Detroit, MI: Abandoned Packard Plant

3D Satellite

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

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.

The Old Motor posted
Packard Assembly Line Images: The story and more is @ https://theoldmotor.com/?p=188630

May 2025:

City of Detroit Construction and Demolition Department posted

Demolition of the Packard Plant wrapped up earlier this year. Now, the site is cleared for new opportunities — with two historic buildings preserved for redevelopment.

Take a bird’s-eye view of this long-awaited transformation.

I remember one of these Packard buildings being used as an example on a TV show about how nature slowly reclaims abandoned buildings.

Evidently the plant is being removed in 2024.

Augusta, MI: MC Coaling Tower and Water Pans

(Satellite)

Tim Shanahan posted
Tom Quada The one in Augusta also had the scoops to take on water at 40 mph.

This post on the coaling tower near Lansing, MI, has some comments that explain what a coaling tower is including:

Dennis DeBruler It is a coaling tower to refuel steam locomotives. It looks like this is over the main line, and it would be used to refuel through trains. Every roundhouse would also have a coaling tower or dock on the leads to the roundhouse.

William Dolak posted
The old railroad coaling tower on M-96 on the way to Augusta from Kalamazoo.
Tim Shanahan shared

Ward J McGinnis commented on William's post
May 9, 2012 and it was moving at about 110 mph.

1 of 3 photos of the tower posted by Logan Kenyon

Menasha, WI: and Neenah, WI: Mill Towns, C&NW+Milwaukee Depots+Freight House

C&NW Depot in Neenah: (Satellite)

Milwaukee Depot in Neenah: (Satellite)

Milwaukee Depot in Menasha: (Satellite, just south of the existing track and east of Racine.)

Milwaukee Freight House in Menasha: (Satellite, my guess based on the aerial photo below, about a block west of the depot.)

C&NW Depot

As part of studying the Wisconsin Waterway, I used a satellite map to find the Menasha Lock. When I noticed the dam at the other end of the navigation channel, it struck me that this town was probably a mill town back in the 1800s and that this channel was a headrace. In fact, there is a headrace on the south side of the dam as well. Judging by the turning basin, I presume that this channel provided water transport as well as water power.

Looking at the Neenah side of Doty Island, we see another dam and the remnants of two headraces.

Marty Bernard posted
Neenah-Menasha, WI Depot, Duane Hall photo, May 1987. In 1987 which railroad's was this?
Brent Erdmann: Would of been the CNW still but the FRV was founded in 1988.

Street View
Dennis DeBruler commented on Marty's post
To my surprise, it has been preserved.
44°11'35.3"N 88°27'23.5"W

Street View
Dennis DeBruler commented on Marty's post

The mills along the Fox River started out as the usual gristmills and sawmills. But in the 1870s more specialized mills to process Wisconsin forests were developed such as paper mills. I recognize Kimberly-Clark as a paper products company. And as the name implies, Neenah Paper also makes paper products. Since their paper products are more specialized than the paper used in photocopiers or newsprint, hopefully they will continue to survive in the Internet age. (When we drove through northern Alabama to check out the dams on the Tennessee River, we passed some huge paper mills that were closed.) I also noticed the strong paper mill heritage of this area represented by Georgia-Pacific and Kimberly-Clark plants. Us Paper Mills appears to specialize in using paper for packaging. They could benefit by a backlash against plastics because so much ends up in the ocean. I also noticed the last two plants appear to be rail served.

The headraces for Menasha have yet to be filled in. But the southern headrace for Neenah used to be longer.

1955 Neenah Quadrangle @1:24,000

When I saw all of the industry south of the south headrace, I wondered if there used to be a tailrace along what is now Wisconsin Ave. But looking at an older topo shows a tailrace probably never existed. It does show that the south headrace in Menasha used to be longer and that the land between the north headrace and the river was extended into the river.

