What railroads served the auto plants of Detroit in the 1950?

Question

In the 1950's most autos were shipped by rail from Assembly plants to points and sent by truck to dealers. As a rail history nut, which RRs in the 50's serve
the major auto assembly plants in the Detroit area ?

Answer 1

Hmm, well, looking at a January 1970 Official Guide of the Railways, which should be able to give a good idea of the fallen flags that served Detroit in the 1950s, below are a number of the companies that served Detroit:



Pennsylvania Railroad

New York Central

Norfolk & Western

Detroit, Toledo & Ironton

Chesapeake & Ohio

Baltimore & Ohio (had connections via trackage rights, so I'm not sure if they actually served any plants)

Wabash

Pierre Marquette (although, by the 1950s they were a subsidiary of the C&O, of course)

Both of the Canadian roads, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific

The Nickel Plate may have also had trackage rights including the Ann Arbor and Grand Trunk Western, although again, I'm not sure if they actually served any of the plants in Detroit.



These are not all of the lines, I realize, but I believe that the PRR, NYC, and C&O (not counting the Canadian roads) for the most part had the market cornered in Detroit.

Answer 2

I don't know if you'll get a satisfactory response here. There aren't many railfans or history buffs around..



You may want to try a forum like the Trains Magazine Readers Forum - here's the link:



http://www.trains.com/community/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=111