Grandpa's Railroad Movies Detroit & Southeast Michigan 1930s to 1960s
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- čas přidán 16. 08. 2019
- My grandfather shot 16mm railroad movies from the 1930s thru the 1960s, which I now have in my possession. Around 1986 I had them transferred to VHS, then later to disk...now I am digitizing them. This video is the footage around Detroit and the Southeast Michigan area. There is steam, early diesel and a little electric action. GTW, NYC, C&O, Wabash, and PRR are shown. Most of the diesels are so shiny, freight cars had no graffiti....and check out how steam fan trips were run back then!....
![Detroit, Michigan 1920s in color [60fps, Remastered] w/sound design added](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/-9FptqLUrSI/mqdefault.jpg)
Every frame of the movie record is a treasure. You and your grandfather are real heros for preserving these stories.
Thanks a million for your granddad 's railroad films and your preserving them for future generations to learn about Southeast Michigan's history with passenger and freight trains. I greatly enjoyed the journey to the past and it's richness. As a longtime railway buff, I find this a huge treasure.
Nice video. My family settled On Harbaugh Street in Delray Detroit in the early 1920's. They lived behind the fence to the railroad yard. My great-grandfather was an engineer on a Wabash coal train running from West Virginia to Northern Michigan. His cousin was an engineer on a yard switcher in the Delray Yard. The story goes that my Great-Grandfather's locomotive was so big that it had to be driven in reverse back to Detroit because there was no turntable north of Detroit that it could fit on! Sadly, my Great-Grandfather died in the late 1940's shortly after retiring, and my family moved from Delray when GM tore down the neighborhood to build the Fleetwood plant in 1951. Lots of great stories my Dad, Uncle, and Grandparents used to have. There's a lot of photos in boxes somewhere of my Great-Grandfather standing in front of his locomotive. My Uncle still has my Great-Grandfather's locomotive lights somewhere in his basement.
Just went by the Delray Tower on 75 , looks sad all boarded up with no rail movements around.
I realize this was 3 years ago but I just seen this.
Thank You so much for sharing these, these are EXTREMELY COOL. I wish your Grandfather was able to film more. What a time capsule. 👍
Judging by your size in 1964 we are about the same age, I was born in '58.
I checked out your website, I see I have some more videos to l👀k at.
Thank you for posting! This brought back so many memories of talking to my grandfather about the heyday of railroading in MI. He lived in Portland and took many b&w photos, which I now have, from Grand Rapids to Detroit in the late 30's early 40's. Once the diesels took over he pretty much lost interest. He also belonged to some Michigan RR club that took trips all over the surrounding states. Great to see some of the stuff I recognize from his photos in motion. You did very well preserving this history!.
Thank you to your grandfather for filming these and to you as well for preserving this history. These are great!
Loved your movies. I know well the problems with old dried out film and splicing. My grandmother lived down near the Ambassador bridge in Detroit. When me and my brother would spend a few days at grandmas, she would take us down to the foot of West Grand Blvd to watch trains. We always loved to see the Pere Marquette streamliner coming by, on the way into Fort Street Union Terminal. At night we could hear the steam switchers switching the Boat Yard and the boat whistles on the river. So glad I lived those years.
My great grandparents came from Italy in the late 1800's with my great uncle Alfonze. Grandpa was first in our family born here. I'm told that my great grandfather was a design architect/ engineer and took part in the construction of the wooden ships in Ashtabula harbor. The railroads and harbor were the original anchor of the town, then other industries sprang up. I wish someone in the family would have had the foresight to film the daily activities and stages of growth along with the railroads, harbor, and other manufacturing areas. Grandma was a nurse and grandpa a judge. They knew everyone. Grandpa would take me down to the interlocking tower on where the harbor lines crossed the water level route. I'll never forget the way the locomotives shook the buildings as they clawed their way upgrade to the harbor yards, or thundered by at speed on the water level mains.
First generation locomotives, caboose, whistles and horns announcing intent, the banging of couplers, the siren on the bascule bridge, tug boats assisting with the berthing and departure of Lakers, the never ending ballet of dozers, loaders, cranes, trucks, and trailers etc.