1911 Neenah Quadrangle @ 1:62,500

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Milwaukee Depot in Neenah

Street View, Jul 2019

Paul Hillmer commented on a post

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Milwaukee Freight House in Menasha

Bill Rosenberg posted three photos with the comment: "Some photos from Menasha fifty years ago. Verne Brummel took pictures of the depot, and a Fairbanks-Morse switcher working the yard."

Jim Beson: The Menasha depot was located behind what is now the Subway sandwich shop on Racine St. Me and a grade school friend were regular nuisances there back in the early 60's. The Neenah depot is on Forest Ave. in Neenah and the modeling club operates it as "The Milwaukee & Northern Railway Historical Society" as it was M&N before CM&St.P purchased them.

Dave Martens shared

Jack Franklin shared

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1938 Aerial Photo

Big Picture

1955 Neenah Quad @ 24,000

Middletown, OH: 475MW Combined Cycle Power Plant

(Satellite, this plant that was completed in 2018 has yet to show up on the image)

This post (photo 2) caught my eye because it shows a couple of cranes with luffer jibs parked in the jackknife position. But then I learned more about gas fueled power plants.

Stephen Randolph posted three photos with the comment: "888 luffer Middletown OH. Combined cycle unit."

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When I saw "combined cycle," I decided to dig deeper because I remember that NIPSCO's 2016 plan was going to use that technology to replace their coal-fired plants. (Their current plan is to use renewable energy sources.) [DeBruler-NIPSCO] Combined-cycle power plants use a gas turbine to drive a generator. Then they use the exhaust from the GT to produce steam to power a steam turbine that helps drive the generator. [MHPS, Layout tab] So the BTUs of burning the gas is used twice. [DeBruler-combined] Natural gas is particularly cheap in eastern Ohio because of fraking the Marcellus Shale.

MiddleTownEnergyCenter
The Middletown Energy Center is a 475 megawatt natural-gas-fired electric generating facility that began commercial operation in May 2018. NTE Energy developed, constructed and commissioned into operation the $500 million ($600m according to journal-news, $645m according to PowerMag) power plant....Opened in May 2018, MEC is one of the cleanest, most efficient natural gas power plants in the nation. Using advanced turbine technology in a combined-cycle configuration, MEC is capable of producing significantly more power from the same amount of fuel.  That’s a win for regional customers and for the environment.

NAES
It consists of a single Mitsubishi 501GAC combustion turbine with a Toshiba steam turbine and a Vogt HRSG [Heat Recovery Steam Generators].

Since just one gas turbine runs that plant, they are obviously much bigger than a jet engine. Specifically, it is 12.9 meters (42.3 feet) long. And the turbine rotates much slower than a jet engine. I was able to confirm that they rotate at 3,600 rpm. That means they don't need any gear reduction equipment. The efficiency of the GT is 40%. By adding the second stage of steam generation, the efficiency of the plant is over 60%. You can tell that the GT part can also be used as a peaking plant because they specify a ramp up rate of 18 MW/min for a starting time of 30 minutes. The GT uses variable vanes so that it remains efficient under partial loads. But the plant needs to be shutdown if the load falls below 50%. (I presume that is what the "Turn Down Load" means.) [MHPS, Specifications tab]

They have a special "Fast" model that can ramp up to 270 MW in 10 minutes. [amer.mhps]

MHPS-G

MHPS-G

Their J series is even bigger.

MHPS-J

MHPS-J

Gemma
The design engineer was Sargent & Lundy.

The bad news is that the plant needs 2.1 million gallons per day. The good news is that it can use the output of a wastwater treatment system. [journal-news]

Charolette, IL: and Cullom, IL: Alliance Gran Elevators (BLOL Served)

Charolette

(Satellite)

This Bloomer route was originally the IC branch from Otto to the original mainline near Bloomington. Judging from a satellite image, there is an old wood elevator still standing north of the country road, which would be in the far background in this photo. Unfortunately, there is no street view here.

