Lansing Manufacturers Railroad 1904-1969

[mikekmac]

While looking up something else, I came across this map of the route of the Lansing Manufacturers Railroad, which appeared in the 1916 annual report of the New York Central:



(A very similar if not identical version from the 1925 report is currently for sale on eBay.)

I'm hoping that those of you who've been in the Lansing area longer than I have (came here in '72 to attend MSU) can help me construct a list of plants/companies/industries served by the LMRR during its independent existence.

The obvious ones are:
- the site west of the tracks between Willow and Saginaw:
jet engine mfgr 1952-? (later Lansing Metal Center, ?-2006)

- the site west of the tracks between Saginaw and West Michigan: a GM foundry beginning in 1919 (much later the Craft Centre)

- the site east of the tracks between Saginaw and West Michigan: Durant Motors 1920-1931, later the Verlinden GM plant (Fisher Body/BOC/Lansing Car Assembly Plant 6 1935-2006)

- the site at the end of the right of way, with the pigtail under Logan/MLK and terminating inside the plant: Olds Motor Works 1902-1908, GM/LCA Plant 1 to 2005

It's not clear to me whether there was a connection to the Grand Trunk main, though I think I see one now. (Does anyone know the name of the little nine-lead yard along Olds Avenue?)

Anyway, there are a few other sites which could have been customers. All the lots on the east side of Sunset and the west side of Comfort back up to the tracks, and the aerial photos seem to show multiple spurs coming off the main toward Sunset (Moseley's?).

[mikekmac]

Here's what I pulled together. Please let me know if you spot any errors:


The Lansing Manufacturers Railroad and its successor operators built and serviced industrial spurs into many properties along its route. Among the most significant:

* At the Robert Street terminus: Olds Motor Works (1902-1908), which in time became a vast complex of General Motors facilities with twelve numbered tracks[8] on site. The final customer was Lansing Car Assembly Plant #1, which was closed in 2005 and demolished in 2007. The Lansing Grand River plant now occupying this site does not receive rail service.
* West along Olds Avenue: New Hollow Yard, one of two nine-track flat-switched rail yards[9] on the LMR, is found here. An interchange point with the Grand Trunk Railroad/Canadian National is just west of the New Hollow ladder.
* Between West Michigan Avenue and West Saginaw Street: an R.E. Olds foundry was built west of the tracks in 1919, and purchased by GM in 1940. During World War II artillery shells were made here. Beginning in 1988, the Reatta Craft Centre (also known as Buick-Oldsmobile Cadillac Division Plant No. 2) on this site built limited-production specialty vehicles such as the EV1 electric car and the Chevrolet SSR. The Craft Centre was closed in 2006, and demolished beginning in 2008.[10] To the east, Durant Motor Works built a plant in 1920 which was taken over by GM in 1935. As many as five rail spurs served the GM facility, which was known at various times as Fisher Body, Lansing Car Assembly Plant No. 6, and, colloquially, "the Verlindin plant" after the adjoining street. Plant 6 was closed in 2005 and demolished beginning in 2007. Both sites are currently vacant.
* Between West Saginaw St. and West Willow St.: the Saginaw Yard sat adjacent to the Lansing Metal Center (also known as BOC Plant No. 3), a GM foundry that was built in 1952 as a jet engine manufacturing plant. There were two spurs onto the property, one from each end the yard lead, and a total of five numbered tracks within the plant.[11] The 1.5 million square foot foundry was closed in 2006 and demolition began two years later;[12] the site is currently vacant.
* Between West Willow St. and the Grand River: LMR has serviced businesses along Comfort Street to the east (Alro Steel) and Sunset Avenue to the west (Padnos Metals, Summit Steel, Moseley's Equipment Repair)
* Between the Grand River and Turner Street: north terminus and interchange point with (in various eras) Pere Marquette/Michigan Central/Norfolk Southern/CSX

In the Conrail era, the Lansing Manufacturers Railroad was designated as track 263 in Zone 73 of the Dearborn Division.[13]

[AARR]

I have seen pictures of GTW units switching Lansing GM plants and I am told they would switch cars from one plant to another. In your research have you found where GTW may have also switched the plants on LMRR?

