The Great Lakes Project

wawasoo

Active member
It's Not the Yooper anymore. For years I worked on a Route I called the Yooper. I worked it from TS09 to TS12 and became frustrated in computer performance as I added more details. It was a demographic route of Fishlipsatwork It included the Lines of the Lake Superior & Ishpeming RR. However the lines were not all LS&I. I discovered it also included many since lost lines; Those of the Duluth Southshore & Atlantic, The Chicago & Northwestern RR, The Marquette & Onotonagon RR, The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific RR, The Dead River RR, Along with many mine owned RR's like the Present Day Lake Superior & Ishpeming RR that is owned by the Cleveland Cliffs Company.

http://archives.nmu.edu/cci/Index.html

The Reason why this is no longer the Yooper. In the origional Dem I was able to Identify all of the above road names and lines and by going through the Archives of Michigan and google earth for traces of track loacations which are now mostly all "heritage trails for snowmobiles", along with this book, The Duluth Shore & Atlantic Railway, A history of the Lake Superior Districts's Pioneer Iron Ore Hauler, by John Gaertner. John went into detail of all the yards and lines of the Copper & Iron Belts in Michigan and which RR serviced which Mine, and any trackage rights of one RR over another.

So, why it's not the Yooper. When you take into account the number of Railroads which serviced the Copper and Iron Country, how they interchanged with each other, where they came from and where they went. That Dem Just won't work for Traffic routing. Up to 86 Train movements a day took place a day according to John Gaertners book. YOU can't do that on the Dem. I was able to do 50 movement's comfortably, but not 86. So you need to extend the Dem into Wisconsin.

In doing so, you pick up the Wisconsin ports on Lake Michigan of Green Bay, Marinette, Oconto, and the Michigan Ports of Escanaba, Wells, and Gladstone. In other words it's the Great Lakes, because the lines now connect from the Ports on Lake Superior to the Ports on lake Michigan to within a couple feet. Fishlipsatwork who created some of the origional dems in this project, said "I hand drew them in" I'm measuring them. (see the picture below of a river going over a hill by fishlipsat work)

I am just beginning to lay down Rail on this Dem, and the Chicago & Northwestern is sharing Rail out of Republic, MI for the time being, to Iron Mountian, MI With the Milwaukee Road. I can run 60 Trains at once on this route. When I get the Partridge Yard of the Chicago & North Western in Palmer, MI Hooked up with Gladestone, MI I'll move 100.

The Great Lakes Project is the Yooper Route on Steroids.
 
An Great Lake Project, If you don't live here, you don't know what we have. A very early Look from Marinette, WI looking at Menoimee, MI. Boom Island in the Middle of the River crossing between WI & MI.

 
Like the Yooper you can not do this route without dams, I'll be making a lot of dams for this project.

 
Since I don't have Tranzdem, I've resorted to Google Earth and it's ruler to set track and grade.

The Origional Yooper is above. Showing Left to Right Michigamme, Champion, Ishpeming, Negaunee, Marquette. East of Marquette on Lake Superior is a Connection to Harvey, MI. On the Left leg, the Is the Milwaukee Road Track coming from Republic, MI via Iron Mountain, MI. The Right let is the Chicago & Northwestern Route that comes in Via Escanaba, MI on Lake Michigan. The origional Yooper was a merger of two Fishlipsatwork Dem's one covering Houghton, and the other Covering Marquette.

 
The Milwaukee Branch continues south abt 52 miles into another Dem of Fishlipsatwork called the ELS. Or Escanaba & Lake Superior. However, that is actually old Milwaukee Road route into Green Bay, WI In this you see the top end of the ELS Dem at Pembine, WI on the left. To the north of Pembine is the Iron Moutain, MI. At Iron Mountian the Milwaukee Road interchanged with the Chicago & North Western RR. The C&NW Came in via Hermansville, MI shown only on this map as a little green dot Southeast of Iron Mountain. At Pembine the Milwaukee Road interchanged with the Soo Line. The Soo was coming in from the west and interchanged with the C&NW at Hermansville.


 
The Physical Drop in the Dem from Republic to Pembine, WI is about 170ft. South of Pembine at Crivitz the MILW had a branch over to Marinette, WI and Menominee, MI. There you can see the Chicago & Northwestern Rail up from Green Bay, WI in the south on it's way to Hermansville, MI.

 
South of Crivitz near Stiles the Milwaukee Road had a branch over to Oconto, WI on the East where it Interchanged with the C&NW at Oconto. Oconto is a medium sized port city on Lake Michigan. To the West the Milwaukee had a Branch into Oconto Falls.

 
Down near Green Bay, WI you can see where I merged the Dem's of Fishlipsatwork ELS, with Green Bay, WI if there's any errors in placement or location. This is the place where it originates. You can see I took advantage of this to make the route a couple hundred feet longer then it actually is.

 
From the current Northern Tip of the Route near Laurium, MI which is Northwest Lake Linden on Torch Lake. As a bird fly's, 67 miles to the Prescott Isle Ore Dock, 238 miles to Fond Du Lac.

 
It currently takes about 7 hours for a C&NW freight to get from Marquette, MI to Green Bay, WI because it has to route over Milwaukee Road Lines. The line sit's just north of Daggett, MI at this point.

 
The only saving grace to the C&NW line to this point. It hugs near the Lake Michigan shore and runs across a table top landscape much different then I'm use too. And yes I have rulers everywhere.

 
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