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Does anyone have any old maps or more specifically, diagrams, showing the track layout of New Hollow Yard in Lansing at its greatest extent? Discussions on another part of the forum and in correspondance I've had, here, describe a layout quite a bit different than it was, today, particularly where it interacted with the Old Hollow Yard just to the west-northwest.

And speaking of Old Hollow Yard, was it setup any different than it is, today?

I do not know if it was different at one time or not. From working down there and seeing it I did have some observations that may be of interest. I may have posted these before so forgive me if I am repeating myself.

I met a man who said he helped build New Hollow Yard. He said it was right after Penn Central was formed so in 1968 or 1969. He said it was built in the winter and in a big hurry.

When I was down there in 2010 I got the impression that New Hollow Yard may have been built to load autoracks. The east side of the stub end tracks looked like there was room for the ramps. And the parking lot on the north end looked like they could park the Oldsmobiles for loading there. And it was right across the street from the Oldsmobile plant. I presume the MLK overpass was there already in 1968. No one has ever confirmed my suspicion. And with all the yard tracks in Saginaw Yard and what amounted to a four-track mainline between the yard and almost to Old Hollow Yard, I don't see why in 1968 they would suddenly need more yard tracks for Oldsmobile, which was starting its decline.

In the 1970's GTW came up with an innovative plan to load Oldsmobiles right on their mainline next to the plant. If they were loading them in New Hollow Yard my guess is that GTW stole this business from PC and made New Hollow obsolete.

When JAIL started up in 2010 and was storing a lot of cars in Saginaw Yard for rental fees, they had so many that they also filled up New Hollow Yard with storage cars. I heard that GM found out and told them not to as GM owned New Hollow Yard, not the railroad, which was news to everyone but made sense. They probably paid PC to build it.

Old Hollow Yard didn't strike me as as much a holding yard as a maneuvering area to switching the Olds plant. The east end of it went down to a single track that went into the Olds plant. I envisioned it was for pulling out empties from the plant and putting them in Old Hollow Yard then shoving in loads that they brought from Saginaw Yard and left at Old Hollow Yard until the plant was emptied. Just guessing.

I asked the guy about the name "Hollow" and all he could come up with was the yard sat in a low area, or hollow. It must have been quite a pull of a string of cars up the hill to Saginaw Yard from there as it is also on a curve.

Edit: Yes, there was an overpass on Logan Street, by then, but it wouldn't be for another 10 years that you got the angled one-way bridge for the southbound lanes to the west.

I was able to find some answers from another local railfan. Apparently, "Old" Hollow Yard wasn't built as a yard, per se, rather, it was just the two mains and an interchange track with GTW, which became a small yard after the construction of New Hollow Yard. The old main was the northern-most track, the new main was the central track, and the interchange was the southern-most track. It appears the old and new mains met at a switch that would later be used for the old main to access New Hollow Yard, with the new main continuing through along the southern side of the yard before meeting with a switch off the interchange track, and then continuing into GM Lansing Car Assembly as the "Olds Main."

My only question remaining, really, is whether the old main currently continues east of the switch as the northern-most rail that provides access to the New Hollow Yard tracks, or if it ends at the switch and the new main serves the purpose of accessing New Hollow Yard.

BTW, yep, GM does own New Hollow Yard since late 2009. I doubt they ever plan on using the land for a railyard, again. Like all of the other property they've bought up in the area, they might end up having to use it for run-over storage. Such a shame with the vast amount of concrete over that way, now.

Lemme do some digging in my archives, I was on the crew that stuffed New Hollow Yard and Saginaw Yard with storage cars, as well as the guy that was fixing track the first two years of JAIL operation.

As far as GM owning the yard wouldn't surprise me. There was a rift between the guy at GE that managed the storage cars and the broker, so a week after we got the cars gridlocked into the yards, we had to go and cherry pick out cars they wanted until they were all gone. Some days we would drive up from Adrian, switch for 9 hours to dig out a dozen cars then drive back to Adrian. Got hammered with snow that winter and it was a blast trying to figure out which switches we could use with minimal repair. Some didn't have stands, some were missing throw rods, some had stock rails with no bends so you would derail trying to diverge. Fun was had by all!