[MiddleMI]

Sorry for the bump of such an old thread, but I was wondering if anyone knew the exact direction of process of assembly between the old Verlinden plant (Fisher Body) and the main assembly plant at Lansing Car Assembly, particularly after the rework of Logan Street (MLK)? I've been told by someone that they'd ship the the mostly finished bodies down from Verlinden to the main plant, so this starts off being an east-to-west movement. The spur into the plant seems that it would have brought them right into the middle of the plant. After that, I've read they then go either one or two assembly lines (a north and south). After this I lose the direction, because you'd think the process would continue east, but the Wikipedia article for this seems to imply that process ended at Building 105, which sits between the two branches of MLK Avenue. In fact, they say that after assembly the cars would be driven under the northbound MLK bridge into a staging area from which they were either put back on rail or trucked out. That just doesn't make much sense to me given that there was clearly a bridge over the north end of the northbound MLK bridge that had to have been used to move the product between the main plant and Building 105 (which I'm still not sure of the purpose), but I don't know if that was the last building the cars went through of the first building upon coming from Verlinden because the direction of the process is not clear.

Thanks in advance.

[MP73point4]

Car bodies were trucked between the Verlinden plant and the final Lansing Car Assembly plant, not sent by rail. God forbid if you got in the way of one of those trucks. Yellow, and even the beginning of red lights, meant nothing to those guys. There was only inbound stamping business at Verlinden.
Yes, they would then be placed on one of two different lines there at the main plant (north & south) for final assembly.
From south final assembly, some autos were loaded directly onto railcars on the GTW along the river. Others were moved under Logan/MLK to be loaded on trucks for other distribution centers.
North final assembly ended in building 90 at MLK & Main/Malcom X St. Cars were then driven back to the rail loadout mentioned above or to the truck lots.
Building 150 was an Engineering/Quality building that was not directly production related.

[MiddleMI]

Wait, so the Manufacturers Railroad didn't communicate between Verlinden and the main plant? What was the point of it, then? Also, exactly where were the finished product loaded onto the GTW line? Finally, what where the bridges over and under Logan/MLK for, just pedestrian bridges for the workers? I always imagined cars or at least parts were transfered, because they were awfully big structures to have just been for employees.

[Hogger1225]

The little yard along side of the GTW was referred to as the New Yard. There was shuttle service between 3 plants, the Jet Plant, Fisher Body, and the Olds Main Plant, we'd hand off cars to the GTW/CN and they'd spot up some dock off of their tracks. NYC, PC, then CR also did some other switching at the Olds Main Plant, engines, frames, ect.

[Dan Cluley]

Car bodies were definitely trucked from Verlinden st. I assume those trucks were the reason Clare & Hungerford streets used to be a pair of one-ways.

The building where they loaded the finished cars was just north of the GTW, in between the 2 MLK bridges. There aren't a lot of pictures because there aren't any sidewalks on the inside of those bridges. It can be seen at the :31 sec point of my video from 1990. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i994pbrN4xU

The Verlinden plant didn't exist until 15 years after the RR was built, and it wasn't part of GM until 15 years after that.

[MP73point4]

My comments were geared toward the later days of production at Lansing Car Assembly. Say 1980's to close. I can't speak to operations before that period.
As noted above, the Verlinden plant was built as a Durant factory in the early 20s and didn't become a Fisher Body plant until the mid 1930s.
For a little bit more on LCA, see this site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lansing_Car_Assembly

[MiddleMI]

Car bodies were definitely trucked from Verlinden st. I assume those trucks were the reason Clare & Hungerford streets used to be a pair of one-ways.

