GM Hamtramck PoleTown Plant

[AARR]

Here is some interesting background about GM's PoleTown plant from another board that will eventually fall off and be lost so I am posting it here to be archived for future reference.

Posted by dtslman on 12/15/2013, 2:26 pm, in reply to "Re: GM Hamtramck update"
50.33.165.83
A little history. When they were originally constructing this plant in the mid-1980's I happened to work some of the jobs that brought in the welded rail, which was welded at the GTW's welded rail plant then in existence in Battle Creek, MI. Believe it or not, the connection to the GTW to enable the GTW to bring the rail into the plant was originally hooked-up to the trackage on the east side of the Milwaukee Jct. roundhouse (the Inbound Fuel Track). The viaduct over Hamtramck Drive had not yet been constructed at that time.

Interestingly, as the rail was laid and the track completed, Conrail also built their own lead into the B.O.C. Plant from the east side with the intention of building a grade crossing over Mt. Elliott. Shortly before the yard and plant opened, the GTW had discussions with Conrail and while I can honestly say that I do not know the terms of the discussion, the net result was that Conrails new lead and trackage was dismantled! At this point, the GTW was to assume ALL switching within the confines of B.O. C. Yard!

Now I have to take exception to one thing that Mr. Borg stated. Before the plant opened there were two completed tracks built within the plant, which ran from the north side of the plant through to the south. Each was accessible from either side. Each track was built in a "well" and had a concrete dock on each side. Shortly before the plant opened it was apparently decided that ALL parts for automotive production would arrive via truck and a contractor was brought in and filled each of the wells with sand and then paved over the rails with concrete. Thus, the trucks would drive into the plant from one side and exit from the other. Special semis designed for off-loading from each side were utilized. If you were to dig down, the welded rail is still inside the plant! To this day, not a single carload of autoparts has ever entered that plant!

Now about the coal. When the plant first opened and I was on the very first job to switch the plant, we brought the coal in in hoppers. This lasted for several years. Then GM decided that if the coal arrived by truck, the driver could dump the load himself. The rail operation required two UAW employees; but only one was necessary for coal received by truck. Thus the receipt of coal by rail stopped and NEVER returned...even though the freight rates on coal by rail was cheaper. Interestingly, the coal, which used to come from southern Ohio was trucked directly from the mine. The mine was served by the Ohio Central Railroad and they would have loved to have retained this additional business. When the B.O.C. Plant was first constructed the nearby Chevrolet Gear & Axle and Forge Plants had their own boiler house, which provided the steam to serve their own plants. When the new B.O.C. Plant was opened after a year or so, a piped was constructed running from the B.O.C. operation to Gear and Axle and this allowed them to dismantle the G&A boiler house. This operation was later acquired by American Axle and the entire production facility was shut-down and ALL railroad track within the Gear & Axle facility was dismantled too.

At times when changes were made within the plant gons would be furnished for scrap loading by contractors to remove outdated machinery. Aside from tri-levels, these were the only other cars ever loaded (or unloaded) at this facility.

In closing, before the B.O. C. Plant first opened, the GTW envisioned that it was going to have at least two crews per shift switching that facility. Because the GTW never had the parts business, at the very best one engine for a part of each shift switching the ramps was the most business that the GTW ever had within the plants confines.

Lastly, as I was on the first job that ever switched that plant and I also had the distinction of working the last CN assignment, which pulled the last of the storage cars out of B.O.C. Yard.

In my opinion, operations Never materialized for the railroad the way they imagined and truthfully, I don't thing that they ever have for GM either! Just saying...

Posted by Ron on 12/15/2013, 7:24 pm, in reply to "Re: GM Hamtramck update"
98.209.192.37
I can add a couple notes to this also.

Back when it was being constructed I was working as a supervisor in Lansing.

I was asked to get all of the information I could about the Conrail track between Jackson and Lansing.

I spent three or four days driving up and down through there and talking with the businesses there about the number of cars they handled each year. I measured the industry tracks lenghts from the swith points to their gates or property lines.

The Trainmaster in Lansing got together some figures for the amount of traffic Conrail was getting from Oldsmobile, and together we sent our information to Detroit.

We were told that the GTW was going to offer up the BOC Hamtramck Plant to Conrail in exchange for the Jackson - Lansing trackage.

I never heard any details, but one day it was dropped and GTW was going to get BOC Hamtramck.

