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I had a change of plans on my birthday this past Saturday so I went out for a few hours to watch trains

IC 3101 at CN Schaefer Yard



GTW 4619 crossing over the Conrail Junction Runner at Schaefer Jct



Crossing the drive at AK Steel



Pulling into the Ford Rouge Plant





NS BD07 under the Fort St. bridge, bring empty coke hoppers from Zug Island





Detroit Salt



Back at Schaefer Jet. 4619 over Schaefer Highway



GTW and IC power



The DT&I arches



Yard job at Oakwood



NS B70 running light to Milan, MI



CP T27 with a matched set of ex-SOO SD60s



NS 196 with an ex-SOO SD60





GTW 5817



Switching the Ford Rouge plant







NS steel train (60K?) on the Conrail Junction Runner





5817 crossing over Conrail



CSX Y194 on the ex-Wabash Boat Line pulling empty coke hoppers off of Zug Island

What is this strange arched pole for?

Pixl wrote:What is this strange arched pole for?

THAT, is an "End of the line"pole. Only used on engine tracks. The DT&I also had a ( one ) steel arch. Cost too much, that is why Henry made the concrete ones.

Thanks for posting, OGuage. I enjoyed looking.

Is CN/IC a GP40-2 or straight 40? Did not know either was still on the roster.

BD07 paced alongside of CP 241. Coke to Zug Island is moving by rail more than ship now with lakes frozen in winter.

Ns BD07 & CP 241 - Ecorse Jct by tcamp7837, on Flickr

NS 196 had CP 6239 leading.

NS 196, CP 6239 - Oakwood Yd by tcamp7837, on Flickr

Nice! Enjoyed looking.

AARR wrote:Thanks for posting, OGuage. I enjoyed looking.

Is CN/IC a GP40-2 or straight 40? Did not know either was still on the roster.

It is a GP40R, rebuilt in the late 80's

that gives a really good visual of what detroit railroading is all about.

There used to be a spur which went under that "half" arch, where GTW would tie down their motive power sometimes. Other times they would just leave it on one of the tracks closer to the diamond and tower. I didn't realize how much track consolidation had happened there until I just looked at Google Maps. Three tracks used to cross the Conrail on the GTW side in the late 90s/early 00s. At some point, the entire spur under the arch was removed and a much shorter spur was installed, which exists today.

The Schaefer area used to be a great place to see a variety of GTW power sitting if you were satisfied with roster shots.

Here's some photos from 1998 to show the then-arrangement:

Otherwise Ogauge, great shots! A good chronicle of SW Detroit area railroading. I enjoyed the Schaefer photos as that's an area I used to regularly pass by (clearly), and the trains coming and going around the AK Steel gates right across Schaefer Road. Also good to see more coke traffic moving on the Boat Yard line this time of year, too. Probably no more lake boat traffic there until mid-late March.