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Ford spur in Ypsilanti
Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2015 1:21 pm
by Ben Higdon
Does anyone have pictures of the spur in Ypsilanti that ran from Depot Town down to the Ford plant on I94?
There was a short stretch of
street running on Lincoln St on the east side of downtown Ypsi. I checked it out today, and there appears to be some evidence of patching the road where the tracks were, but it was hard to tell with the snow on the ground. I did find a couple interesting things...
Concrete post along Lincoln St, just north of Michigan Ave.
Cabinet at the intersection of Lincoln and Michigan Ave. There's a similar cabinet on the south side of Mich Ave
I'd love to see any pictures of activity on the spur, or even when the tracks were still in place!
Re: Ford spur in Ypsilanti
Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2015 1:42 pm
by Ypsi
Never seen any shots of trains but this is what I've found out. Also if you follow an old map you can see how the line followed the Huron river, it was pretty sweet
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=20140&p=169475&hili ... et#p169475
Re: Ford spur in Ypsilanti
Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2015 2:49 pm
by AARR
I think rail service stopped in the 1980's. I've been railfanning Ypsi since the early 1990's and there was not any rail service to that plant that I ever recall.
Re: Ford spur in Ypsilanti
Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2015 4:49 pm
by Ben Higdon
Thanks Ypsi! Nice to see some pics of the street running. That'd be a little nerve-racking to have a family with little kids in one of those houses with railroad tracks ten feet outside your front door.
Re: Ford spur in Ypsilanti
Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2015 4:52 pm
by Ypsi
Ben Higdon wrote:Thanks Ypsi! Nice to see some pics of the street running. That'd be a little nerve-racking to have a family with little kids in one of those houses with railroad tracks ten feet outside your front door.
There is a school right there too lol. It may or may not have been that way when service ended, but the school was in place at the same time of the rails. The rails finally all came out in the early 2000's, and the cantilever signals at Michigan ave went after. There are still rails and cantilevers in place at the ford plant.
Re: Ford spur in Ypsilanti
Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2015 6:10 pm
by ConrailMan5
NYC3001 wrote:The former NYC Ford Spur was removed just a few years ago. This was part of a large-scale urban plan by the city of Ypsilanti, to develop the south side of Michigan Avenue in that area. The plan called for the creation of a large condo and retail center, and the city wanted the tracks removed as the land was more valuable. Likewise, the plant hadn't really used the rail service since the late 1990s.
The last time I can remember seeing a train on that spur was in October of 1997, when I was going to a friend's funeral. There was one lone GP15-1, and dozen empty boxcars heading northbound. Nonetheless, here are some photos of the line in question from early 1985. The first shot was looking northbound at the old Michigan Central mainline, while the second shot is looking south down Lincoln
Street.
Re: Ford spur in Ypsilanti
Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2015 4:31 pm
by J T
Thanks for the pics, Sean (and NYC3001). In 2000, I worked at a night club in Ypsi and quite often when I arrived early into town, I'd go drive down by the tracks and maybe catch Amtrak going by if I were lucky. One of my favorite things to do was to drive down the rails on Lincoln doing my own "
street running."
(At one point, the rails ran along the side of the road as you got closer to Michigan, and they seemed to be sinking into the earth as they were covered with soil and grass.) I'd follow those tracks across Michigan, along Grove and then across Spring, hoping to catch a train on them, even though I knew it wasn't ever going to happen (I've always had a pretty active imagination in that regard).
I returned to Ypsi several years later and it was a bummer to see the tracks had been removed.
