Grand Trunk Western Railroad - Facilities

Facilities

Over its history Grand Trunk Western has had rail yards and engine terminals located in Detroit, Battle Creek, Durand, Flat Rock, Flint, Grand Rapids, Pontiac, Port Huron, Blue Island, Illinois and Chicago. In each of the cities GTW had engine terminals and facilities for locomotive maintenance including roundhouses and turntables. Prior to 1910 the railroad constructed its major locomotive repair shops in Battle Creek and rail car repair and maintenance was handled by GTW’s Port Huron car shops. Its major freight yards were Durand Yard and Pontiac Yard in the two Michigan cities that were major GTW junction pointes. There is also Nichols Yard in Battle Creek, Tunnel Yard in Port Huron, Torrey Yard near Flint and East Yard near the Milwaukee Junction area in the Detroit enclave of Hamtramck. City Yard was the railroad’s rail yard on the Detroit riverfront adjacent to Brush Street Station and its ferry slip dock. The yard, dock and station were eventually all removed and redeveloped by 1975 for construction of the Renaissance Center. It also obtained the former Penn Central Winona Yard in Bay City when it acquired that trackage from Conrail in 1976. On Chicago’s south side GTW’s Elsdon Yard served as its primary yard and locomotive facility there since the railroad laid tracks into the city in the 1880s. GTW also had a smaller transfer yard south of Chicago near rail junctions Blue Island, Illinois. In 1975 GTW opened an intermodal freight terminal yard in Chicago known as Railport. The facility is in Chicago's Back of the Yards neighborhood and was formerly the Pennsylvania Railroad's Levitt Street Yard. GTW also increased intermodal operations in Detroit In 1976 when it expanded its Ferndale, Michigan railyard into an intermodal facility it called GT MoTerm. The Elsdon Yard was closed and abandoned by 1990 and has been redeveloped. Detroit, Toledo and Ironton’s former hump classification yard in Flat Rock, which GTW acquired from its 1983 merger with DT&I still serves as an important freight hub for Canadian National. Several interlocking and crossing gate towers were also maintained by GTW through its history.