Adam Elias posted
BLOL 7591 & 7504 loading up in Charolette, IL back in August 11, 2017.
Flickr Link: https://flic.kr/p/2ja5snN

Adam Elias Flickr
Load Em Up!
BLOL 7591 (ex NP GP9) & BLOL 7504 (original IC GP9, now a GP10) loading grain cars for the CN up in Charolette, IL. This was back in 2017 when it seemed to be easier to catch matching set of Bloomer power & catch bigger trains. Still to this day, I love shooting these guys.

Junior Hill posted
Bloomer Line RR runs past the Alliance Grain Company's elevator at Charlotte, IL, on their old Wabash RR main. Alliance Grain Co is the Bloomer Line's parent company. 1/13/2011

Cullom

(Satellite-old, Satellite-new)

Ted Fisk posted
Bloomer Line train loading grain at Cullom Illinois today June 8
Ted FiskAuthor Does Bloomer interchange the train with the NS or where does it go? I have never seen the Bloomer before and know very little about it.
Randy Funk Ted Fisk they also interchange with CN.
Ean Kahn-Treras Ted Fisk the overwhelming business on the Bloomer is empty grain from NS. BLOL loads it up and returns back to Gibson City for NS.

Ted FiskAuthor Ean Kahn-Treras That is what I thought, since the hoppers were NS. It was interesting to see this little railroad.

I would have missed the old elevator with the concrete-stave bins if I hadn't seen the photos for the town in Google Map.

Street View

Danville, IL: 1917 C&EI Depot and Danville Hill (DH) Tower: C&EI vs. NYC/P&E

Depot: (3D Satellite)

Tower: (Satellite) (See Walker's comment below.)

Bill Molony posted
The Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad station at Danville, Illinois - circa 1930.
Ken Morrison still there, but not in great shape.
Bill Molony 814 N. Kimball Street.
Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad Historical Society shared
Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad Historical Society The depot was built in 1917.

Dennis DeBruler commented on Bill's post
https://www.google.com/.../data=!3m6!1e1!3m4...

Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad Historical Society commented on their share
This is the diagram of the new Danville station from the August 31, 1917 issue of the Railway Age Gazette.

Thomas N. Malone Sr. posted

Commented on his post
I lived on Jewel Street in the early 1960s, just across the street. As a young boy, I remember going to see the trains and walking in the station. That is where I developed my love for trains.

HOLA Rails posted
CEI Georgian with FP-7 #1605 at Danville IL,.
CEIRHS shared
Northbound Georgian at Danville passenger station.

C&EIRHS posted three photos with the comment: "The Danville Station in better days."

Daniel Grinestaff: The one end of the canopy ended with a staircase that took you down to the subway (or vehicle underpass on Fairchild St). The canopy roof slanted down to the ground there adding rain protection for the stairs. Anyway, If you got a good healthy running start, you could run up to the top of the canopy, walk its length and climb on to the roofs of all the buildings back in the day!

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A different postcard coloration.

Bill Molony posted
Robert Gibson Jr.: C&EI station at Danville, IL built in 1917.

James Boudreaux posted
Danville,IL. notice the Wabash,NW now NS tracks,at photo top; C&EI station middle left...photo date unknown
C&EIRHS shared
The C&EI Kimball Street station in Danville opened in 1917. At that time it served 16 passenger trains a day.
Micheal G Walker: Where the Grogan sign is in lower left corner is the P&E/NYC line and in middle of bottom edge of photo is Danville Hill DH tower. The big factory is Allith Prouty.I lived on Kimball St. 1 house away from the P&E/NYC tracks for a few years in the late 1950's and early 1960's, watched alot of trains.

