Port Huron, MI: Roundhouses, Backshops and GTW Yard Office

(A blog posting about the C&O roundhouse)

While looking for the 6-stall roundhouse talked about in this article: CSX readies Michigan roundhouse for donation (source), I discovered the land scar of a big roundhouse (below). (Caution: TheTimesHearld has an absolute pay count.) Another article about CSX donating instead of destroying (source) And another article   

David Cofield, CSX project monitor-inspector for asbestos abatement removal projects, says crews started working in Port Huron Township this month. The Times Herald reports that they soon heard from concerned railroad history buffs worried about losing the historic structure. Plans initially called for clearing the site about 55 miles (88 kilometers) northeast of Detroit, but Cofield says the project has changed to environmental cleanup and salvage. [USnews]

So the cost of  asbestos containment during demolition was probably high enough that just removing the asbestos might be cheaper. Or maybe CSX has had enough derailments that they feel the need to get some good PR. Or maybe some of that corporate tax cut is actually trickling down rather than just buying back shares.

I believe this was GTW's roundhouse. You can see that some of the stalls were longer than the others to accommodate larger steam locomotives.

Satellite

Fortunately, the second article gave an address for the existing roundhouse. It is too bad CSX didn't donate it before the roof fell in.

Satellite

1952/54 Port Huron Quad @ 24,000

David Combs, May 2018

David Combs, May 2018

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The C&O roundhouse was originally Pere Marquette. This page (source) has several photos. It claims it is by 16th Street. But I couldn't find one over there. The photos look similar to this Street View.

Street View

If you know where this was, please leave its location in a comment.

Charles Geletzke Jr. posted
The GTW 32nd Street yard office at Tunnel Yard in Port Huron, Michigan as photographed on May 28. 1975. (Ken Annett photo; C. H. Geletzke, Jr. collection)

Viral Media posted five images with the comment:

Grand Trunk Port Huron Shops

In 1918 Grand Trunk rebuilt shops in Port Huron in for the construction and repair of freight and passenger cars. Including tracks and buildings the new plant covered an area of 55 acres and represented an expenditure of more than $700,000

GTRR built their first Port Huron car shops in 1882, on the site of the former Fort Gratiot.  That complex was nearly demolished by the Great Lakes Hurricane of 1913. What remained standing of the ten-acre complex was subsequently annihilated in a devastating fire two weeks later.

The new facility included two buildings for the repair of passenger cars with a total capacity of 27 cars, a steel freight car shop and a wood freight car shop each with a 28-car capacity, a repair track yard with a capacity for 200 cars.  Auxiliary buildings included a modern power plant, cabinet shop. blacksmith shop, machine shop, and wood mill.

Grand Trunk Railroad also had a roundhouse nearby, but it was demolished in 1964. In 1975, the historic Port Huron Grand Trunk Western Railway Depot was demolished. In 1982 a fire destroyed on of the buildings in Port Huron shops. 

In December 1991, Canadian National announced a restructuring program to consolidate all of its U.S. railroads under the CN North America. Grand Trunk Western became CN North America. As a part of restructuring Grand Trunk closed its Port Huron shop in 1995. The Port Huron shops were sold to PDS Rail Car Services Corp. The shop reopened in 1996 and PDS hired many of the former Grand Trunk employees. The shops closed in 2001. After closure the remaining shop buildings were torn down.

Dave Hooton: I didn’t know that the Great Storm of Nov. 1913 did major damage to the GTR on land, you only hear about all the boats that were lost on the Great Lakes in the storm.

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Viral Media posted

CN Port Huron Terminal

Port Huron had been the location of Grand Trunk Western car shops and a roundhouse, although all that is left are foundations. The yard at Port Huron operationally acts like an extension of Sarnia Yard.  In Sarnia Ontario, Canada across the river is a CN Sarnia yard driven by the energy industry traffic. Port Huron also serves as a staging yard for the complex interaction required for an international freight rail Port of Entry. There are some freight operations that take place here, but the yard’s international role is the primary activity.

The Canadian National Flint Subdivision runs from Tappan to CN's South Bend Subdivision in Battle Creek, Michigan. At Tappan, The Flint Sub meets the Strathroy Subdivision which runs through the St. Clair Tunnel into Ontario. The line was part of the Grand Trunk Western Railroad mainline between Chicago and Toronto. The line mostly handles freight traffic, although Amtrak's Blue Water uses the line between Battle Creek and Port Huron.

Historically Tappan was the site of a busy interlocking tower junction of five railroad lines radiating out in eight directions.

• GTW main line between Port Huron and Flint

• GTW main line between Fort Gratiot and West Detroit

• Pere Marquette's Almont branch from Port Huron to Almont (abandoned)

• Pere Marquette's branch to Saginaw via Marlette (abandoned)

• Pere Marquette's Port Huron Yard

The CN Fort Gratiot Branch is operated by Lake State Railway (LSCR) and serves Dunn Paper near the Blue Water Bridge. Unfortunately, the Dotmar paper mill on the branch announced it was closing last year [this was published at the end of 2024].

Charles Geletzke Jr. shared

Jeff Branch: One thing that I haven't heard brought out, but back in the days of LCL [Less than Car Load] operations, the Port Huron freight house appeared to be the main hub of LCL for GTW considering its proximity to the CN system and U.S. Customs, and location between Detroit, Chicago, and Toronto, etc.