NO graffiti, folks greeted and spoke to one another -- sounds like something from outer space these days. Sure was a different time.
awesome video! thank you! born and raised in Romulus, about 1 mile from where the C&O and the Wabash RR tracks crossed. Grandpa retired from the DT&I
Just plain great stuff, thanks so much for sharing. Decades back I used to visit my mother in Frankenmuth and then sneak out over to the C&O yard in Saginaw. Back then they'd let you on the property to take pictures as long as you stayed away from the locomotives. It was a glorious time; today I think that yard is all but shut down as it went the way of the auto industry. Thanks again, brings back a lot of fond memories.
Lake state railroad just put a bunch of money into the yard, within the last 2 years, rail traffic has increased 10 fold from Saginaw south. However not as busy as it was, but pretty busy.
GREAT VIDEO. Thanks for the video. New subscriber. As a Michigan drafted disabled Republic of Vietnam combat veteran '68, farm boy. I grew up near Durand. My g grandmother, grandmother's mother, lived in Durand. My g grandfather, grandfather's father, lived in Durand. I took my first steam train ride about 1960 in Durand. Our cousin was the first woman general in the Army, started life near Durand, and finished school at U. of Michigan. Our cousin Brewer was Grand Funk Railroad took the name from Grand Trunk Railroad because he was from around Durand. Video brought back many memories. Eaglegards...
During the mid 1950's and beyond, I was born and raised within eye site from my family kitchen windows of the Delray Train Tower.
I got to see the remaining steam locomotives go by, along with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum Bailey circus train heading into Detroit. 60 to 90 trains a day went by the Delray Tower. I never remember a period of time when I didn't hear the train horn or train bells sounding day and night. And the many hundreds of open automobile train cars that would go by from nearby Ford Motor Rouge plant and the GM Clark Street plant. As a teenager, I would jump a freight train going south towards the city of Gibraltar to swim in the nearby flooded rock quarry. There was an area of elevated land alongside the southbound and northbound tracks, what we called " the hills" that ran from Dearborn Ave south to the Rouge River. Where us Delray neighborhood kids played, rode our bikes, and mooned the many passenger trains going by.
I can't count how many times I put pennies and other coins on the same tracks to have them flattened. I loved pulling my pants 👖 down and moon the passenger train car's going by. The facial expressions of the adults and children were really priceless. People I would never see in my life again.
Fun times along the railroad tracks make great memories. Thanks for putting your historic scenes of railroad memories of your dad and grandpa on the digital screen for all of us train buffs to watch and enjoy.
Seeing the Michigan Central station alive with steam passenger trains was wonderful. Thank you for posting this
Your father's photo from 1935 is truly amazing and a number of video shots of yourself and your little friend. This is a rare video with historical evidential footage. It seems you are about the same age as me. Thanks for the upload.
These films are FANTASTIC! Thank You to your Grand Dad for being such a visionary and to you for preserving these for us all to enjoy. And by the way, I love your narration, great add lib.
In 1960 I went on a fan trip from Birmingham to Durand with my father. The train was drawn by 6323. The Kodachrome slides transferred amazingly onto digital format. They can be zoomed in without pixeling out. The color is amazing. The sky was quite blue that October day.
You did a fine job and grandpa would be be proud, i know i certainly am!🙏🏻👍🏻🚂
Thank you for putting this together. I am the Granddaughter, Niece, and Daughter of a whole slew of GTW engineers from Battle Creek and Durand.
I was a railfan in the Detroit area in the 1050's when I was a teenager, also a member of the Michigan Railroad Club. Steam locomotives were just being phased out, but they were my favorites. Thanks for preserving these videos.
I grew up in Port Huron in the 50's and 60's , never in the gtw shops but in kindergarten the school would get us on a passenger train through the old tunnel behind the motors. So great to see all the fallen flags.
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This is vital railroad history. Thank you!
What a wonderful collection of Michigan/Detroit area railroading history! Thank you so much for saving these films and sharing them with the world. I grew up on Central Ave. in Detroit just three blocks from the NYC hump yard. I would sit on the hill just south of the tracks between Central and Lonyo and watch them sort and classify cars. I’d also run wild through the east end of the yards at the old stockyards between Central and Livernois. Seeing the footage of that yard brought back so many memories!