Eight images of what it looks like today

Olney, IL: AMF bicycles and other wheeled toys

(Satellite)

Lost Illinois Manufacturing posted nine photos with the comment:

In 1962, AMF (the American Machine and Foundry Company) employed 755 Illinois residents, 450 of whom worked at their bicycle factory in Olney, Illinois making their famous 'Roadmaster' line of bikes and tricycles, part of their Wheel Goods Division.
80 workers made bowling alley equipment at their AMF Pinsetters, Incorporated factory located at 6500 North Lincoln Avenue, Lincolnwood.
150 employees made dispensing equipment at 3232 North Kilpatrick Avenue, Chicago where the A. Dalkin Company Division of AMF was located.
75 workers made screw assemblies, lock washers and terminals at the Thompson-Bremer & Company division factory located at 1640 West Hubbard Street, Chicago (office was at 228 North La Salle street).
In 1962 AMF would boast of employing 13,427 world-wide with corporate headquarters in New York, NY.
Bicycle History
The AMF line of bicycles marketed as Roadmasters trace their history back to the line of bicycles produced by The Cleveland Welding Company beginning in 1936. The Cleveland Welding Company was founded in 1910 to produce various products formed through proprietary electric welding, rolling and forming techniques. CWC entered the bicycle arena in the mid thirties with the introduction of their line of Roadmaster bicycles in 1936. By the second full year of production the line was expanded to include a full line of models ranging from the deluxe limited production Supreme models to junior 20” wheeled models.
Conceived to keep the factory busy during the tail end of the great depression, the bicycle line proved popular to the point that when the company returned to civilian production after WW2, bicycles had become the company’s single largest product.
Cleveland Welding was purchased by AMF in 1951, both for their Roadmaster bicycle line and for the production facilities and expertise the company had in other manufacturing areas.
After purchasing the Cleveland Welding Company, AMF entered the bicycle manufacturing business with its newly-formed AMF Wheel Goods Division and continued to produce the Roadmaster line of bicycles at the Cleveland plant. The Junior Toy Company, of Hammond, Indiana, another AMF acquisition, became connected with Cleveland Welding at this time when both companies were forcibly joined by AMF. In 1953 AMF added the remains of the Shelby Cycle Company to their holding through a hostile takeover after that firm had already been sold to one of its largest customers, the Gambles Department store chain.
In an effort to avoid the cost of doing business with the labor unions in Cleveland, AMF moved all of their wheel goods production to Little Rock Arkansas in 1956 and attempted to refocus the Cleveland factory and operation on the production of larger industrial products such as jet engine components. The new Little Rock plant was purpose built for bicycle and wheel goods production and was heavily automated and featured more than a mile of part conveyor belts in six separate systems, including an electrostatic induction painting operation…..”
Taking advantage of the increase in its target markets in the aftermath of the baby boom, AMF was able to diversify its product line, adding exercise equipment under the brand name Vitamaster in 1950. As demand for bicycles continued to expand, the company found the need for a new manufacturing facility to keep up with demand. In 1962, the company moved its operations to Olney, Illinois, where it built a new factory on a 122-acre site that would remain the company’s principal bicycle manufacturing location into the 1990s.
After two decades of consistent growth, the AMF Wheel Goods Division stalled under the long-distance management of a parent company bogged down in layers of corporate management and marginally profitable product lines. Manufacturing quality as well as the technical standard of the Roadmaster bicycle line – once the pride of the company – had fallen to an all-time low. Bicycles made at the Olney plant were manufactured so poorly that some Midwestern bike shops refused to repair them, claiming that the bikes would not stay fixed no matter how much labor and effort was put into them. The division’s problems with quality and outside competition were neatly summed up in a 1979 American film, Breaking Away, in which identical secondhand AMF Roadmaster track bicycles were used by competitors in the Little 500 bicycle race. Despite this product placement, the film’s protagonist expressed a decided preference for his lightweight Italian Masi road racing bike, deriding the elderly Roadmaster as a ‘piece of junk.’
In 1983 AMF sold the assets to George Nebel, the General Manager and Bob Zinnen. In 1987 the company was sold to entrepreneur and merger and acquisition expert Thomas W Itin. Itin brought in two other investors Equitex and Enercorp, both Business Development Companies, under the 40 Act "BDCs" run by Henry Fong. It changed its name to Roadmaster Industries, Inc. and positioned itself as the leader in the fitness equipment and junior toy industries. Itin and Fong took the company public through an IPO in the end of 1987. Itin and Fong acquired over 20 companies in the sporting goods field. Roadmaster grew from $40,000,00 in unprofitable sales to over $800,000,000 of highly profitable sales. Under the symbol of RDMI it went from small cap on NASDQ to large cap on NMS to the American Stock Exchange and then to the New York Stock Exchange and became a Fortune 1000 company.
Helped by the increasing popularity of Mountain Bikes, Roadmaster experienced a 72% increase in bicycle sales in 1993. A new bicycle production plant was built in Effingham, Illinois to keep pace with the growing demand. Roadmaster acquired Flexible Flyer Company, whose history dates back to 1889.
In 1997 the Roadmaster bicycle division was sold to the Brunswick Corporation. However, it had already become evident that production of low-cost, mass-market bicycles in the United States was no longer viable in the face of intense foreign competition, and in 1999, all U.S. production of Roadmaster bicycles ceased. Brunswick sold its bicycle division and the Roadmaster brand to Pacific Cycle, which began distributing a new Roadmaster line of bicycles imported from Taiwan and the People's Republic of China. Pacific Cycle still uses the Olney facility for corporate offices and as a product inventory and distribution center.
Today the Roadmaster brand has been reactivated and is basically a low-end to middle-end bike sold through big box stores.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Machine_and_Foundry

