Junction Yard???

[Engineer James]

I found a hat of my late grandfathers this morning. It had a Path int he center for Junction Yard Safety. Anyone have a clue? Old CR guys who would know anything about it would be appreciated.

[shlustig]

Engr. James;

Sounds like he was a member of one of the safety committees or else received it for complying with safety rules during an observation.

Junction Yard was one of the former NYC facilities in Detroit.

[Detroit]

I found a hat of my late grandfathers this morning. It had a Path int he center for Junction Yard Safety. Anyone have a clue? Old CR guys who would know anything about it would be appreciated.

Junction Yard was one of the largest yards that Conrail had. It pretty much extended from a bit east of Livernois Yard (whose office today is still at Livernois and John Kronk in Detroit) west to the Ford Rouge plant--over three miles, possibly four miles, long. The entire stretch from Central to Miller is now entirely abandoned (over two miles worth...), except for three pickups and otherwise contains mostly weeds and scrap trees. Once, Junction Yard have almost 40 classification tracks in its marshalling yard, putting together two-mile long Junc trains of scrap to Toldeo's Stanley Yard.

Today, it has only a few old-time customers--a couple scrap-metal dealers and a dealer who sells slag and cement made by the few remaining iron and steel makers left in Detroit. The scrap-metal consists today are only four to six cars long, usually--not between one and two miles long any longer. However, CSX has heavily invested in a intermodal facility at the junction of Dix, Waterman, and Vernor--a few blocks to the east of here.

[airman00]

Boy that was some yard! I saw the picture, and I like the little switcher off to the side. Was it an alco s-2 or an emd SW1001?

[Noel Weaver]

[Junction Yard was one of the largest yards that Conrail had. It pretty much extended from a bit east of Livernois Yard (whose office today is still at Livernois and John Kronk in Detroit) west to the Ford Rouge plant--over three miles, possibly four miles, long. The entire stretch from Central to Miller is now entirely abandoned (over two miles worth...), except for three pickups and otherwise contains mostly weeds and scrap trees. Once, Junction Yard have almost 40 classification tracks in its marshalling yard, putting together two-mile long Junc trains of scrap to Toldeo's Stanley Yard.

Today, it has only a few old-time customers--a couple scrap-metal dealers and a dealer who sells slag and cement made by the few remaining iron and steel makers left in Detroit. The scrap-metal consists today are only four to six cars long, usually--not between one and two miles long any longer. However, CSX has heavily invested in a intermodal facility at the junction of Dix, Waterman, and Vernor--a few blocks to the east of here.

It might have been big by Detroit standards but it was far from the biggest yard on Conrail or even one of the biggest yards. Elkhart, Conway and Selkirk were the three biggest
not necessarily in that order. Selkirk is over 5 miles end to end with probably 80 or so classification tracks, 3 through tracks, 13 departure tracks of roughly 2 miles each in length
and lots of other facilities. Unlike Junction Yard, Selkirk today is still extremely busy classifying trains in every direction for a lot of destinations (blocks of cars in this case) and
is the key CSX facility in the north east. It also has a busy auto terminal, a diesel shop, car repair facility as well as the headquarters for the Albany Division with a train dispatchers office there as well. CSX employs nearly a thousand people in the Albany, New York area, most of them at Selkirk.
Noel Weaver

[Detroit]

[Junction Yard was one of the largest yards that Conrail had. It pretty much extended from a bit east of Livernois Yard (whose office today is still at Livernois and John Kronk in Detroit) west to the Ford Rouge plant--over three miles, possibly four miles, long. The entire stretch from Central to Miller is now entirely abandoned (over two miles worth...), except for three pickups and otherwise contains mostly weeds and scrap trees. Once, Junction Yard have almost 40 classification tracks in its marshalling yard, putting together two-mile long Junc trains of scrap to Toldeo's Stanley Yard.

Today, it has only a few old-time customers--a couple scrap-metal dealers and a dealer who sells slag and cement made by the few remaining iron and steel makers left in Detroit. The scrap-metal consists today are only four to six cars long, usually--not between one and two miles long any longer. However, CSX has heavily invested in a intermodal facility at the junction of Dix, Waterman, and Vernor--a few blocks to the east of here.

It might have been big by Detroit standards but it was far from the biggest yard on Conrail or even one of the biggest yards. Elkhart, Conway and Selkirk were the three biggest
not necessarily in that order. Selkirk is over 5 miles end to end with probably 80 or so classification tracks, 3 through tracks, 13 departure tracks of roughly 2 miles each in length
and lots of other facilities. Unlike Junction Yard, Selkirk today is still extremely busy classifying trains in every direction for a lot of destinations (blocks of cars in this case) and
is the key CSX facility in the north east. It also has a busy auto terminal, a diesel shop, car repair facility as well as the headquarters for the Albany Division with a train dispatchers office there as well. CSX employs nearly a thousand people in the Albany, New York area, most of them at Selkirk.
Noel Weaver

I merely described Junction Yard as mainly being the E-W stretch along the Michigan Line--the tracks extending west from West Detroit by Junction Street at the former GM Cadillac plant toward Chicago. Some called Junction Yard as the New York Central yard. At its western end, Junction Yard became (1) Woodmere Yard (essentially all CSX today), which runs N-S from Delray and (2) the Ford Rouge complex--now split between Ford Motor Company and the former iron- and steelmaking plants of Ford, now owned by the Russian steelmaker, Severstal NA, the country's fourth largest. Back during 1929, the Ford Rouge plant employed a maximum of 129,000 workers, making Model-A Fords, iron, coke, coalgas and electricity, steel, glass, cement from the blast-furnace slag, etc.--virtually everything major that Ford needed for its other plants.

Henry Ford owned two railroads headquartered in Detroit--the Detroit, Toledo, & Ironton, which was partially electrified and Ford's private terminal railroad that switched the entire Ford Rouge plant. So, if one added Woodmere Yard, just immediately outside the east side of the Rouge plant, and the Ford Rouge yard to Junction Yard right next door, the combination was quite large. On the east end of Junction Yard was the former large Cadillac plant just to the north and east of the former West Detroit tower--once the largest interlocker in Michigan when it existed. Today much of what was to the east of Junction Yard is long gone. Junction Yard had two roundhouses situated at its Livernois Yard servicing facility and offices (both destroyed by fires), plus its large coaling tower of another era. It also produced and supplied ice for reefers and coal for distribution for other yards.