Great detail shots of small things most likely over looked, like how the conductor when airing up a new cut of cars, turns the angle-cock slowly at first, then opens it all the way and how he always returns to the engineer's side of the train so as to be seen by the engineer. Great video!
street running even in industrial areas are becoming something of the past. maybe it was cheaper and more reliable to ship by truck. However, I am a rail lover and would miss the train too. esp. that nice melodical horn on that engine.
I'm from Grand Rapids. The last hundred yards or so leading up to the wagon shed for the press has been covered with concrete when the road was repaved, but the rest of the spur actually still does exist.
This is like night, and day: This video is the before the railing got covered up....the other CZcams video is after the railing...like some 26-27 years later....sad to see it all gone now, same as here in Winnipeg...we use to have alot of working spurs, now we have very, very little.
This line is now relegated to history. Please allow this old man to pass on some historical facts. This small spur which eventually connected the original Detroit Grand Haven and Milwaukee Railway (DGH&M) completed in 1858; and which the Great Western had owned since 1877, and only later in 1928 did it become the Grand Trunk Western Railroad. Much later did the Grand Rapids Press building on Fulton and Sheldon move to this location which was built in 1966. It should be noted that although some sources suggested otherwise, this building was never a railroad station. The sole purpose for this spur was to reduce previous passenger horse drawn carriage travel time from the original 1858 GGH&M station on the south side of Ann Street at Indian Mill Creek to downtown Grand Rapids. A “new” brick passenger station built in 1906 at Michigan Street which was demolished in 1959 to make way for the present U.S. Post Office built for that purpose. Because of the terrain near the river, each passenger train had to be backed into the station and would have to be switched onto the wye in order to head either East or West bound. Only after several years beginning in 1890, did a freight spur split to the east at Coldbrook Street and down along Bond Avenue, serving the former Berkey & Gay factory. The southernmost trestle that formed part of the wye at Monroe and Sweet was removed in 2009. Additional freight spurs ran north and south on both sides of Taylor Avenue just north of Leonard. Also, please note the extra width of both the existing North street overpass bridge and the Grand River bridge were originally planned to accommodate future double tracks, which were never realized. While most viewers probably will never know, or care about the history of this miniscule part of Grand rapids, I thought someone somewhere might want to witness history in as a commendable part of that railroad's past.
Mark,Thank you for your interest in obscure Grand Rapids History.In the event that you may not be familiar with the commercial purpose of the original East/West DGH&M Railroad running from Detroit onto Grand Haven then onto Wisconsin until the late 50's..This Road was originally intended as a route for a Transcontinal route to the West Coast. As for the West section of original route, you'll find all tracks from Grand Haven have been removed East to Coopersville. On that original route from the East, all tracks have been removed from Durand West to Lowell. And, terminating at Lowell, all tracks emanating from Greenville have been relegated to a bike trail. Consequentially, there is no East West route for shipments East of Amway in Ada (a few miles west into GR.)ndeed, Mark, I can envision a few years from now, with theone excepr exception of you..with perhapse the exceptoionof you.but perhaps you... will ever bother to know about the very first East-West rail entrance into and out of Grand Rapids...which in the mid 1850's was so very important to the development of a thriving city.
Greetings Happy Man - last week my daughter gave me the news that her and her husband are moving my only 2 grandsons from my hometown of Fresno CA to Michigan (near Detroit). I'm not done brainwashing (hehe!) my grandsons to be true railfans yet, but hope that the starter lessons on trains will keep them involved once they move. I have a dose of cancer and I'm afraid I'll not be able to travel back to visit, so will have to rely on the internet for future "training". I know your letter is 3 years old, but do you have any suggestions for this grandpa to help focus his grandsons' hunt for trains in MI? Thank you and keep smiling!
I am glad you were able to make a video of this box car switching. With electronic paper and video displays getting better, there might not be newspapers available anymore.
The line is abbandoned now and it's a damn shame because you look at the remains of the line today and you compare it to back then, it's really sad how bad the line got.
Unfortunately, modern railroading is more about PSR and the low operating ratio, than it is about serving customers. The big boys want to be able to couple on to a long cut of cars and pull it to a point as far away as possible, with no switching or breaking up the train, or changing crews. They forget that a car has to have a starting place and an ending place. Even most of your short lines are owned by a larger entity; hence Wall Street and stock price is a big consideration with them, too! No time for picking up or setting out small blocks of cars. The short lines were supposed to take up the slack, where Class 1’s didn’t want to go. I think the reason these places are quitting rail is lack of customer service, reliable service, Class 1’s raising rates too high (although it’s still probably cheaper to ship rail). Some of these businesses also probably close their doors simply due to the high cost of doing business these days, or they are simply obsolete and not needed anymore?!
