I was looking at the Maps of the UP on the Michigan Railroad sites.

What are CN's operations in the UP? If the maps are correct the following lines exist. SSM-Trout Lake. At Trout Lake the Munising Branch splits off and heads to Newberry and Munising. From what I understand two crews operated this line. One crew was the Newberry-Trout Lake local, which operated daily except Sunday. The other was a Newberry-Munising crew which ran Newberry-Munising one day, return the next. Is this still correct? What customers are present on this line?

Back to the mainline. From Trout Lake, the mainline heads to Escanaba. In the Escanaba area the line splits again. Going north from Escanaba the line goes to Ishpeming and then appears to split again. One line appears to go towards Marquette but then stops about halfway to Marquette. What does this line serve?

In Ishpeming is also the interchange with the Mineral Range correct? What line does the mineral range operate? Looking at the maps I see that the LS&I still shows as having the tracks all the way from Ishpeming to Republic Mine. Is this line all still intact and was it all transferred to Mineral Range? Didn't the Mineral Range also rebuild some tracks in that area and if so which one?

Back to the CN line, going from Ishpeming it heads west to Baraga and shows an interchange at Nestoria with the E&LS. How often is the Baraga branch served and what are the operations on the branch? What customers are keeping this line is business. Next, what is the purpose of the Nestoria-Sidnaw branch that is still in place. Is this used for car storage by the E&LS? If so how are cars added to the line of storage?


Heading back to Escanaba, I see that CN heads west of Escanaba. At Powers the line splits with one line heading south to Marinette and a second line heading west to Iron Mountain. I assume the line going to Marinette continues to Green Bay correct? What traffic does CN service in Iron Mountain to keep that line in service?

Now, about the E&LS. I recall hearing the E&LS used trackage rights to access Escanaba now. What customers to they serve in Escanaba and what lines do they use for these trackage rights. I see they have a line running across the UP from Channing to Escanaba. What is this line used for.

Also, the E&LS map shows they have the line from Channing to Sidnaw to Nestoria which I have detailed above. What I find interesting is it lists trackage rights over CN from Nestoria to Baraga. Are they ever used and if not when was the last time they were used. Where these from a predecessor railroad agreement that just never gets used?

Finally, from Channing the line goes north to Republic. Was this just left in place in case Republic Mine is reactivated and needs service again?