I did not know that Manny Maroun who owns the Ambassador Bridge also owns the MC station! No Idea! I drove across the bridge and asked the American customs guy about that after we concluded the formalities and he kind of went into a rant after I asked him if it was true that one guy owns that bridge. (I still have a hard time grasping that fact) He went on about how the building that he works out of is falling down, there’s no hot water and Manny gets over 1 million bucks a year from the Federal government for the use of the building. This makes me think that regarding the station, it’s all going to be a big hand job that pays Manny big time with nothing really being improved. I’ll believe it when I see it.
The best part of the agreement between the city and Mr. Maroun is the City can use his non-compliance with the recent agreement as an excuse to sieze the building from him using eminent domain.
Really, I think Detroits lack of money and somewhat lack of interest has prevented them from doing so to date. However, Detroit can use eminent domain to take back what it deems as vital public infrastructure from a private company if it is just letting it rot. It can also fine the property repeatedly for not being maintained, place a lien on it and take it over that way.
Detroit has so far played nice with Mr. Maroun but the city has tools in it’s tool chest to get what it wants from him. The fact that the Mayor of Detroit has his eye on that building should be a concern to Mr. Maroun and if he was trully smart he would sell the building now while Detroit is pre-occupied with bankruptcy matters.
Will be interesting to see how this pans out.
Detroit News and Detroit Free Press say the city made a deal for a thousand windows.
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2015/04/29/detroit-train-depot-riverside-park-see-improvements/26561485/
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2015/04/29/michigan-central-station-riverside-park-plans/26563283/
You are correct in calling it Michigan Central Station because it is a station not a terminal. At least it was when it was built. The New York Central ran through from New York to Buffalo to Detroit across Canada and on to Chicago, which was a very direct route. The station has not functioned as such since AMTRAK because no through routing exists. In this sense it has become a Michigan Central Terminal. The Detroit Chicago train used to originate at the terminal until city fathers saw fit to locate a relatively minor structure near the Grand Circus Park area of Detroit, basically abandoning the use of Michigan Central Station as a rail passenger facility.
Detroit being an automotive city has not held rail transport of much esteem and consequently there is not effective public rail transportation. General Motors bought up the city street car lines and scraped them in the 1950’s. There exists a substancial rail plant however for industrial use. Tracks radiate from the city in all directions. Grand Trunk north east, Conrail north, Grand Trunk north west, Conrail west, CSX south west, and Norfolk Southern south. Two belt rail structures exist around the city at about the Outer Drive location. Much of the outer rail belt that circled the city has been pulled up for rails to trails and other purposes that could have built a substancial urban passenger rail network.
The city population remains mostly ignorant about the existing rail plant owing to gross neglect of the subject by local media. When discussions of starting a rail network begin the topic usually centers around starting a complete rail system from scratch. Taking land for eminent domain, pulling down existing structures and duplicating the existing rail system. Cost projections are astronomical with such fool ideas as rebuilding the freeway system with monorail trains down the center. Meanwhile, the existing rail plant is totally ignored.
Sounds like a lot of people in Detroit are out of touch with reality just as they are in Greece.
What amazes me is how much money there is for tickets to Detroit Tigers baseball games (and has been through all the city’s travails). Check out those attendance figures in the box scores.
A couple of years back we had a ballot referendum in Michigan about a second bridge Over the river to Canada. This guy personally spent a couple of million dollars on ads trying to stop it. He lost.
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Russia is bailing out Greece economically by paying decent prices for Greek oil and other deals. This will give Russia a stratigic location on the Meditaranian.
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Detroit Street Railways was the very first municipal transit system in the USA, even earlier than SF’s MUNI. DSR scrapped its efficient, at the end all PCC, trunk-line streetcar system and its lighter-line trolleybus system, a very efficient system, but while it may have been GM pressure that did it (and yes, Ford Transit buses were also replaced by GM buses), it was not because GM or National City (GM-Texaco-Firestone) actually owned the system,
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I do read of some revival in Detroit and apparently to some extent the school system now has oversight from the State or the Feds and has some turnaround. Be interested to see if the Woodward Avenue streetcar restoration actually is completed and goes operational
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The last rail commuter operation was the Grand Trunk’s to Durand. For a while the state subsidized it and equipped it with second-hand lightweight cars, last used on a fantrip. Now the bus system is state-owned, and they own a bunch of bilevel railcars intended for an Ann Arbor - Detroit commuter line that has not gotten off the ground.
Dave you are pretty darn close.
It’s a very tough area around the station although the inner city revival has begun to appear. The area lost a lot when the Tigers left Tiger Stadium.
The corruption that was in the school system will take a while to get rid of. With Swimming pools, decks, SUV’s, home remodeling, cloths, etc. “Conferences” in the Carribbean, Mexico, etc. It’s what the Mayor was doing so why not!!!
In DETROIT we build cars!!! Who needs those silly TROLLIES anyway. [;)]
The SEMTA commuter trains only ran Pontiac to Detroit, too bad they didn’t go to Durand, they might have picked up enough riders in Durand, Fenton, Holly, Clarkston etc. to pay the bills.
The Woodward Ave. street car project has a large block of private funding I believe Mr. Penske and Mr. Gilbert (Quicken Loans) are two of the backers as I recall. Was on Woodward recently and they have made a lot of progress including rail in the roadway!
I recall riding the SEMTA cars when the Metro-North ran them on the Hudson river line. They were in fine shape, not a bit of graffiti and they rode like a dream. I wonder what happened to them?
