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| Mark Hershoren posted Packard plant in Detroit from a Life Magazine photo, c.1940. Detroit Union Belt or Detroit Terminal Railroad servicing. This was during an era when Rolls-Royce Merlin engines were being manufactured to put P51 Mustangs in flight. Curt Danielewicz It has to be the MC belt line (NYC) running to the waterfront and becoming the Detroit Transit Railway. Detroit Terminal is further northeast going to the Jefferson Avenue Chrysler plant, while the Union Belt was on the southwest side of town.http://www.multimodalways.org/.../Union%20Belt%20of... http://www.michiganrailroads.com/.../4784-evolution-of... Craig Harris Notice on the left all the double door boxcars for hauling autos. Thomas Schuppert Well, the P-51 wasn't developed until 1943. Jeff Branch That's OK, Merlins were used in plenty of other planes prior to the Mustang. Thomas Schuppert Jeff Branch. Actually, no. They were used in several British aircraft. But not in any US planes prior to the Mustang. The P-38 had Allison engines. I appreciate your interest in WWII and I'm not trying to stir controversy here. I've studied and written about WWII for some 40 years now. Jeff Branch That's right, and the purpose for setting up Packard to make Merlins originally was to supply the British out of the reach of German bombers. Just like all the US and Canadian made Enfield rifles, and everything else. Peter Dudley shared The Packard Motor Car Company plant in Detroit MI (from a Life Magazine photograph, c. 1940). Construction of Detroit's Edsel Ford Expressway (I-94) during the 1950s obliterated Harper Avenue (foreground). The street name survives as an access road, running along the north side of the depressed freeway. Michigan State Highway Department attempted to "save" Packard with I-94's notorious S-shaped reverse curves, located east of the nearby Mt. Elliott Avenue / I-94 interchange. Despite these efforts, Packard went belly-up in 1956. The curve of the old Michigan Central / Detroit Belt Line (left) is still elevated by a viaduct (complete with a surviving Penn Central herald) over the freeway, but not for long. Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) has embarked on a project that will eliminate the I-94 reverse curves, which have caused lots of traffic jams during the past sixty-odd years. The six-lane freeway will be widened to eight lanes. The track, which once extended south to a connection with Grand Trunk Western Railroad's riverfront City Yard, now stops short of a long-gone Gratiot Avenue grade crossing. The stretch of former-railroad right-of-way running between Gratiot and the Detroit River might become another rail-trail. Detroit has enjoyed some success with the parallel (Grand Trunk) Dequindre Cut Greenway, located 1.25 miles to the west. The long-vacant Packard ruins have been steadily deteriorating for many years longer than the complex served as a functioning auto plant. The property was sold at auction several years ago, but not much re-development has happened there, so far. Peter Dudley Packard Plant Portal, from member Neil Haddad: https://www.nailhed.com/p/packard-plant.html |
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| Dennis DeBruler commented on Dudley's post The fire protection water tower in the middle background appears to be still standing. (Upper-right corner of this satellite image extract.) I presume they left the wall precariously standing next to the tracks to grandfather the property boundary because by some current law it would be too close to the tracks. https://www.google.com/.../@42.3725305,-83.../data=!3m1!1e3 Sean Doerr The wall is standing because it is brick. The rest was metal, and was scrapped about a decade ago by thieves. |
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| The Old Motor posted Packard Assembly Line Images: The story and more is @ https://theoldmotor.com/?p=188630 |
I remember one of these Packard buildings being used as an example on a TV show about how nature slowly reclaims abandoned buildings.
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