Also those two tracks that looped around the huge plant and entered it from each side were connected. It was designed to have an engine pull in one side right through the plant and cut away from the cars and leave out the other end.

At least that was my understanding and all the maps of the complex showed it that way. I will agree though that there was never any loads of auto parts spotted in that plant.

There was a lot of money spent on rail structure that was never used. And the whole yard was built on a curve. And access to the BOC Yard was via that bridge over Hamtramck Drive. A derailment on that bridge, a couple did happen, would cause many problems because most of the crews going on and off duty left their locomotives inside the BOC Yard.

The GTW did get a lot of automobile loads out of there.

Ron

[Stinger4me]

Back in '67 and '68 I think the Grand Trunk had a switch job assigned to the Chevrolet Gear & Axle plant on each shift. That plant later became American Axle IIRC. There were switch jobs which were more appealing to me, D&M yard or East Yard. The Axle plant job was really very noisy and for a new guy who didn't know all of the plants it was a PITA. The yard jobs were easier to deal with than the factory switch jobs.

Stinger

[AARR]

At around the time American Axle & Manufacturing was removing all the track from their property (spurs and small yard) I had an opportunity to talk to the Facilities Manager (who was in charge of removing everything). He sat in on the meetings in which the decision to remove all the tracks was decided and heard what the issues were.

He said their biggest issue with railroads was consistency of service. For example, they received rebar from Pittsburg and sometime it would take a week and others 3 weeks. They weren't as concerned if it was 1 or 3 weeks as long as it could be consistent.

When they talked to GTW (who made the final delivery) about what could be done they were very dissatisfied with the response, in fact they were quite irate, and this contributed to their decision to rid themselves of anything rail related and not even keep the spurs around to help keep trucking costs competitive. They spent over $100,000 to remove all the track and were budgeting for additional transportation costs to bring the steel in by truck.

[Stinger4me]

Back in '68 we started to see all switches getting letter and number designations, i.e. D 12, to designate their position in the system. The talk was going around about the bar codes on cars and scanners to read this information. During that era this was ultra high technology procedures. In the same period the GTW had a hot-shot piggy back train running between Detroit and Chicago. Advancing to the time of American Axle plant, the railroad can't be consistent enough to let their customers know whey they will get products. Maybe this phrase applies, "can't fix stupid".

[hoborich]

That GTW Detroit-Chicago hotshot was probably 429, which picked up all of our westbound autos and trucks at Pontiac. He would pickup in Pontiac, and highball to Lansing, and pickup the Oldsmobiles. I believe the Detroit crew took it as far as Battle Creek. That was before the 12 hour law, and I don't recall any crews going dead back in the day.
When the Poletown plant was just a rumor, there were many house and business fires, day and night in the area. At the time, it was the hottest area for fires. Because of the plant rumors, nobody could sell their house or business, so they burned it and sold it to the insurance companies.

[Stinger4me]

You have a pretty good memory. That train started at the D&M yard on Holbrook next to Chevy Gear 7 Axle plant. I think it was 428 & 429 and there may have been a 426 & 427 from the same yard. The 401 and 402 started up in Port Huron and ran down to the Lang Yard. There was a D&TSL train which came up from Ohio. Those may have been the only trains starting and finishing in Detroit with freight. The 401 would pull into the East Yard late in the afternoon, set out, pick up and head south. Back then there was also a hot-shot piggy back train and that one may have started down at the City Yard which was next to Robin Hood Flour MIll, prior to the start of the Renaissance Center. I think the piggy back train hauled many reefer semis headed to Chicago. They ran to Battle Creek and picked up a new crew and were off to the Windy City. This brings back some memories of East Yard, a switch crew at each end of the yard and Matt Palmer being the yardmaster on the afternoon shift.

[hoborich]

Ha. Speaking of "prior to the Renaissance Center", we ran three commuters from Pontiac down to Brush st station in the morning and back in the evening. Those were plum jobs for the old heads. They would keep a car down at Brush st, and spend the day downtown. They often spent the day fishing in the Detroit river. Then they would bring a train back in the afternoon.
I do recall some DTSL engines turning at Pontiac from time to time, but they were usually on a different shift.

[Stinger4me]

How large was the yard(s) in Pontiac?

[AARR]

How large was the yard(s) in Pontiac?

Pretty big flat yard. When Pontiac was the orgin of a handful of locals, serviced 5-6 large auto related plants, and a handful of yard jobs per shift they would switch around 1000 cars per day.

