Michigan Central Station

MCS is off the beaten downtown Detroit path, as it were, a bit too far west to be included in any of the current development projects that are moving north out of downtown, such as the M-1 light rail line on Woodward Avenue as well as the replacement hockey stadium/entertainment district. There have been various proposed re-uses of the structure over the years, ie new police headquarters and the like. All have come to nothing. Mr. Moroun, owner of the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, is the current owner of MCS. A few new windows were installed in MCS this summer. Whether that was a test of different brands to see which ones would hold up best in preparation for something bigger, or whether a gesture on the part of the owner to gain public favor following his strong opposition to the proposed new Detroit-Windsor bridge that would presumably siphon traffic and thus revenue away from his bridge, or something else, is anyone's guess. MCS and the former Packard automobile plant, just purchased by a Peruvian developer, are the two standard examples of so-called "ruin porn" that are held up for the world to see as emblematic of everything Detroit. There is much more to Detroit than that, of course. But those two structures in particular, combined with the recent Chapter 9 filing, serve to paint a very dismal painting of the city.

25Hz wrote:

ExCon90 wrote:And I just remembered -- I think the building is still 25Hz, which won't help. (Hey, I just thought of somebody who might start a movement ...)

25 hz lighting.... yea, i'd love to experience that.. NOT.

Obligatory Amtrak content:

I've noticed that some trains south of NYP tend to have a slight flicker to their lights inside the cars - I'm guessing the AEM-7s don't filter the 25hz harmonic out very well when converting HEP?

Anyone know what the technology for the HEP converter on the AEM-7DCs is/was? I'm guessing cycloconverter*, since it seems a bit early for a DC-Link style system, but then again, if anyone would have been doing that then, it would have been ASEA...

*Also based on my above HEP ovservations (casual, and dated back 10 years) - cycloconverters have harmonic issues, in know SEPTA's have considerable filtering on both sides.

both stations were built to serve 100+ trains/day

Did either station ever actually get used for 100 trains a day, aside from maybe during WWII? That even seems like it might be a stretch. Where would so many trains have even been coming from or going to (rhetorical question, no need for a list of places)? Both cities are kind of out of the way, and don't have many lines going to them with potential for high passenger traffic. How much commuter service could there have even been? I just don't see how either Detroit or Buffalo could have been big hubs, more like stops on the way to Toronto or the end of a few lines that terminated in those cities. Doesn't seem to add up to 100 trains a day.

The Wikipedia article for MCS notes that at the beginning of WWI in excess of 200 trains per day used MCS. From the historic perspective it is important to keep in mind that 100 years ago when MCS opened railroads were pretty much THE way to move passengers (and freight). The automobile (trucks, too) as well as the "roads" they traveled at the time were neither reliable nor desirable. MCS was built with the expectation that passenger rail travel would continue to be the dominant form of passenger transportation for the foreseeable future. It was also constructed comparatively in the middle of nowhere in Detroit, away from downtown, with the idea that it would be an anchor for future development in the area. Neither turned out not to be the case.

And it was positioned far enough away from the river to be in line with the tunnel ramp's ground level end. There were two other stations in Detroit: GTW Brush Street and Fort Street. Both were much closer to downtown. GTW got across the border farther north and Detroit was a branch, so their station was immediately downtown. Fort Street was just as busy as MCS (busier perhaps?) and served Wabash, Pere Marquette, Pennsy, B&O, and C&O. Fort Street was also directly downtown. Neither remain today.

While it is doubtful if Michigan Central Station needs any further photo documentation, here are photos of 'the other two':

Fort Street

Brush Street

While Brush Street could hardly be called an 'impressive' structure, it nevertheless was located adjacent to just about the only 'postwar' urban redevelopment project of note Detroit ever had - the Renaissance Center and immediate convention hall, hotel (Pontchartrain; now closed), and sports arena.

Meanwhile, back at MCS, until the Pearlman era, the NYC had an all-Pullman NY-Detroit train named The Detroiter. The clientele in large part were auto industry 'biggies' and entourages traveling between the operational HQ's and the corporate HQ's in New York (where the money is; where the media is). To accommodate this traffic from an all-male, conservative base the NYC ordered a disproportionate number of 22 Roomette cars brom both Pullman Standard ('--Bay') and Budd ('--Harbor') when compared with same from Pennsy.

