RRHX
Station: St. Louis, MI
Michigan's Internet Railroad History Museum
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Above, an early view of the PM depot in St. Louis. Below, the Pere Marquette depot at St. Louis, Michigan in Gratiot County, as photographed in January, 1976. The photo below is from the operator's desk inside the depot. The depot was built in 1923 as a combination station (passenger and freight sections). [Charlie Whipp photos.] |
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Above, a 1973 photo of the depot, with train order/block signals in operation. [Dennis Schmidt] Below, a recent photograph of the Pere Marquette St. Louis depot. [Alan Loftis] |
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Posted by Doug Hefty, a C&O Operator in the 1970's on 12/21/2005: As memory serves me, I relieved the agent/operator at St. Louis (Dave Maney) for his vacation either in late 1976 or early 1977. Office hours were 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. First, I would call the dispatcher and he'd usually say "red east and west". Saginaw would call to get your "CX" report which was an accounting of cars you had on hand. I think I then called the agent at Alma (Cliff Reichert?) to find out what 58 and 59 had set off during the night for St. Louis. (I think 22 and 23 were no longer running by that time). The local at that time went on duty at Alma and brought the cars over. The big customer in St. Louis was Velsecol (sp?), formerly Michigan Chemical. There was a long lead that came off the main track at the curve that passed a couple of grain elevators and crossed M-46 at the west end of town. The chemical plant was a large complex north of M-46 and had a fairly complex track arrangement. At one time I had a diagram of all the tracks and names. Much of the morning was spent talking to Velsecol and preparing the switch list for the arriving crew from Alma. The list was usually quite lengthy and usually the crew would have to "cool their jets" until I got everything typed up. While they were switching, I'd prepare the outbound waybills, call the car dist. for disposition of empties (unless in a pool that said "when empty return to....."). I think at some point I may have taken the bills and list over to Alma and placed in the phone box near Total for 58 and 59 that night, or maybe the agent at Alma did that for me, I don't remember. The local usually did their Alma work after they returned from St. Louis. Since the trough trains ran late afternoon and into the night, I didn't see either of them, unless 59 was called early in the afternoon. Then you might get held to deliver a meet order with 58. Back then, there were enough open offices that meet orders would be delivered at 2 stations prior to the meet as an added safety precaution. For example, if the meet was at Stanton, 59 might get the order at Mershon and get the same order again at Breckenridge, St. Louis or Edmore, which ever would not cause overtime for an operator. 58 might get the order at Pleasant Street (Grand Rapids) and then again at Lowell or Greenville. Of course, at the 2nd office the meet may have changed and they would get something like "Extra 3034 West take siding and meet Extra 3001 East at Edmore instead of Stanton." In this case, the order would first be addressed tot he westbound because you were taking track away from him. St. Louis also had Bear Truss and I believe Royster at the east end of town served by a spur track. At that time, the stockyards did not receive anything by rail. I think there were also 2 elevators that got rail service. At the time, there was also a sugar beat plant up behind Bear Truss.