Thank you for sharing your experiences. It is interesting to hear what you had to go through.

CAT345C wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 05, 2023 10:06 am

Lemme do some digging in my archives, I was on the crew that stuffed New Hollow Yard and Saginaw Yard with storage cars, as well as the guy that was fixing track the first two years of JAIL operation.

I noticed that google maps image when you go to the actual photo is how I remember this area. It shows cars on the CN interchange track which connects to New Main up the hill on the curve. Old Main has a switch off it to New Hollow Yard. They were not necessarily all in service in the early days and not all the switches were in service either as they were not all needed. There was only room for a locomotive at the east end past the switch between Old and New Mains as the track was out of service past there, though it still went into the Olds Plant.

Hollow Yard was there when I hired out in late '68 and was just the three tracks extending from Olds Ave to about where the current New Main and interchange switch are. New Hollow was built during the winter of '72-73 for Olds cars. At this time both Olds and Fisher were receiving 60 to 75 cars each day and new capacity was needed. The Old Main was the north one with the ones to the south being Hollow 1, 2, 3 and 4. There was a set trailing crossovers going east near the center of these tracks to allow access from the Main to the two tracks to the south. I think 1 and 2 were the inside tracks and 3 and 4 the south ones.
The GTW interchange was at Cedar St until a serious derailment at the Planet Corp switch north of the current Padnos in 3/1969 resulted in a lack of engines to switch GM on Monday morning. The Hollow interchange was build as an emergency track shortly thereafter to prevent the reoccurrence of a similar event. It was several years later before the interchange point was moved from Cedar St to the Hollow as there was insufficient room in the Hollow at the time to handle the volume of traffic.
There never was any thoughts of handling multilevel loading on the New Hollow stub end tracks. At one time it was rumored they would load from the parking lot near the west end of the south Hollow track. That's all it was, just a rumor.
And it was a tough pull to get out of the Hollow going to Saginaw Yard.

MiddleMI wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 31, 2023 6:52 am

Does anyone have any old maps or more specifically, diagrams, showing the track layout of New Hollow Yard in Lansing at its greatest extent?

For a bit of help, you can go to: https://www.historicaerials.com/viewer
Type in Lansing, MI, click on Aerials on the left, then the year you want to look at. Can zoom in and see decent..might not be able to see the switches super well though.

Tim wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 06, 2023 10:17 am

Hollow Yard was there when I hired out in late '68 and was just the three tracks extending from Olds Ave to about where the current New Main and interchange switch are. New Hollow was built during the winter of '72-73 for Olds cars. At this time both Olds and Fisher were receiving 60 to 75 cars each day and new capacity was needed. The Old Main was the north one with the ones to the south being Hollow 1, 2, 3 and 4. There was a set trailing crossovers going east near the center of these tracks to allow access from the Main to the two tracks to the south. I think 1 and 2 were the inside tracks and 3 and 4 the south ones.
The GTW interchange was at Cedar St until a serious derailment at the Planet Corp switch north of the current Padnos in 3/1969 resulted in a lack of engines to switch GM on Monday morning. The Hollow interchange was build as an emergency track shortly thereafter to prevent the reoccurrence of a similar event. It was several years later before the interchange point was moved from Cedar St to the Hollow as there was insufficient room in the Hollow at the time to handle the volume of traffic.
There never was any thoughts of handling multilevel loading on the New Hollow stub end tracks. At one time it was rumored they would load from the parking lot near the west end of the south Hollow track. That's all it was, just a rumor.
And it was a tough pull to get out of the Hollow going to Saginaw Yard.

There's only three tracks in the "old" part (Old Main, New Main & the interchange track, from north to south), and this looks to have been the case for a long time judging on the track diagram I was eventually able to find; was there once a 4th? Also, had you not been getting my messages?

I remember seeing old Penn Central boxcars at Hollow Yard in the 1980s and maybe in the early 1990s.

The crossovers in the middle of the three tracks made the south two into four separate tracks. These crossovers went away when the new Hollow Yard was built 50 years ago so no evidence of them remains.

What are the names/uses for the four CN tracks in this area?
I'm guessing the southern-most track is CN's main, the one north is the Thoroughfare, and then the other two are like passing sidings or something?