Grandville Depot

[MQT1223]

Anybody know of any pictures of the Grandville Depot? When was it torn down? Aside from the Grandville Museum (which I have yet to check) I have not been able to find a picture or any info on it. I do know that the Watervliet Depot is built in the same style as Grandville's depot as they were built around the same time.

[J T]

Railroad or interurban? Doing a quick google search, I couldn't find any mention or photos of a Grandville depot. This would be interesting to see if in fact some photos do exist.

How do you know any info on the build style?

[MQT1223]

Railroad or interurban? Doing a quick google search, I couldn't find any mention or photos of a Grandville depot. This would be interesting to see if in fact some photos do exist.

How do you know any info on the build style?

The PM/C&O depot. It was located where the current strip mall is right were the pair of switches that cuts the tracks from 2 to 1 and back to 2, just beyond Wilson Ave. I don't believe Grandville had a true Interurban depot as one was not mentioned in the Interurban presentation a few months back. When I was looking at surviving depots one day the Watervliet depot came up and it mentioned it was a replacement depot for an older structure and that Grandville and several other towns got replacement stations built by the PM in the same style. I am not sure what other towns unless I find the page again but there were many. Grandville stood out to me because its where I live so ya. I will look for the page to see if I can find any info.

[MQT1223]

I can't find the exact link on the info regarding the Watervliet Depot construction, but this is the Watervliet depot today. Apparently Grandville's was roughly an identical copy.

http://www.railroadmichigan.com/rrdwatervliet.jpg

[aadti]

The Grand Rapids Model Railroad Historical Society in Comstock park has photo's of the depot plus a scratchbuilt HO scale model. We are there every Tuesday from 7pm to 9 pm.

Mark

[MQT1223]

The Grand Rapids Model Railroad Historical Society in Comstock park has photo's of the depot plus a scratchbuilt HO scale model. We are there every Tuesday from 7pm to 9 pm.

Mark

I really need to get up there somtime.

[MQT1223]

Railroad or interurban? Doing a quick google search, I couldn't find any mention or photos of a Grandville depot. This would be interesting to see if in fact some photos do exist.

How do you know any info on the build style?

Here is the only photo I can find so far. The searchlight signals before the depot was just replaced a few years ago by the existing Darth Vader signals, so this gives you an idea of where the depot was located in Grandville.

That being said I hope more turn up.

http://www.michiganrailroads.com/RRHX/S ... illeMI.htm

[Saturnalia]

I might be confusing it with a different station, but wasn't this one about to be saved when in the late 80s? C&O or CSX derailed a coal train and wiped it out? I know the derailment is true but I'm not sure about the structure. I know the loaded train for West Olive derailed on the switch which used to connect the run-around and #1 main, and piled it all over where Wilson crosses now.

[C&O6084]

Tghe wreck you're referring to punched an auto parts box through the lumberyard that used to be there, delivering a glancing blow to the depot. Very minor damage. I have pictures of the wreck laying around somewhere in my apartment. I don't recall a West Olive wreck, but I was gone from the area for 28 years.

[MQT1223]

I might be confusing it with a different station, but wasn't this one about to be saved when in the late 80s? C&O or CSX derailed a coal train and wiped it out? I know the derailment is true but I'm not sure about the structure. I know the loaded train for West Olive derailed on the switch which used to connect the run-around and #1 main, and piled it all over where Wilson crosses now.

Tghe wreck you're referring to punched an auto parts box through the lumberyard that used to be there, delivering a glancing blow to the depot. Very minor damage. I have pictures of the wreck laying around somewhere in my apartment. I don't recall a West Olive wreck, but I was gone from the area for 28 years.

I'm assuming in the 80's it wasn't worth the money to fix, or did the Chessie System demo it before Grandville could try to save it? It would've looked nice across from the old Jurgens advertisement and beautifully restored state bank building. Wreck photos would be neat to see. If that strip mall ever goes vacant I would demo it and put a replica depot in and put the Grandville Museum in there, like what New Buffalo did. Now that I think of it, I believe I did see an old newspaper clipping someone scanned with a terrible picture of the depot with damage to one of the corners. It took me a while to find but I will search again. Was the lumber yard on the east side of the depot because by the Ottawa St. crossing there is a third set of rusty rails heading in the general direction of the depot's old location, now the existing parking lot. They don't cross the road but are next to the gated signal in the grass and sidewalk.

[MQT1223]

Didn't find the depot but I found this neat view of double tracked interurban trackage somewhere outside of the downtown area at the turn of the century:

http://library.calvin.edu/hda/sites/def ... hh995h.jpg

And the Jenison interurban depot:

http://library.calvin.edu/hda/sites/def ... h1054h.jpg

A nasty wreck on the PM in Hamilton:

http://library.calvin.edu/hda/sites/def ... h1012h.jpg

Those are just some of the railroad ones I found interesting. I will post the link below but there are some really neat old pics you can look at in many Michigan towns:

http://library.calvin.edu/hda/node/7511

[fmilhaupt]

There was a guy at a train show at the Dearborn Civic Center in the early 1990s (1992, maybe?) who had one of the older, PM-style (gold on black) station signs from the Grandville depot.