[Stinger4me]

I'm not sure they handled that many cars per day in the yards in Detroit.

[hoborich]

I don't remember how many tracks, but it was a big yard, and was double ended. We had "east" and "west" end yard jobs, working the yard from both ends. Those were in addition to the PMC jobs, which took over the drags full of parts, switched the plant and brought back the finished autos. There were two PMC jobs on days and afternoons. We had Pontiac motors, parts in and finished autos out. We had GM Truck and Coach, AKA "yellow cab", and the "yellow cab job". "Sam Allen was a big scrap dealer for us. We had a scale track, and did a lot of weighing cars of scrap. There was a cleaning track and a rip trackWe had the Jackson local Monday thru Friday. We had three commuters each way, Monday thru Friday. We had the PO&N local, Pontiac, Oxford and Northern, a couple days a week. They went up through the thumb, to Pidgeon or Gagetown and brought back gravel from the Oxford pits. We also had a Richmond local, that ran a couple days a week.
There were no radios yet, back in the 60s. But we had a speaker system along the lead, with two way speakers every 100 feet or so.
The yard office was located at Johnson Ave. It's been gone for years. I was by there a couple years ago, and hardly recognized the area.

[AARR]

Stinger4me wrote:How large was the yard(s) in Pontiac?

Pretty big flat yard. When Pontiac was the orgin of a handful of locals, serviced 5-6 large auto related plants, and a handful of yard jobs per shift they would switch around 1000 cars per day.

I'm not sure they handled that many cars per day in the yards in Detroit.

In the days that Johnson Yard was handling 1000 cars a day it only originated locals and yard jobs. All manifests originated at other GTW or D&TS locations.

[Stinger4me]

It certainly appears there was more activity in Pontiac than Detroit. Sometime in late '67 or early '68 the Ferndale yard was reopened. I was assigned there for a short time. I hear that is now an intermodal yard. I recall that GTW made interchanges at the West Detroit yard. At East Yard they interchanged with the NYC, then PC. We took drags from Ferndale to East Yard and then from East Yard to the DTRR yard on Davison. If I went back to Motown I doubt I would be able to recognize very much. My time at the Grand Trunk was very interesting, met some interesting folks and some very unusual characters. Thanks for your input.

Stinger

[AARR]

Sometime in late '67 or early '68 the Ferndale yard was reopened. I was assigned there for a short time. I hear that is now an intermodal yard.

I forget the year (mid to late 1980's perhaps) when it was converted to an intermodal yard (Moterm). After a slow start GTW was running up to 3 trains in and 3 out and losing money on almost every carload. They just couldn't figure out how to make a profit on the short Chicago/Toronto runs.

Now, they don't even have enough to run a whole train there but I think they make a profit on the little business they do. I'd guess they get 20-40 cars a day from out west and about half that from Toronto.

[Stinger4me]

If you are in Chicago or Toronto, the economic climate if considerably different than Michigan, let alone Detroit. Do you have any historical information considering the "trainmasters" in Detroit in the late 60's? I can recall there were two brothers, I think the last name was Bordnick, John and NIck, but I think their roles were General Yardmaster assigned to MIlw. Jct.. Maybe the trainmasters name was Dick Turner.

[hoborich]

I believe Charlie Stack was the trainmaster at Pontiac around 1966,67, followed by John Shilling.
Vito Pacetti was the trainmaster at C&Os Oak yard, later when I hired over to the C&O.
I believe Jim Ward was trainmaster at Rougemere, around the 70s.

[bacaone]

Does any remember Raymond Chaput a friend of mine that worked at Hamtramck yard back in 1966-1972. Any information on yard conditions back then. I remember him saying two brothers were both trainmasters.

[ConrailDetr​oit]

A Shuttlewagon is currently moving autoracks around at GM Poletown.

[Manistique]

The State of Michigan built Hamtramck Yard and yard office. It was part of the incentive to get GM to build the plant. GTW/CN got in trouble when the plant was either closed or stopped shipping cars by rail by using the yard as a storage yard for themselves for a number of years without paying the State to do so. That was when CN pulled out the switch to it at Clay Avenue.

Conrail's recent access to the plant and yard was just on previous NYC right of way on their former Belt Line track on the east side of the plant that was pulled up when the plant was built.

[joeyuboats]

Sort of familiar with that area, but my question is--- the old CR line that went to the Packard Plant ends somewhere close to this area, so that makes it a switchback now to get into the Poletown GM plant, correct??