Raildudes dad

I'm pretty sure it stands for "P"ortable "O"n "D"emand "S"torage. In other words, a portable "yard barn" you can rent.

The sewer overflows enter the river downstrewam of downtown. Any money GR spends in sewer separation at this point does nothing for the water quality above Wealthy Street. The same money spent in Lansing will greatly improve the water quality above Wealthy Street. Tonight's GR Press had an article on the fooding study being done for Plainfield Township. One of the possible improvements mentioned to reduce their flooding was a flood gate at the 6th Street dam. That makes me think again about removing the dam. Several benefits, naturalize the river and reduce flooding upstream. I know an engineer who specializes in among other things dam removal I'm going to run the concept by him and hopefully post what he says

I can't go back in the aerial photos earlier than 1938 (after floodwall construction) to see what the river width downtown was. I can't believe the river would be much wider than say around Ada or Johnson Park today. It was "wider" downtown than it is today because there were canals down both sides to power the mills. (I can remember the one on the west side at the Voight mill although most of it was filled at that time). I would assume when the mills were running at capacity in the summer, there would have been very little water in the river itself. The more I think about it, naturalizing the river from Fulton to Northland is doable. Politically, maybe not but engineering wise, yes. I'll try to get some approximate cost estimates

There shouldn't be any problem running rail up Michigan and / or Lyon Street. If you go to michiganrailroads.com, click on the history board and seach "grand rapids trackage" you will find a map of the 1924 Interurban / Street car map which shows street cars on both streets. Both streets were double track, at least on the hills If they could do it then, we certainly can today with modern technology The map was taken from the August 1996 "Waybill" which is on file at the Grand Rapids Public Library. PS: Tried to link it but couldn't make it work

The RR bridge south of the S-curve is used every day by Amtrak, CSX, NS, & Maquette Rail. The RR bridge south of Wealthy is unused. It was orignally built for the GR - Kalamazoo interurban

Looks like $5.5 million in funds to me. There was $5 million Federal Transportation funds and $500,00 from HUD.

"Guerilla Marketing". It one of a series of paperbacks on marketing your business. Very good in my opinion

The Kent County Road Commission isn't going to plow residential subdivisons ON OVERTIME unless there is 5 inces of snow on the ground. The crew was given orders this afternoon to make a 1 pass through residential streets if they had time today and the night crew would be called in tonight on OT to complete 1 pass through every road. All 90 trucks were on the road today unless there was a breakdown. (I looked in one of the garages a couple times today )

Yes, this report was prepared for GRATA. After re-reading it carefully over the weekend (no - I didn't get an unedited copy done ), it was very apparent it was written to make sure commuter rail wasn't used. I think it was a real shame that it wasn't tried. The cost would have been reasonable with temporary boarding platforms and leased equipment. MDOT would have paid for a lot of it. It would have been a good test of the abiiity for the service to be sucessful in the future. But that's not what GRATA nor the City of GR wanted. Instead, "we" (where does the Federal gov't get their money )get to pay big bucks for a study to recommend a BRT, with no assurance the service will be sucessful if it's built. At this point I don't think it's in anyones best interest to drag up this report. The RAPID won't be pleased to have their dirty laundry aired publicly. I no longer am affiliated with the organization I critiqued the report for so I wouldn't want them to be negatively affected by a resurrection of the report. The report could be a base to build a report on what it would cost to implement commuter rail locally. They covered all the factors involved, just not with good numbers (or math)

I'll work on getting an unedited report this weekend Maybe we can meet at one of the local UP openhouses. I'd like to tour some of the redevelopment projects.

Actually in that calculation, the math works. However, I can't determine where the $2,264,032 Operating cost comes from. Everyone is entitled to a mistake but this report is filled with them. They state a cost or fact and document it. Then, elsewhere in the report they use a totally different cost or fact. The capital costs for locomotives were estimated at 10 times the going rate at the time. It just goes on and on. It's strange that the report has no author()s, resumes or references. Then again, if I authored the report, I wouldn't put my name on it either

First of all let me tell you a little about myself. I

concretepoem & GRDAD: It's all Rizzo's fault He turned me on to this board. Maybe we should start a railroad / commuter rail thread? I'll leave it to to R, I know he wants me to expound on the famed Weslin Group report on the S-curve commuter rail study

The story went around that J&H Oil was going to put the C-store in at Walker Ave. & I-96. Supposedly someone at the "House of Fred" across the street wasn't very happy that their employees would be passing an non-Meijers station and made it worth J&H's while to convert it to a Meijers station. You will note it's the only one not connected with a store or a Wendy's.

tSlater: Now that they run pretty much on an "as needed" basis it's hard to say. Usually go east sometime in the morning 8-10am but certainly can vary from that. concretepoem: this line entered GR in 1857, the first railroad to arrive here. In those days, rail was the way people moved long distances so yes this line was used for passengers. The Grand Trunk had a huge station (at least as I remember it at a young age where the downtown post office is today. There are two railroad bridges over Monroe north of Leonard. The south one allowed passenger trains to depart and arrive from the east. The building was last used by the Liquor Control Commission as a warehouse. The mantel company at Leonard & Plainfield is in the replacement station. I do not remember scheduled passenger service from there but I do remember the GR Fire Dept (probably the fire fighters union) sponsoring Saturday excursion from there to Detroit for a ballgame in the late 50's early 60's. The C&O was the last railroad to have passenger service to & from GR. They had a train from GR to Detroit and return and one to Chicago and return everyday. At the end I believe they dropped Sunday service. Service came to an end in 1967 with the formation of Amtrak. It returned with the Pere Marquette in 1984.

The Mid-Michigan Railroad (formerly the Grand Rapids Eastern) used to go east everyday to Ada, Lowell, Ionia and / or Greenville. Their major customers to the east included Amway, King Milling, Michigan Wire, American Bumper (now Meridian) and Electrolux. At one time, 1 crew worked Greenville to Lowell and return and 1 crew worked GR to Ionia and return. Today, the Electrolux plant is gone and Meridian ships exclusivley by truck and I don't see that changing. The MMRR still serves Rosewoodworks & Precision Poly on Oak Industrial Drive, King Milling and Michigan Wire. They get occasional cars of fertilizer for Greenville & Ionia and a car or two of lumber for Standard Lumber in Ionia. They rarely work 5 days a week, usually 4 and only go as far as needed. They go as far west as Marne with their biggest customer that direction being Van's in the smaller Meijer warehouse on Walker Ave. Short version: They used to go east 5 days a week, now it may be less than that depending on traffic Hope this wasn't too much detail