By 1909, the railroad's 50th anniversary, the D&W was operating three branches from it's mainline. By 1930, the D&W's headquarters were at 400 West Fort Street in Detroit, across from the Fort Street Union Station, from which their passenger trains operated. The D&W's premiere passenger train was The Michiganian, which operated between Fort Street Station in Detroit and Central Station in Chicago. In 1927 the Pennsylvania Railroad took control of the D&W, controlling it until December 31, 1966, when the D&W once again became independent. The D&W however continued to operate passenger trains until becoming a freight-only railroad (like many others) on A-Day. In 1980, the Grand Trunk Western Railroad came very close to acquiring the D&W, but backed out in a last-minute deal since the D&W's Detroit-Chicago mainline would pretty much duplicate the GT(W)'s own mainline. Ironically enough, a year later, the D&W would acquire the GT's former PO&N mainline south of Oxford, Michigan.
On September 2, 1989, the D&W announced that it has officially taken over the entire ex-DT&I system between Flat Rock, Michigan and Chillicothe, Ohio, more than doubling the miles of trackage owned by the D&W. That trackage is now part of the D&W Ottawa Division, while the rest of their owned trackage is part of the Tecumseh Division. After Conrail broke up in 1999, the D&W purchased the entire Lincoln Secondary from Pennrunt Junction in Brownstown Township, MI to Carleton, MI, where a new connection had been built from the CSX Toledo Terminal Subdivision to the D&W Leipsic Subdivision to provide an alternative to the congested path via Flat Rock, Michigan (part of which involved trackage rights on the CN ex-GT Dearborn Subdivision). This resulted in a map that looked like this: https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit? ... _LcNI-wRM0
In 2005, the D&W nearly acquired the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern railroad in the Chicago metropolitan area, but backed out after CSX (and eventually CN) announced their interests in the EJ&E.
Today, the D&W, now headquartered in suburban Southgate, Michigan, operates trains on two major mainlines from Detroit to Chicago and southern Ohio, as well as trains on several branches and has trackage rights in some places. It also operates a local job (nicknamed the Detroit Furball to railfans since late 1989 due to the unique livery seen on engines assigned to the job) on the Boat Yard line in Detroit, based out of Grove Street Yard in nearby Wyandotte. The D&W is also a minority owner of the Belt Railway of Chicago, the largest industrial switching railroad in the United States. In all, a total of over 60 trains operate on the D&W's two mainlines. The D&W is classified as a Class 2 regional with Class 1 power. It operates major yards in:
- Wyandotte, MI (Grove Street Yard)
Tecumseh, MI
Toledo, OH (Dobbs Yard)
Jackson, MI
Hillsdale, MI
Three Rivers, MI
Niles, MI
Benton Harbor, MI
South Bend, IN
Gary, IN
Chicago, IL (Rothschild Yard)
Lima, OH
Flat Rock, MI (shared with CN)
Springfield, OH
Chillicothe, OH
2011 GE ES44AC #2455 in the current livery, referred to as "21st Century Heritage", which was first debuted in 2005 and uses the Nyala font. The D&W operates a total of 210 ES44ACs, all in this livery.
A roster and train symbol list are coming soon.