Detroit, bankrupt but they plan to build yet another arena to replace the Joe Louis. Streetlights are disconnected but at least they have thier priorities right, don’t they?
Ran off to join the circus. All 10 of them, I believe. (If you mean the ex-UP 4800s)
Ringling Brothers, I suppose. The Metro-North didn’t have them that long as I recall. I guess the ex-UP cars, I recall that they were tan in colour with red? trim.
Hi All
Another city with an MCR Station which was deteriorating badly went at it this way.
St Thomas, Ontario (former MCR Canada Division HQ) has a fine brick Italianate style station/divisional office building. Although nowhere near as imposing as the MCR Detroit station it is a fine building in its own right.
A community group ( The North American Railway Hall of Fame) has taken over the building, in cooperation with the City of St Thomas and has done a fine job of restoring it to its former condition over the last ten years. I saw the building in its early and later stages of restoration. They raised private funding and received provincial job training funding to employ 3-4 people in a job skills retraining programme. I remember seeing them working inside the station carefully restoring woodwork and other building fittings. Individuals, organizations and businesses in St Thomas and farther afield sponsored windows, doors and all manner of pieces of the building restoration project. They did so for the wooden roof cornices and other exterior fittings. You could even sponsor a brick or section of exterio
Oh come on now don’t destroy the wonderful totally debunked GM/NCL conpericy with facts that Dr D has not chosen to embrace.
The Detroit MC Station is no longer on a thru route. The Canada Southern has been torn up, so there is no longer a short-cut to Buffalo. Amtrak has rerouted north around downtown. The present Detroit station is 3 miles north of downtown, and will be connected to the center city by the new light rail line. Amtrak extended the Wolverine service over the above mentioned former GT commuter line to Pontiac. The MC station itself is not located downtown, and it’s hard to imagine that the station will ever be used again for passenger rail.
MidlandMike is right. The station in its heyday was located a long way from downtown to allow for a reasonable grade to the Detroit River Tunnels. Now its just a long way from anywhere. Its state of deterioration suggests that demolition is starting to look reasonable.
The St. Thomas station is nice. Trouble is, there’s no tracks. The "museum"looks to be a bunch of rusty train junk in a field. St Thomas has sure seen better days. It was crummy even before the Ford Crown Vic plant shut down.
Hi
I thought the tracks were still in place from MCR Shops to BX Tower, passing in front of the station. Or at least the station to BX. I wonder when that changed. The ECRM outside doesn’t look like much. Like so many organizations, limited finances and people power. They’ve got the old Pt Stanley incline RR cars outside and a few boxcars also I think. No idea what they intend to do with them. The inside of the shops is different. They’ve got quite a collection and work diligently at its restoration. Mostly retired railway guys work on the Museum collection and they are getting older.
My mother’s family is from St Thomas. Many of them worked for the railways. My cousins and I often comment on the economic beating the city has taken since the railways and the various manufacturing industries (like Timken and Ford) came and left. It is sad to see. All of us moved away. Employment opportunities were limited.
The city struggles for sure , but to their credit they try to build it up and capitalize on their railway history. These straitened circumstances seem to be a fact of life for a lot of smaller SW Ontario manufacturing centres.
Charlie
Chilliwack, BC
The Detroit River railroad tunnels are still place with freight traffic through and past the station. The railroad still exists in Windsor, Canada with VIA rail service to Toronto, Canada so Michigan Central Station is still connected by rail through Canada.
The US Government Homeland Security has set up a barb wire enclosure near the tunnel entrance. Approach the tunnel entrance which is posted “no tresspass” turns on speakers which announce “step away from the tunnel entrance!” With asorted sirens and lights. The land over the tunnel is being taken by what appears to be Homeland Security with barb wire fence enclosue of existing buildings back towards the river.
The new Detroit AMTRACK station is located in what is called “The New Center” area near the old General Motors World Headquarters and the Fisher Theater slightly up-town. The trouble is GM moved out of the “New Center Area” and went back downtown to the Renaissance Center - so there is NO business at the AMTRACK station - Go Figure! The current AMTRACK station serves few!
The Grand Trunk tracks that went to the Renaissance Center have been pulled up to form a “rails to trails” project - brilliant Detroit idea! The new AMTRACK station at the “New Center Area” is located at the former Grand Trunk “Milwaukee Junction” yard which formed the inner belt line railroad around downtown Detroit.
This “Milwaukee Junction” yard has been turned into a Detroit city dump with trash incinerator with the outrageous smell of garbage pervading the area - absolutely unlivable in summer. City dump in the downtown city - where do they come up with this crazy crazy stuff? Good city planning - Google Detroit Incinerator for lawsuits and public outrage - Go Figure!
Presently the AMTRACK train comes from Pontiac, MI, northwest down the Grand Trunk main to “Milwaukee Junction” then
Gee Doc,
You weren’t doing too bad until you got into Detroit politics.
I live not too far from Detroit, and other than a few discrepancies, most of your report was reasonable. BTW, Detroit is on the border, not nine miles from it.
Seriously, Norm, how do you talk about modern U.S. cities that have gone down the tubes without getting into politics?
In most of these failures, the so-called victims have been put in charge and quickly corrupted, with the results we have seen. They are like nothing so much as our Indian reservations, where elected officials are either corrupt to begin with or quickly made that way.
In both cases, you can blame “the history of prejudice” – or the federal spoils, dollars, that have tempted these officials into “public service” in the first place.