Does anyone model this area? I go snowmobiling there and a lot of the trails we ride on are old railroad grades through dense forests. As far as snowmobiling ,it don’t get much better than the U.P., tons of snow and miles and miles of smooth groomed trails.
There was a lot of copper mines there in the late 1800’s thru the mid 1900’s and a lot of the tracks were used to haul the copper.I always thought this would be a cool area to model.
Hi Jimmy:
I’m doing a iron ore hauling railroad in the UP. I call it the Duluth, Suprior, & Southeastern. I’ve been able to visit the Marquite reagion several times and really like the area. I was born and raised in Milwaukee Wis. Since going into the army in 1964 I haven’t been living up there. Texas is now home. The ore roads are really interesting with veried power and the ore cars are unique. I’m also a fan of the great lakes bulk carriers. It all makes for some great modeling.
Have fun.
I thought about modeling the Keewenaw Penninsula at one point as well. Fortunately, Wikipedia has quite a bit of information floating around on the copper mines that were north of Marquette. You had copper up in Houghton and Hancock and iron in the Ishpeming, Negaunee and Marquette areas.
In particular, sites on the Quincy Mine have the tracks listed that served the mines in that area and led down to the riverside in I think Hancock. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quincy_Mine
Unfortunately, I’m partial to the PRR.
My parents had a cabin in Newberry in the late 50’s and into the 60’s. Their cabin was on the Tahquamenon River and M123 that ran north out of Newberry. At the time I was about 9 or 10 years old. The tracks that ran through Newberry were alive with flat cars hauling logs. The Soo railroad made at least two trips a day out of Newberry to mills in other towns. There were also several sawmills in the Newberry area.
Also, don’t overlook the Escanaba/Gladstone areas. These are heavy in limestone and other mining activities. I have included a Bing map of Escanaba, MI showing two large rail yards of what appears to be limestone mining and iron ore shipping near the bay. These two areas are only about five miles apart.
http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=45.75990396247952~-87.06602501897328&lvl=17&sty=h
http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=45.80387685337476~-87.08274054555409&lvl=17&sty=h
Arcadia Publishing has a paperback book Copper Country Rail about the copper industry in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and the railroads that served it.
For most of recent history it really was iron ore mining that was the big industry in the UP. The Soo Line did some ore hauling there, and the CNW and Milwaukee had a joint operation. I was able to see and photograph some of the big CNW hi-nose C-628s just before they were retired. I’m thinking of incorporating it into my semi-freelanced new railroad, rotating time periods and place to model the NP-Soo joint Cuyuna Range (MN) operation in the sixties and the UP CNW/MILW operation in the eighties.