The building where they loaded the finished cars was just north of the GTW, in between the 2 MLK bridges. There aren't a lot of pictures because there aren't any sidewalks on the inside of those bridges. It can be seen at the :31 sec point of my video from 1990. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i994pbrN4xU

The Verlinden plant didn't exist until 15 years after the RR was built, and it wasn't part of GM until 15 years after that.

Okay, thanks. Yeah, the building you are talking about is the one I believe I was (Building 150). It was the one that sat between the two legs of MLK. I figured it was used as the end of the line since it's right off the tracks. I've been told that from Building 150 the cars could either be taken over the south bridge across the rail spur (that came in from the west south of New Hollow Yard) that directly served LCA to an enclosed staging area directly along the GTW, or driven down a ramp coming out the west end of the building then under the southbound MLK bridge to the staging lots to the west.

This makes more sense now that I think about it. So despite being at the end of the Manufacturers Railroad, LCA communicated with GTW quite a bit more.

[Dan Cluley]

If you haven't checked out "Setting the Pace" see if you can find a copy. It's a history of Olds that has more detail than the wiki article.

[Tim]

From at least the mid 50s through the mid 60s the finished bodies from Fisher went by rail to the Olds Main Plant in 50 foot auto box cars. Came out of Fisher #7 track which was just inside the west side of the plant. Don’t know where they went at the Olds plant.

The LMR was universally referred to as the Belt and was organized 11/1904 with Oldsmobile owning all the stock. It was leased 50/50 to the MC and LS&MS when completed in 7/05. It served tracks 3 through 14 at the Olds Main Plant. I would assume that tracks 1 and 2 were on the GTW side. Track 14 at the far east end of the plant connected the Belt with the GTW and was on rare occasions used to transfer “hot” cars between the two. GTW never served anything on the Belt.

The two buildings between the Logan bridges were used to repair cars that came off the assembly line with problems. The other cars went directly to the rail or truck loading area.

The 12 track auto loading dock located under Logan was opened in 1984, before that it was smaller and was west of the sb Logan bridge.

The body trucks running between Fisher and Olds unloaded just west of the Center St (?) gate at Olds. Until sometime in the late 70s they loaded just east of the Belt on the Michigan Ave end. After that they built a bridge over the Belt and loaded just west of the tracks. They were paid by the trip hence the liberal interpretation of traffic lights.

[J T]

Car bodies were trucked between the Verlinden plant and the final Lansing Car Assembly plant, not sent by rail. God forbid if you got in the way of one of those trucks. Yellow, and even the beginning of red lights, meant nothing to those guys. There was only inbound stamping business at Verlinden.

Back in the late 70s/early 80s, my football team (Eastern) played at Sexton's stadium, right next to Fisher Body. Often times I found myself distracted by those trucks, and I liked to stand at the top of the stadium to watch them drive by. Sometimes that was more exciting than what was happening on the field.

[AARR]

Trains and trucks more interesting than the cheerleaders? . I understand .

Back in the late 70s/early 80s, my football team (Eastern) played at Sexton's stadium, right next to Fisher Body. Often times I found myself distracted by those trucks, and I liked to stand at the top of the stadium to watch them drive by. Sometimes that was more exciting than what was happening on the field.

[J T]

Trains and trucks more interesting than the cheerleaders? . I understand .

Back in the late 70s/early 80s, my football team (Eastern) played at Sexton's stadium, right next to Fisher Body. Often times I found myself distracted by those trucks, and I liked to stand at the top of the stadium to watch them drive by. Sometimes that was more exciting than what was happening on the field.

We had some ugly cheerleaders.

[MiddleMI]

Just a general question, but is JAIL only using this trackage for storage, these days? I'm rarely on this side of town, but I'd guess with all of the GM business gone that there probably aren't many if any customers left. I know Padnos is still very much in business, but I think they may literally be the only one. Are they still served by rail? Also, what was the name of the yard (if it had a formal name) just outside the former Lansing Metal Center.

[Hogger1225]

Before JAIL it was Saginaw Yard.