Fascinating! Thanks for sharing this excellent and very rare footage.
dad worked at michigan central, pontiac, and port huron. thank you for showing the movies.i've beeen to aalot of those placesyou showed. thanks again.
Great job on preserving these films. I'm always on the lookout for any footage from the Toledo area and there was some here.
WOW! Thank you Killer 🐝 Bee! What a delight! Brought back many of my childhood memories. My Dad loved the Streamlined GTW 4-8-4 pictured leaving Port Huron. He'd watch it go past while on his lunch break in Chicago. (That's the one where you said it was slipping and your Grandpa enjoyed it) It wasn't easy videoing back then plus it was expensive! God Bless your Grandpa for all his efforts! Thanks again for your efforts too! God Bless You! Sincerely, David 😷 in Chicago 🇺🇸
Thanks so much for sharing, awesome to see videos of these spots in steam and early diesel.
Awesome video. Don't worry about cutting yourself out of the video. It was cool to see you in them. I wish I had filmed my kids more often while chasing trains. That Lansing shot was cool. I'm still searching for film of a train running through Bath Michigan. My home town.
These films are the best I have seen! Your voice is fine and the footage is great!
Your unique presentation style made this a very enjoyable watch. Kudos!
Pure Gold! Thanks for sharing this wonderful footage!
Really enjoyed the trains, family connection and narration.
These are ABSOLUTELY GOLDEN! Thanks for sharing!!!!! Love the Birmingham shots!
Absolutely incredible footage! Thank you for sharing!
You are better at this than you think. Good job and thanks to your Grandfather and yourself for this.
This video made my day :)
Hi I really enjoyed this video. I grew up in Pontiac near the GMC truck and coach plant on the southside of town. I only lived a block from the Michigan Airline beltline around Pontiac. Going to high school I past the GTW depot in downtown Pontiac and would love to stop and watch the trains. I wish that I had some photos of the depot in Pontiac as it is gone now, when they eliminated the Huron St grade crossing. My dad and lots of relatives worked at Pontiac Motors. Again thank for saving these videos.
3:54 So far that is the only vintage footage I’ve ever found of a PM Berkshire running in the days of steam
Great Job on preserving an awesome piece of your grandfather's History.
This is about as close to a time machine as one can get. Thanks for sharing!
My pleasure. It was about time I did something with this footage.
That's the beauty of platforms like this. You can share these treasures with everyone, and they can be available for years. It's painful to think about how much great material like this has been lost forever because someone didn't know what to do with it and got rid of it.
I grew up next to the Grand Trunk Western in the 1960's, and many of these scenes/trains look familiar. Thanks
Memories of many C and O, and Wabash freight Cars as well. C and O for Progress and Follow the Flag.
Thanks for preserving and sharing these. Enjoyed it very much
Great video. I am happy to see you were able to keep history alive. Foamers of the world UNITE!
@6:55: I was in a locomotive on that turntable in the early 70s. My Dad worked for GTW in the Port Huron Yard.
@7:15: the train is crossing the viaduct on 24th Street. The viaduct is still used today and has not changed much from this video.
LOL
My friend, this is well done, and you're putting in the details well - takes me back to all of the adventures with my Grandfather - in the 1970's! He was a dyed in the wool DT&I man, and lived along the GTW at Lowell, Michigan by the time I came along. He knew everyone it seemed, and we had all sorts of similar experiences. Your videos take me back, and the sound track is pretty cool, great choices!!!
By the way, we had a project some time back that would have developed [for rail] the old car yard of the Wabash - right under the Ambassador Bridge - that would have been great!!
Amazing filming , thank you 🙏!
Thank goodness you preserved these movies! I grew up in Detroit, until 1958, then my family moved to Plymouth November that year,. I have lived here ever since, and spent many a day watching the PM & C&O trains from the station platform in my youth, and later had the free run of the Roundhouse, in the mid 70's to early 80's, before it closed, in my 20s! My Dad also use to take me for rides on the GTW commuter trains, when the were still steam powered! My favorite engine was 6327, had several rides behind that one! Thanks for sharing these movies!