https://oldbike.wordpress.com/1949-roadmaster-cycle-americ…/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMF_Bowling_Center

[A couple more long comments have been added.

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AMF ad from 1970.
Lyman Klopman You could get a Evel Knievel bike from AMF. They owned Harley Davidson who made Evel's motorcycle at the time.

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Photograph of the AMF Roadmaster factory in Olney, Illinois.
Image courtesy of Olney Library and their helpful staff. Thanks Shelley!

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Photograph of the AMF Roadmaster factory in Olney, Illinois.
Image courtesy of Olney Library and their helpful staff. Thanks Shelley!

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AMF ad from April 1961 American Bicyclist Magazine.

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1944 ad.

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1945 ad.

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Photographs of the AMF Roadmaster factory in Olney, Illinois.
Image courtesy of Olney Library and their helpful staff. Thanks Shelley!

Bob Brann commented on the first photo.
I had the Murray F5 Eliminator.

A video of a 1970's commercial for the Roadmaster Evel Knievel Bicycles

I see this plant built the Murray brand. My 26" bicycle was a Murray. So it was probably one of the earlier bikes made in this plant.

When we moved into our house in 1976, I found this pedal racer in a storage area under the front porch. My three daughters put a few more miles on it.

20200609 2145c

 I was able to find replacement wheels for the front. But the left rear wheel is an issue. The "differential" for this vehicle is that only the left wheel is fixed to the axle. The right wheel doesn't help with traction.

Lost Illinois Manufacturing posted nine photos with the comment:

A visitor posted a photo of their Flintstones pedal car (minus the pedals - it is foot powered like the cartoon one). Does anyone know what year(s) these were made by AMF in Olney, Illinois?

Martin O'Connor It's an odd composite of both Rubble and Flintstone vehicles, though.
Jeff Madden AMF in Olney is now a warehouse for Pacific Cycle. They also have customer service offices. No manufacturing at all.
Jake Marino Everything I'm seeing online says 1970s. One listing on Worthpoint stated 1975.

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Another indication of my age is that I remember watching Fred Flintstone when it first aired on TV.

One of the links returned from the Google search was: https://www.ebay.com/bhp/amf-pedal-car
As a sampling of their "wheeled toys," this is what was returned on April 3, 2019 with the omission of parts for sale.

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