Trackside Guide to Detroit

[Anonymous]

Updates, changes, or comments to TRAINS Magazine's Detroit Trackside Guide? Post them here!

[douglasm]

I miss a bit of the history, both in Portland (which I don't know) and Detroit (which I do, although I haven't lived there for 25 years). For example, the ferry docks (GTW/CN and Wabash/N&W), the stations, and my big question, what happened to the Detroit Terminal Railroad, and its roundhouse at Mound and 7 Mile, where Detroit Edison 202 and GTW 6323 spent so many years.

[Anonymous]

Loved the Track Side Guide to Detroit. The front page showed CN 5649 with a backdrop of the General Motors Building. Great way to place the auto industry at the center of Detroit railroading.

Milwaukee Junction was the center of the development of the auto industry in Detroit just after 1900. Cadillac, Studebaker, Ford, and Fisher Body all had early factories within 3 blocks of where this photo was taken.

Preservation Wayne offers its Automotive Heritage history tour every saturday morning through the end of September at 10 am starting at Ford's plant at Piquette and Beaubein. The tour lasts about 2 hours. Good train watching, usually three or four freight trains, plus the Chicago bound Amtrak stops at the Detroit station during the tour.

The White Castle that is shown to the right of 5649 sits on the site of the original Detroit and Bay City Raiload depot. It was abandoned when the Detroit and Bay City was absorbed by Michigan Central.

[Saxman]

Excellent job on the Track Side Guide to Detroit. There are a few corrections I would like to offer. 1. Michigan's lower peninsula is best known as the mitten. The "Thumb" is an area roughly defined as north and east of a line from Saginaw/Bay City to Port Huron. 2. CN's Moterm intermodal terminal is on the west side of the Holly Sub. Main tracks not the east as depicted. 3. The crossover shown on the NS Detroit Line is not located at Rockford as shown but at a location known as CP LaSalle which is south of Monroe, MI. 4. There is a crossover at Gibralter from the CN Shoreline Sub. to the NS Detroit Line Main #2. As the article stated CSX uses CN from Toledo. At Gibralter, they crossover to the NS to deliver coal trains to the Detroit Edison Trenton Channel Power plant. The empty move of this coal train will continue north on the NS Detroit Line to CP YD and then over the Junction Yard Branch to the Lincoln Secondary to Carleton and then to Toledo on the Toledo Terminal Sub. 5. Not all yard assignments on the DT&I were "pullers." Pullers were the yard assignments that moved traffic either over the Flat Rock Sub. to Edison, Ford or South Yard or over the Dearborn Sub. to Woodhaven or Rouge Yard.

In closing, keep the trackside guides coming. I would like to see a trackside guide to Toledo, OH. Plenty of action there and many fallen flags and abandoned lines to look at.

[Anonymous]

Loved Your Trackside guide on Detroit! It made me homesick. it also made me wi***hat I had been a railfan when I was a kid in Royal Oak. I will always remember the sight of a Steam engine running on the elevated embankment, north of the Royal Oak depot at night with a full moon and a foot of snow on the ground. Does any body have any info on Johnny Burrows? He was the Station Master (I think) at the Brush St. Depot (GTW) in the 50s-60s.

[Anonymous]

The corect name of the Ford Plant on Plymouth Rd. is Livonia Transmission. And there is a new railroad on the former McClouth Steel Plant. It is going to be a intermodal facility. To bad no mention of all the Ford Railroad operations being shut down and Canac taking over.

[Anonymous]

I've enjoyed the recent series of "Trackside Guides" and look forward to more. I think that a useful addition to these articles would be to list a few of the better train-watching spots in each area, and what one could reasonably expect to see there. (traffic density, which railroads can be seen, SAFETY of the area, etc.)

[Anonymous]

One has to be real careful while visiting the Detroit area. Not only from the rail safety standpoint but on personal level too. Delray Tower is not an area to be visited alone!. If you go take a friend and a couple of cell phones with local police/railroad police numbers pre-programmed in. Stay close to your vehicle at all times and always keep your wits about you.
Due to 9/11 you will find that security is Detroit is rather tight most of the time and most of auto plants will ask you to leave the area.
If plant protection asks you to go please do so.
I drive truck in automotive parts delivery so I am in/out many of the plants regularly.
It is a shame that it has to be this way.

[Anonymous]

A couple minor points-CR Detroit Shared Asset area is headquartered at Livernois Yard. After split date it was in the NS (former CR) Dearborn office, then moving to Livernois.

The highway overpasses shown on the CSX Detroit Sub west of Rougemere Yard are underpasses (road UNDER the tracks).

The CSX trains running into and out of Shared Assets can go either via the Lincoln Secondary or via the CSX Detroit & Saginaw Subs through Plymouth, depending on how things are shaping up throughout the day. The CSX BX dispatcher's desk now has this guide posted so they know what's where and who's who up there!

The Conrail Dispatcher really should be considered the conductor of the orchestration of train movements, since most of them seem to affect, or be affected by territory under their control.

I run the CSX Q304/305 from Toledo to Sterling once every three days.

[bowlerp]

I concur with the above post. The guides are excellent, but they do not necessarily translate easily into Railfan action. They could really use that next level of detail, covering where and how to get most scenic spots and shots, busiest places (you do cover that to some extent), issues and obstacles one must face to get safely in and out of those best spots.

For example, In Detroit, across the mainline tracks from the back fence at Henry Ford, One can safely park in the Radisson lot and watch both the mainline with AMTRAK, and the steam trains at Greenfield. Elevated views only available from inside the Hotel.

Another example, from the Cleveland, Ohio area, is that there is a nice spot off I-480 at Jennings Road where the CSX old NYC Water level bypass route crosses I-480. In late afternoon, it would be extremely photogenic shooting back at a curve, an old black steel bridge with signals built-in, than the steel highway overpass. Problem is, one can only get there by taking an illegal walk across the freeway ramp and perch illegally on the highway embankment waiting for trains. It is busy, makes good compositions, but cannot get there. I have tried to figure it out legally and cannot see how to get there without calling attention from the local Police. C'est la vie, but a good example of how misleading places can be when detail on practical matters is unavailable... Hope I have not overstayed my welcome.

[Anonymous]

Trains did a fine job with the Detroit Trackside Guide. Great photos, as usual. Someone mentioned that Delray Tower is a very unsafe area. I think you make it sound a bit too unsafe. Yes, the neighborhood isn't the best, and I wouldn't go there alone at night. But I've had no problems during the daytime. CSX and NS Police keep their eyes on things, and the tower op will too. Dearborn Ave. is busy enough that there are always people around. Traffic wise, you'll see the most in the Detroit area there, from GTW/CN, CSX, NS, Conrail and CP Rail, plus foreign power with coal and auto racks trains. Copy and paste the following address for more information about the Delray Interlocking, hosted by Michigan's Chessie Chapter, a website dedicated to the locomotives and equipment of CSXT and predecessors in Michigan.
http://groups.msn.com/chessiechapter/chessiestower.msnw

Great job TRAINS!

[pmsteamman]

More updates in Detroit. Milwaukee Jct and FN towers are both closed, and to the comments about Delray being a bad area, take heed!!!!! As a engr for CSX in the area I can tell from a personal standpoint that you DO NOT want to be there after dark, and always travel in pairs. It is sad though cause it is a real hot spot. On a better note the Michigan Central Depot is to be turned in to the HQ for the Detroit Police.