate the flexibility of oil by rail because many refineries are not located on pipelines and they require a lengthy contract with the pipeline companies. Many parties are fault for this incident outside of the MM&A and while truly tragic we will learn from it and go on. My point was to be careful what is said regarding these incidents even if discusssing the facts, as it appreared some posters were singling out short lines for their negative comments. Until you have toiled day and night to start up one of these operations( which I have many times) you really don't know what you are talking about. It is a thankless task attempting to bring good, safe,rail transportation back for customers after a large carrier has allowed it to deterioriate due to poor maintainence of track and service.Every penny is spent with safety in mind while trying to bring revenues back. Ed Burkhardt and his company are good safe railroaders who did the best they could with the MM&A. In the past they started up and successfully operated the the Wisconsin Central and other properties. Unfortunately, the first day of operations on the MM&A they lost 60% of their business when two large paper mills shut down. They have tried for the last ten years to restore the line to profitability and probably would have succeeded had this incident not happened. Barry

Please be kind in your comments about this incident. I have known many of the folks involved including senior management of the MM&A and many of you have no idea of the words you speak. Unless you have worked almost 50 years as a railroader as I have in both operations as a locomotive engineer,conductor and safety/operating rules manager most of your idle conversation is speculation at best and here say at most. I don't like to mention my years of experience as a standard but when model railroaders and rail fans project themselves as "experts" when in fact most are only hobbyists their opinions and ideas are generally nothing more than gossip and highly disregarded by people in the industry. It matters not that most of you live in foreign countries and basically don't understand modern, heavy-haul, freight operations of the US but you still can ask questions for clarification rather than make bold statements based on speculation often which can hurt others. I will be happy to answer any of your questions which I can. I don't deny that many mistakes were made which led to this incident on many fronts but piling on gossip just makes it worse for all. Barry