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Transportation Company - Detroit Terminal - Railroad
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Company NameDetroit Terminal
CategoryRailroad
Year Founded1905
Final Year of Operation1984
TerminationMerged
Successor/ParentConrail (Details)
CountryUnited States (Details)
Source of TextWikipedia
Text Credit URLLink
Transportation Company - Detroit Terminal - Railroad



Company History: Detroit Terminal Railroad Company was incorporated in the State of Michigan, United States of America, on December 7, 1905 to own railroad track forming a semi-circle around the City of Detroit. It existed as a railroad until it was merged into its parent company, Consolidated Rail Corp., on May 31, 1984.

By 1905 many of the prime industrial locations in the City of Detroit located on railroad lines were already taken, causing an impediment to the development of the automotive and other industries being created at that time. Detroit Terminal Railroad's trackage extended around the City of Detroit in what is called a "belt line," reaching rural undeveloped locations in order to open up opportunities for new industrial development in the rapidly growing city. Originally planned but never accomplished was a railroad-operated "car ferry" operation to sail the Detroit River to distribute freight at the many docks located along the river that were inaccessible to railway shipping.

Freight movement on the Detroit Terminal Railroad steadily increased up to 1950 fed largely by the development, growth and maturation of the automotive industry in Detroit. Business remained stable throughout the 1950s then slowly started dropping off starting in the 1960s. By 1968 the alarm bells were ringing at Detroit Terminal Railroad's business offices as carloadings had dropped dramatically from a peak of 151,914 in 1953 to 57,543 in 1967. This was a result of changing ways of urban living (natural gas to heat homes instead of railroad-hauled coal) to the closing of major automotive plants in Detroit (DeSoto and Hudson) and also due to the use of large, hi-capacity ("hi-cube" and "autorack") freight cars especially by the automotive companies replacing two or three smaller freight cars needed before. Revenue per freight car moved almost doubled between 1953 and 1967 but operating expenses per freight car moved tripled in this period. Employment drop from 358 in 1953 to 227 in 1967 and salaries took up 98% of operating revenue in 1967. In 1967 there was an estimated $2.5 million in deferred maintenance to tracks and equipment. Blame was placed on poor management of the railroad by its two railroad owners (Michigan Central and Lake Shore & Michigan Southern had merged into the New York Central by this time) who were not paying enough attention to the railroad. Also "deteriorating social conditions" culminating in the 1967 race riots in Detroit at the time were causing an exodus of industries located on the railroad further reducing carloadings.

By the late 1970s on-line business had rapidly declined on the Detroit Terminal Railroad. With railroad consolidation occurring in Detroit as well as nationwide the use of the Detroit Terminal Railroad for the interchange purposes of its two owners had also declined and in 1980 Grand Trunk Western sold its 50% interest in Detroit Terminal Railroad to its other owner, Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail). Conrail operated it for a year then, in August 1981, combined Detroit Terminal Railroad operations with its own railroad operations out of its North Yard in Detroit. Over the next couple years Conrail cut back on operating the former Detroit Terminal Railroad trackage and eventually stopped operating over its west end (which, for a while, it accessed from its Livernois Yard at a newly reinstalled connecting track). Today Conrail (Shared Assets) still runs daily trains over what was the east end of the Detroit Terminal Railroad to service a Jeep manufacturing plant owned by Chrysler Group LLC. On May 31, 1984 Conrail legally merged Detroit Terminal Railroad into itself, officially ending 79 years of continuous operation by Detroit's only terminal railroad.
Successor/Parent History:
The Consolidated Rail Corporation, commonly known as Conrail (reporting mark CR), was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeast U.S. between 1976 and 1999. Conrail is a portmanteau of "consolidated" and "rail" from the name of the company.

The U.S. federal government created Conrail to take over the potentially profitable lines of multiple bankrupt carriers, including the Penn Central Transportation Company and Erie Lackawanna Railway. With the benefit of industry-wide regulatory requirements being reduced (via the 4R Act and the Staggers Act), Conrail began to turn a profit in the 1980s and was turned over to private investors in 1987. The two remaining Class I railroads in the East, CSX Transportation and the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS), agreed in 1997 to split the system approximately equally, returning rail freight competition to the Northeast by essentially undoing the 1968 merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central Railroad that created Penn Central. Following Surface Transportation Board approval, CSX and NS took control in August 1998, and on June 1, 1999, began operating their portions of Conrail.
Brief History:
The U.S. is a country of 50 states covering a vast swath of North America, with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii extending the nation’s presence into the Pacific Ocean. Major Atlantic Coast cities are New York, a global finance and culture center, and capital Washington, DC. Midwestern metropolis Chicago is known for influential architecture and on the west coast, Los Angeles' Hollywood is famed for filmmaking.

Item Links: We found: 1 different collections associated with Detroit Terminal - Railroad
Item created by: gdm on 2017-10-12 16:26:29. Last edited by gdm on 2019-09-29 09:59:17

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