Nice video. Thanks for sharing.
The NY central at 22:40 looks like oak street in Wyandotte. I go past there everyday. The building is a VFW I think now. Love the videos ! These are so great. Thankyou for posting.
SPLENDID footage. I've never seen the Pere Marquette E7s in motion before. Emery Gulash was also on the fan trip from Grand Rapids to Jackson; footage appears in his New York Central videos from Green Frog.
Very nice footage. The depot at 4:05 looks like the station in Wyandotte on Oak Street.
I agree.
Thanks for sharing this footage! My grandfather and great grandfather worked for the GTW in the Detroit area around the same time. I wonder if they are in any of this footage (of course there’s no way to know for sure, but it’s fun to imagine…)
Thanks for sharing on the NRHS meeting tonight!
The GTW in Lansing is probably at Hagadorn Road looking southwest. The quonset hut in the background would be on the campus of MSU.
That's my thought as well. I work in Okemos a lot and drive by that spot at least twice a week.
Some nice memories.
Nice tribute and some great old film. Thanks
Another fantastic job compliments of your Grandpa and you! Growing up in Ann Arbor, many of these places are very familiar to me! Thank you for digitizing his old movie footage and sharing it with us!
Great videos. Thank you for the preservation efforts.
Amazing footage, particularly the scenes involving the two electric operations on the New York Central and Grand Trunk Western. This is the only motion picture I've seen of the third-rail locomotives at the Michigan Central Station in Detroit. I also like the overhead wiring on your grandfather's model railroad!
To clear up a few locations. In the early part of video, the NYC passenger train pulling up to an unknown location was/is Wyandotte. The location where the NYC is pulling the Budd car is Rochester, where the GTW Airline crossed the MC Mackinaw Branch. Great stuff.
Great video, thanks for sharing
Thank you for putting this together and sharing it!
Beautiful. Thank you.
These are terrific, thank you for sharing this great footage from so many years!!
I remember the Durand trips too!
WoW! Thanks, that is near priceless footage and the narration was great too.
These are awesome! I love these too!
Thx again
As someone modeling the GTW (and a bit of C&O) in the 1960s this video is a valuable resource of first hand account of everything.
These films are great.Thanks for posting them.I was born in 1964 in Detroit.
The Opdyke and Kensington road intersection and Trow Bridge images really date back. I'd ride my bike there and hang out all day in the summer. Kensington wouldn't be paved for decades.
I used to like riding my bike the entire length of Kensington from Big Beaver up to Opdyke. This would be the 1970's when I was a kid, it was not paved and lightly traveled. You could really haul on your bike on the portions that were oiled and not pot-holed. I was stunned to see recently that Trowbridge bridge was removed.
Wow! I loved that bridge, @@killerbee6310! That space mesmerized me. I recently came across a drawing I did of that bridge in 1966. It got so you couldn't get near it without the cops hassling and intimidating you. The last time I was on the bridge I observed it was badly deteriorating. Still, removing all that reinforced concrete must have been quite a feat.
Excellent. Thank you for sharing.
I wonder if your grandpa knew emery gulash! Thanks for sharing!
Good job! Thanks!
WOW!! Thank you for this wonderful video! 👏👏👏
The nyc dragging the budd car is Rochester Jct North
Great footage! Thanks for sharing.
4:08 Wyandotte, MI Oak Street NYC Station. My Dad and I ate a lot of Mcdonald's there and watched trains for hours.
That was an awesome video. Thanks for posting !!!
Outstanding!! Thank you for sharing
My dad remembered when trains switched from steam to diesel it was a little while before my time
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks! Thanks for sharing!
Great stuff. Thanks.
Fantastic! Thanks for sharing!!!!
I grew up on the Central Vermont in Palmer, Massachusetts, a CN road to the GTW...love that green n gold
This is awesome! I film in these locations all the time, it’s really cool to see it all those years ago!
I was born in 60. I enjoyed the sounds of GTW.
