Lake States Railway

Lake State Railway

This site is not affiliated with the Lake State Railway in any way.

The Lake State Railway operates on former Detroit & Mackinac Railway tracks from Bay City to Alpena, and on former New York Central trackage from Bay City to just north of Gaylord. There is one small branch line from Alabaster Jct. to the quarry at Alabaster. In late 2005, Lake State leased the former CSX line from Mt. Morris to Saginaw, Bay City and Midland. They have trackage rights into McGrew Yard in Flint.

One attribute of the Lake State is their use of Alco/MLW power, including former RS-3 units. Much of the LSRC freight traffic is aggregate products such as gravel and stone, as well as potash for mixing into concrete by the Lafarge concrete plant in Alpena.

Lake State Operations: The Lake state operates a 393/394 Grayling to Gaylord turn out of Grayling on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. The turn usually leaves grayling late in the moring to early afternoon. It takes about two hours to reach Gaylord. They don't run to the end of the line in Gaylord all that often. Most work in Gaylord is done on the south side near I-75 and Old-US-27 at the Georgia-Pacific facility.

Train #303 north leaves Bay City around xxx and arrives in Grayling on Mondays and Thursday nights and the crew ties up for rest. They return south as #304, from Grayling to Bay City on Tuesdays and Fridays, usually leaving grayling around 10:00 a.m.

Train #325, the Alpena Yard Job, swithces the inbound and outbound freights as well as industries in Alpena. The job is called for approximately 8:00 a.m. and is usually tied up by about 4:00 p.m.

Train #326 southbound is usually called for 6:00 p.m. at Alpena but this can very to 2 hours, give or take. It meets #327A at Tawas City, changes crew, and then returns to Alpena. #327A northbound leaves Bay City northbound at about the same time as 326.

Track speeds vary on the entire line from 10 mph to 25 mph. The trains are easy to follow because of this.