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WELCOME TO MOTOWN!
It looks like chaos-an unending parade of autoracks, hi-cube boxcars moving in every conceivable direction-but it's some of the most precisely choreographed chaos you'll ever see.
The auto shippers at the core of Detroit's rail business demand precision, mindful of the feeding times of their assembly plants. Railroads respond with better scheduling and innovations like mixing centers. Now, if the trains could just get through the city!
For railroads, Detroit is the proverbial bowl of spaghetti. Main lines entangle and intertwine in seemingly impossible combinations.
The city was a natural stopping point for trading ships navigating the Detroit River between Lake Erie and Lake Huron (Detroit is French for "strait"). Lumber and salt were prized exports, hauled by ship, then rail. But ambitious railroads-Canadian as well as American-realized they'd have to expand, south to Toledo and west to Chicago, where there were opportunities for interchange. Blame it on Michigan's geography. The lower peninsula (called "the thumb") was logically bypassed by east-west trunk lines. That made Detroit an end-point-of both branches and main lines-which in part helps explain the tangle of tracks. Today, Detroit's only east-west railroad is Canadian Pacific, and half its route is with haulage rights!
The auto boom of 1900 changed everything. Established iron foundries, carriage shops, engine plants, and tanneries provided the necessary components; assembly lines sealed the deal. Between 1910 and 1930, the city grew from 19th to 4th largest in the U.S. New York Central, with fast routes in every direction, took 50% of Detroit's traffic in the 1940s, leaving Pere Marquette, Grand Trunk Western, Wabash, and Pennsylvania to fight over the rest.
But while auto traffic was lucrative-- Ford was Wabash's largest customer, GM was GTW's-switching plants was expensive. You could make up the costs with long-haul contracts, but roads like GTW, PM, and DT&I didn't go far enough. Now they're part of larger systems or spun off. And CSX and NS have left the switching to Conrail. -Matt Van Hattem
NS DETROIT LINE
Runs from: West Detroit south to Toledo (junction with NS Chicago Line), 54.8 miles. CR/NS ownership changes at Gibraltar, MP 20
Train frequency: 20 trains/day
Trackage rights: CN from CP-YD (River Rouge Yard) to West Detroit (then north on CR to Vinewood)....