I'm not sure I've seen a picture of the headhouse of Brush Street before. Were the platforms of that station used for the SEMTA commuter trains in the '70's and '80's? Fort Street lasted through A-Day, and was demolished shortly thereafter.

Milwaukee_F40C wrote:

both stations were built to serve 100+ trains/day

Did either station ever actually get used for 100 trains a day, aside from maybe during WWII? That even seems like it might be a stretch. Where would so many trains have even been coming from or going to (rhetorical question, no need for a list of places)? Both cities are kind of out of the way, and don't have many lines going to them with potential for high passenger traffic. How much commuter service could there have even been? I just don't see how either Detroit or Buffalo could have been big hubs, more like stops on the way to Toronto or the end of a few lines that terminated in those cities. Doesn't seem to add up to 100 trains a day.

They most certainly did. With regard to MCS, remember that it dates to before WW1 (i.e., no air service). In re BCT, it sat astride the Water Level Route--NYC ran a huge volume of passenger service through Buffalo at one time. PRR trains also used the station, along with TH&B. I believe B&O did as well. DLW had their own station, which was also used by Nickel Plate. Not sure about Lehigh Valley. A few decades back, Trains ran multi-part stories on both BCT and MCS, detailing the construction and historic operations of the stations. I have copies of them somewhere, and will post the dates when I track them down.

Station Aficionado wrote:I'm not sure I've seen a picture of the headhouse of Brush Street before. Were the platforms of that station used for the SEMTA commuter trains in the '70's and '80's? Fort Street lasted through A-Day, and was demolished shortly thereafter.

Here is a photo of the Brush Street facility during the SEMTA era. This photo illustrates its proximity to the Renaissance Center development.

Bad psychology to name ANYTHING "Renaissance Center", because it just reminds people that "there was a problem".

Man... only ten blocks between Fort Street and Brush Street Stations. If only someone had had the foresight to connect those facilities via waterfront trackage, back before the RenCen was complete, we wouldn't be complaining about the lack of a suitable passenger facility in Detroit.

And yes, Pacific 2-3-1, that's a good point. Detroiters can't hardly go through a day without being reminded of how their city sucks and was supposed to have risen from the ashes. Instead, there's just more ashes and more wondering where the bottom of the hole is.

As noted by Mr. Stephens, Detroit's malaise is certainly on display to those who have never set foot there. I dare say that TV series such as AMC's 'Low Winter Sun' and HoBO's 'Hung' have captured much of the decay - both shows have featured ' pans' of MCS and Packard.

But likely the only antidote to the decay - reduce the size of the municipality for 1.8M population or 132 sq mi to that of one for 710K or 80 sq mi - is too big a pill to swallow; absent that, I fail to see any hope.

While 'three a day' is a pretty good level of Amtrak service, that hardly exists account Detroit, as was the case with the Twilight Limited, Motor City Special, and Maple Leaf from the days of the 'Central' and 'The Funk'. While Detroit has plenty of air service, that is only because it is a hub for Delta (nee Northwest) - their connecting passengers could just as easily be at former Chanute AFB (Rantoul IL). There is no jitney (Limo) service to Downtown from KDTW.

Owing to a common interest unrelated to this Forum shared by Mr. 2-3-1 and myself (surely others as well), I'm pulling for Detroit, but any kind of Renaissance beyond the noted real estate development appears a long shot.

Below is a link to an article in today's Detroit Free Press about Michigan Central Station:

http://www.freep.com/article/20131226/N ... -1913-open" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Looking at the slideshow in the DFP article, I just had a terrific idea. I'm not sure how many here are aware of this, but the sequel to Man of Steel, the recent Superman movie, is also going to include Batman. They've already essentially announced that in this film, the part of Metropolis will be played by Chicago, and the role of Gotham City will be played by Detroit (it's also doing most of its sound-stage photography in the Wolverine State as well). My thought was this: imagine that there's a scene set in the train station in Gotham, and, of course, they use MCS as the set. The kicker is, imagine that MCS, in its current, crumbling, graffiti-covered condition, is the actual working Gotham train station. (IOW, picture it as if all that was done to MCS was to sweep up the floor and turn on some lights, and they then immediately reopened for Amtrak service.) Granted, it's not exactly promoting Detroit, but it seems like a decent establishing shot for a moodily-built city whose only bright spot is a billionaire who leaps from rooftops while dressed as a bat. (Disclaimer: author has been a hardcore Batman fan since elementary school.)

Not a bad concept actually.