Thank you in advance, the area is very interesting. Today in Detroit, some of the streets look like they are not touched too much from back in the day, fairly run down-ish in the area behind Atwater Brewery.
I wrote a book about its last days in operation: Chronicles of a Detroit Railfan, Volume 5, Detroit Transit Railway (this was its other name). It is the only published source on this line that I am aware of. It can be purchased from my website ByronBabbish.com or on Amazon or maybe P&D Hobbies has a copy at their store in Fraser. Byron Babbish
An interesting thing I just found.... Not sure if this is just the official termination of the paper company, or if they just got around to taking it off the books in 06, or what... I am not learned enough for this!
Probably that original railroad company. Conrail was probably doing a legal cleanup of old subsidiaries back in 2007 that it never dissolved or merged to save legal maintenance costs. We did that ever so often at Chrysler.
Like the Ann Arbor, Michigan Central and a bunch of others, the corporate shell of the Detroit Manufacturer's stayed with Penn Central and its successor, American Premier Underwriters (and whatever it was called after that). This was probably done so PC could gradually liquidate real estate and other assets not conveyed to Conrail, and it took a long time to locate and satisfy all minority shareholders.
Part of the old Detroit Manufacturer's Railroad was clearly visible until recently on a two block long segment of Wight Street near Iron at Mt. Elliot Park, including two street railway style switches and lots of brick and curved rail pieces of streetrunning. Fortunately for drivers, but unfortunately for historians and railfans, this street was repaved in early 2016, although the rails and bricks I'm sure are still under a thin layer of asphalt. In my opinion, as part of the continued improvements to the Detroit Riverwalk area, this would be a really cool segment of street to restore with the rails and bricks leveled and in place, a testament to the area's one-time industrial heritage.
That is so cool. Do any of you more adventurous railfans know where these rails led way back in the day? At Jefferson between Meldrum and the Belle Isle Bridge, there is an old parking lot and it is also where the Beaufait line spits out by the riverfront. https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3434471 ... a=!3m1!1e3
Where that empty field is used to be a Uniroyal Tire factory, and it's associated parking lot. I don't think they lasted much past the mid-1980's, but not 100% on that. I had heard that they were an active shipper though. There are some pretty good shots of what the complex used to look like back in its heyday on historicaerials.com.
