Station: Ottawa Yard, Michigan
Michigan's Internet Railroad History Museum
Pere Marquette Railroad
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| Below, Pere Marquette's Ottawa Yard, scanned from a USGS map from 1977. Ottawa Yard was Pere Marquette's freight yard serving Toledo, Ohio, but located just north of the Ohio-Michigan line. The yard was a semi-hump type with a standing car capacity of 3,589. Freight pullers operated between the yard and connecting lines in Toledo. The yard also had an emergency icing station for produce cars and a water treatment plant for locomotive water supply. Ottawa had a 16-stall roundhouse which was built in 1924 and handled 17 engines daily. The stalls were 109' long and the turntable was 100' long. The engine facility also had a 3-chute, 300-ton capacity coal dock which was built in 1923. There were two track scales, built in 1922, 50' long with beam capacities of 250,000 lbs. On the north end of the yard (at the very top of this USGS scan, was Erie, Michigan which is where the yard began. It was controlled by an interlocking plant. [Information from PM's Operating and Physical Data, 1945 edition]. Following the full integration of the PM into the Chesapeake & Ohio, this hard was removed and operations were transferred to Walbridge, Ohio. |
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Information from Doug Hefty, former C&O Saginaw Dispatcher (1977-1988), posted on 4/8/2005: "Going north from Alexis there used to be 3 tracks. From east to west they were the Running track, No. 1 track and No. 2 track. The running track ended and connected into No. 1 track at a power switch that used to be at Stearns Road. All C&O trains used the running track to Stearns Rd, then No. 1 track to Erie. No. 1 track between Alexis and Stearns Road was only used by northbound Penn Central (later Conrail) trains destined Carleton. The No. 2 track out of Erie was only used by southbound Penn Central (later Conrail) trains to Alexis. Southward C&O trains had to cross over at Erie and run No. 1 track to Stearns Road and then to the running track to Alexis to get to Hallett. Eventually Steans Road was eliminated and the former No. 2 track from there to Alexis was removed. They removed the switch and jogged No. 1 track onto the Running track (which became the new No. 1 track, and jogged the No. 2 track over onto the former No. 1 track south of Stearns road which became the new No. 2 track. They added a crossover at Alexis so C&O trains on the new No. 2 track could head toward Hallett Tower.