I don't understand why industries would change to truck service when rail cars can carry many times more of product or raw materials. It's sad when rail service is discontinued.
Cheaper. Unfortunately a lot of businesses have gone to this option. For instance, on the old C&O St. Louis Sub, (Now MMRR) in Alma there is Terry Materials. They make asphalt, they used to take about 5 tank cars at a time and send it somewhere south to another one of their company's. Long story short, they realized how cheap it would be to haul it out on truck and went with this option. There hasn't been a car in there for about 3 years now.
it's all about freight rates. sure the boxcar can haul four times what one truck can. but how much does the railroad charge for hauling four times as what that truck can haul??? if the cost is too high, it's good bye rail, hello truck.
cool old CP cars - i love watching switchers meandering through the industrial part of the city like that
Great detail shots of small things most likely over looked, like how the conductor when airing up a new cut of cars, turns the angle-cock slowly at first, then opens it all the way and how he always returns to the engineer's side of the train so as to be seen by the engineer. Great video!
street running even in industrial areas are becoming something of the past. maybe it was cheaper and more reliable to ship by truck. However, I am a rail lover and would miss the train too. esp. that nice melodical horn on that engine.
Wow! 2 Detroit and mackinaw Box cars! You don't see those anymore…
I regret to tell you the GR Press doesn't get any rail service anymore, period. Another fantastic video!
I'm from Grand Rapids. The last hundred yards or so leading up to the wagon shed for the press has been covered with concrete when the road was repaved, but the rest of the spur actually still does exist.
This is like night, and day: This video is the before the railing got covered up....the other CZcams video is after the railing...like some 26-27 years later....sad to see it all gone now, same as here in Winnipeg...we use to have alot of working spurs, now we have very, very little.
This line is now relegated to history.
Please allow this old man to pass on some historical facts.
This small spur which eventually connected the original Detroit Grand Haven and Milwaukee Railway (DGH&M) completed in 1858; and which the Great Western had owned since 1877, and only later in 1928 did it become the Grand Trunk Western Railroad. Much later did the Grand Rapids Press building on Fulton and Sheldon
move to this location which was built in 1966. It should be noted that although some sources suggested otherwise, this building was never a railroad station. The sole purpose for this spur was to reduce previous passenger horse drawn carriage travel time from the original 1858 GGH&M station on the south side of Ann Street at Indian Mill Creek to downtown Grand Rapids. A “new” brick passenger station built in 1906 at Michigan Street which was demolished in 1959 to make way for the present U.S. Post Office built for that purpose. Because of the terrain near the river, each passenger train had to be backed into the station and would have to be switched onto the wye in order to head either East or West bound. Only after several years beginning in 1890, did a freight spur split to the east at Coldbrook Street and down along Bond Avenue, serving the former Berkey & Gay factory. The southernmost trestle that formed part of the wye at Monroe and Sweet was removed in 2009. Additional freight spurs ran north and south on both sides of Taylor Avenue just north of Leonard. Also, please note the extra width of both the existing North street overpass bridge and the Grand River bridge were originally planned to accommodate future double tracks, which were never realized.
While most viewers probably will never know, or care about the history of this miniscule part of Grand rapids, I thought someone somewhere might want to witness history in as a commendable part of that railroad's past.
lostallmymirth very good history lesson.
Mark,Thank you for your interest in obscure Grand Rapids History.In the event that you may not be familiar with the commercial purpose of the original East/West DGH&M Railroad running from Detroit onto Grand Haven then onto Wisconsin until the late 50's..This Road was originally intended as a route for a Transcontinal route to the West Coast. As for the West section of original route, you'll find all tracks from Grand Haven have been removed East to Coopersville. On that original route from the East, all tracks have been removed from Durand West to Lowell. And, terminating at Lowell, all tracks emanating from Greenville have been relegated to a bike trail. Consequentially, there is no East West route for shipments East of Amway in Ada (a few miles west into GR.)ndeed, Mark, I can envision a few years from now, with theone excepr exception of you..with perhapse the exceptoionof you.but perhaps you... will ever bother to know about the very first East-West rail entrance into and out of Grand Rapids...which in the mid 1850's was so very important to the development of a thriving city.
