Indiana Northeastern Railroad 3084, along with another train work on picking up grain at Reading, Michigan on September 23rd, 2022.
According to Wikipedia: The Indiana Northeastern Railroad (reporting mark IN) is a Class III short line freight railroad operating on nearly 130 miles (210 km) in southern lower Michigan, northeast Indiana, and northwest Ohio.
The Indiana Northeastern Railroad Company began operations in December 1992 and is an independent privately owned company. As of 2017 the railroad hauled more than 7,000 carloads per year. Commodities moved by the railroad include corn, soybeans, wheat, and flour. It also handles plastics, fiberboard, aluminum, copper, coal, perlite, stone, lumber, glass, rendering products, as well as agricultural fertilizers and chemicals.
In the early 1990s the Hillsdale County Railway was heavily in debt. Its trackage was suffering from deferred maintenance and derailments were becoming a common occurrence. Then in 1992, a 50-car eastbound unit train from South Milford hauled by HCRC derailed near Hamilton, Indiana costing the South Milford Grain Company $30,000. The grain elevator company’s owners decided to assume HCRC’s $1 million in debt, and it acquired the railway. The grain company then created the Indiana Northeastern Railroad Company to take over the rail operations of the HCRC and its Pigeon River Railroad on December 22, 1992. It’s now owned by the grain company and farmers in the areas it serves, and major track improvements and upgrades have been done over the years creating a solid and reliable railroad.
Tech Info: Nikon D800, RAW, Sigma 24-70mm @ 70mm, f/2.8, 1/1600, ISO 220.