That bridge you showed going to Sarnia was a couple blocks from my house. My Grandparents lived on 16 the street in port Huron on the south side of the tracks.
I also watched the fire at grand trunk in 82.
I still love the sound of trains. Thanks for sharing. It was very cool.
Oh ya, by the way, I live just north of the Hastings, Michigan where those shots were taken on reel 3, the 6323 along those tracks - hard to imagine - wish I could've been there for those. The tracks are all gone now, but any extra film of this area would be greatly appreciated - I forgot how Hastings looked before the rails were removed.
Hi David. Thank you for the comments. I do have a slide my grandfather shot of the train at Hastings that shows a little of the surrounding trackage and area. Also a shot that is labeled "Charlton Park near Hastings". I can scan them.
Absolutely Fantastic!!! I grew up on the "Holly Sub." (GTW), during the times shown here. I grew up in Birmingham and later moved to Bloomfield Hills,MI but all the time, just a short distance from the main line. Multiple trips were taken behind CN 6167 and 6218 both in Canada and on GTW soil. GTW 5629 was also included, but missed 6070 in OH. 'Would love to communicate with the guy who posted this, or anybody with the same interests.
I grew up in Birmingham just a quick bike ride from the station down Eton. Hung around there a lot in the mid-70's. I made a few videos of my own stuff posted on this same channel
@@killerbee6310 Hey Killer! I lived in/on 1452 Buckingham, back primarily in the mid- to late 50's and early 60's). and saw ALL GTW steam power trackside as well as on the elevated platform station on Eton, (and we both know what happened to those platforms). At any rate, I'm a 67 year "old" guy, but if there's anything you'd like to know about the road and/or pre-1961steam, let me know...OUT!
@@1chuck96 Hi Jim. I lived at 2032 Buckingham from about 1962 until I moved to Chicago in 1981.
That was super! Think what we’d have if they digital cameras. Lol love it
You had a cool Grandpa -great video
Great stuff!
Hello from Kansas 🇺🇸
I too was raised in Bham. Not the same town today. Follow trains. Thx for the memories. Took the B&O from Detroit to Cincy w myMimi . E
Wife's account not her opinions Awesome thanks for sharing it is getting me off my well um bottom and get some movies my Grandfather and Father made of Milwaukee Road , North Shore , CNW , DSS&A /Soo and some great Hiawatha stuff
At 4:08 is possibly on Oak St. in Wyandotte ,Mi and it still stand there today.
That was my thought too as soon as I saw it. I live in Wyandotte and that's what it looks like. Camera would be west of the NS tracks and south of Oak looking north.
I think your narration voice sounds pretty good. You hear a lot about railfans being hassled by police for filming trains these days but if it weren't for them and people in the past filming trains like your grandfather much railroad history would be lost. Love seeing all the old fallen flag roadnames on the cars. I started railfanning in the '60s when in my teens and just wish I had taken more photos back then.
4:03. Location is Wyandotte Mi at Oak street. The locomotive is on the old NYC southbound now currently Northfolk Southern Southbound main track #2. The train station in the background is now a current VFW hall. It’s a great location to railfan to this day.
I like the video...
Thanks so much for sharing your grandfather's footage. Well done by both he and yourself. I have been playing with the Lionel O scale stuff for a few years now and this just puts it all together. I was born in 1961 so I'm a few years behind you. We made a few train trips, in my younger days, Brantford, Toronto, Montreal. All diesel in my memory bank. I really enjoyed the steam footage including the NYC going through parts of Ontario and the "General" out on working display. Any chance the combines on the ferry were from the Massey-Ferguson factory in Brantford? It now seems so long ago.
I believe the combines on the ferry were indeed out of Brantford. I say that because in the 1970's I would see clearance messages for those shipments as they often moved thru Michigan still.
I have some 1930's movies from my grandfather running Lionel on the floor in his house for the kids - I should post that
Wonderful !!🇧🇷
obrigado por essas belas imagens
I lived many years across Southern Ave. which changed to John Kronk which is where New York Central RR Yard is. I've been to Durand MI many times also.
I thought your voice was spot on for the narration!