Greetings Happy Man - last week my daughter gave me the news that her and her husband are moving my only 2 grandsons from my hometown of Fresno CA to Michigan (near Detroit). I'm not done brainwashing (hehe!) my grandsons to be true railfans yet, but hope that the starter lessons on trains will keep them involved once they move. I have a dose of cancer and I'm afraid I'll not be able to travel back to visit, so will have to rely on the internet for future "training". I know your letter is 3 years old, but do you have any suggestions for this grandpa to help focus his grandsons' hunt for trains in MI? Thank you and keep smiling!
Nice video - it is a shame this is a thing of the past. Gotta wonder..... Thanks for posting this!
I am glad you were able to make a video of this box car switching.
With electronic paper and video displays getting better, there might not be newspapers available anymore.
The junk mail industry seems to be doing fine.
Andrew Falconer Andrew! 8 years ago you wrote this!
Enjoyable video, good audio as well.
Artists at work..Very smooth switching and mounting and dismounting of the cars..
brakie44820
Guys made it look easy.
Switched this place quite a few times 3 in 3 out 5 days a week! We usually did it late at night
Cool video!
I always wondered what happened to Eddie Albert. He works on this here railroad!
No Trevor, this is before the GRE was incorporated. This track later became part of GRE.
Damm check out the old CP Green boxcars . Paper, dying industry
Yeah and they aren't spraiy painted with graffiti yet...that's a blast from the past. Miss those clean car days.
The press is somewhere in walker. I use to work for them
mygirl22ward, do you have any other footage of trains on this spur? Would love to see a train at the Leonard crossing.
Hey what industry is (was) that where the brown boxcars were parked? I think it's a Jimmy John's/Apartment building now.
I see a lot more of those plugdoor boxcars than I do the sliding door ones. Probably because they seal tighter.
Is there still customer's down there, or is that line abandon (asks one who lived in East Grand Rapids in the mid 70's)
The line is abbandoned now and it's a damn shame because you look at the remains of the line today and you compare it to back then, it's really sad how bad the line got.
can I ask what form is the paper in to go into box cars?
thanks Dave
From what I have seen, the paper is shipped in giant rolls almost as wide as the boxcar and probably 8 feet in diameter.
Big rolls
Was that a Pinto that crossed the tracks?????
It's ashame that they don't bring it in by train anymore. Trains carry so much more than trucks and don't make nearly as much pollution as trucks.
Switching like this pollutes a lot more than trucks.
My dad used to work downtown.
Just watched a video of what has become of that spur. Sad.
Unfortunately, modern railroading is more about PSR and the low operating ratio, than it is about serving customers. The big boys want to be able to couple on to a long cut of cars and pull it to a point as far away as possible, with no switching or breaking up the train, or changing crews.
They forget that a car has to have a starting place and an
ending place. Even most of your
short lines are owned by a larger entity; hence Wall Street
and stock price is a big consideration with them, too!
No time for picking up or setting out small blocks of cars.
The short lines were supposed to take up the slack, where Class 1’s didn’t want to go. I think the reason these places are quitting rail is lack of customer service, reliable service, Class 1’s raising rates
too high (although it’s still
probably cheaper to ship rail).
Some of these businesses also
probably close their doors simply due to the high cost of
doing business these days, or they are simply obsolete and not needed anymore?!
Wouldn't this still be GRE?
I don't understand why industries would change to truck service when rail cars can carry many times more of product or raw materials. It's sad when rail service is discontinued.
Cheaper. Unfortunately a lot of businesses have gone to this option. For instance, on the old C&O St. Louis Sub, (Now MMRR) in Alma there is Terry Materials. They make asphalt, they used to take about 5 tank cars at a time and send it somewhere south to another one of their company's. Long story short, they realized how cheap it would be to haul it out on truck and went with this option. There hasn't been a car in there for about 3 years now.
Cadden Zank sounds like the business I work at...but then again it made room for the new freezer unit to keep stock in
it's all about freight rates. sure the boxcar can haul four times what one truck can. but how much does the railroad charge for hauling four times as what that truck can haul??? if the cost is too high, it's good bye rail, hello truck.
@@25mfd Labor costs for carload switching and maintaining branch lines for only a few customers are very high.
So sad they ripped this up. I get sad whenever I see the sections that they didn't take out and just left to rot
What! No snot nose foamer kids trying to tell us how to railroad in the comment section? I won't havin' it..! lol
The brakeman looks a bit stiff like he has arthritis. He probably retired soon after this video.