If I'd had $275 and, more importantly, a place where I could have stored it, I would have taken that home in a heartbeat.

[J T]

A nasty wreck on the PM in Hamilton:

http://library.calvin.edu/hda/sites/def ... h1012h.jpg

Actually, that is a wreck north of New Richmond in 1908 at the 133rd Ave overpass. The existing bridge is what replaced the one in this wreck. A few years ago when we had some torrential rains, at least 4-5 feet of the roadbed under the bridge was washed away, exposing what I believe to be remains of this wreck. According to a book of Michigan train wrecks that I have, they pushed a lot of the debris into the adjacent field and buried it.

[J T]

Railroad or interurban? Doing a quick google search, I couldn't find any mention or photos of a Grandville depot. This would be interesting to see if in fact some photos do exist.

How do you know any info on the build style?

Here is the only photo I can find so far. The searchlight signals before the depot was just replaced a few years ago by the existing Darth Vader signals, so this gives you an idea of where the depot was located in Grandville.

That being said I hope more turn up.

http://www.michiganrailroads.com/RRHX/S ... illeMI.htm

Cool. I had a feeling it might be on that site, but my google search hadn't revealed that yet. I really need to bookmark that site.

[MQT1223]

Railroad or interurban? Doing a quick google search, I couldn't find any mention or photos of a Grandville depot. This would be interesting to see if in fact some photos do exist.

How do you know any info on the build style?

Here is the only photo I can find so far. The searchlight signals before the depot was just replaced a few years ago by the existing Darth Vader signals, so this gives you an idea of where the depot was located in Grandville.

That being said I hope more turn up.

http://www.michiganrailroads.com/RRHX/S ... illeMI.htm

Cool. I had a feeling it might be on that site, but my google search hadn't revealed that yet. I really need to bookmark that site.

If you search "Grandville Depot" and do images in Google it will pop up. That is an excellent site to use.

There was a guy at a train show at the Dearborn Civic Center in the early 1990s (1992, maybe?) who had one of the older, PM-style (gold on black) station signs from the Grandville depot.

The signs in the one photo must be the C&O signs then because the depot also has Chesapeake and Ohio on it as well. I wonder where those signs ended up. I need to bring them home.
If I'd had $275 and, more importantly, a place where I could have stored it, I would have taken that home in a heartbeat.

I would love to know where that went...

[kenN]

Here are two pix of Grandville depot taken by a photographer (not a railfan) friend of mine, undated but taken between 1961 and 1965. C&O E7 4515 (ex PM 108) provides the time clue, since it was renumbered (from 108) in 1961 and renumbered again (to 1417). It leads train #9, the morning train to Chicago

[MQT1223]

Grandville MI Depot 1961-65.JPG

Grandville MI C&O 4515 1961-65.JPG

Here are two pix of Grandville depot taken by a photographer (not a railfan) friend of mine, undated but taken between 1961 and 1965. C&O E7 4515 (ex PM 108) provides the time clue, since it was renumbered (from 108) in 1961 and renumbered again (to 1417). It leads train #9, the morning train to Chicago

These are phenomenal! They are so clear its as if they were taken yesterday! Few things I notice. The second picture, the building immediately to the left of the E unit in the second picture, it is vacant but still exists which is cool. The Rec center is where the other building now stands, unless it was just remodeled and the bones of the building are original. Also, in the first picture, I notice what appears to be a second set of rails going through what is now the parking lot for the strip mall. Were those the tracks that the Interurban had to stop at the depot to unload passengers that wanted to board in the PM days or was this for a nearby industry that no longer exists, like the lumber yard that was mentioned. Keep them coming if you have any more. These are some rare beauties. I bet the museum in downtown would love to have copies of these if they don't already.

[Saturnalia]

The Codeline looks a lot more like a tree than the modern ones which were recepty removed...looks like a line apt ripped of its branches...which is probably the case!

[MQT1223]

The Codeline looks a lot more like a tree than the modern ones which were recepty removed...looks like a line apt ripped of its branches...which is probably the case!

You should see the codeline poles that are in Holly. They look exactly like the way you described them, plus they are wider at the base and narrower at the top. That's how all the codeline on CSX is in Holly. GT/CN removed the last of their codeline a few years ago, a process that started when I still lived. They did exactly what CSX did HERE. Cut the wires in segments, scrap the copper and cut the poles down likes trees.

[Saturnalia]

99.9% of wooden poles are narrower at the top...they are trees! They might look more or less the same because they look smaller from farther away anyway...so it is a bit harder to pick out what's distance and what is actually reduction in diameter. My uncle works for a phone company and used to work on poles and whatnot...most of those residential poles carrying offshoots to properties are no more than a hand's length across at the top, despite decent size at the base.