The Marsh Track

The Conrail Marsh Track is a stub end industrial track which serves several Downriver heavy industries. It loops 180 degrees so that it parallels Rouge Yard and the Detroit Line southward, terminating at Conrail's tiny Techumseh Yard. Along the way it junctions with the Delray Connecting Railroad at GTW's ex-DT&I Short Cut Bridge, and then crosses GTW's ex-DT&I River Sub.

U. S. Gypsum is the first industry along the line. It is located west of Jefferson Avenue just south of the River Rouge. They ship out wallboard in 50' boxcars. The track then crosses eastward over Jefferson Avenue, passing the Peerless Cement factory switch. After that, the area opens up into an Amoco Petro tank farm with the Marsh Track bordering north side. A few thousand feet to the east the line runs right through a large asphalt plant, then splits at the wye connecting the Delray Connecting Railroad and the GTW ex-DT&I River subdivision while passing the switch into the Detroit Edison Bellanger Park Power Plant, the destination for all those UDR coal trains.

The CR marsh track actually operates on joint trackage with GTW at this point. The Shortcut Bridge Tower controls it from this location onward.

Mega Merci Shawn O'Day for text and data

The Trains

The name of this Conrail industrial track is appropriate as most of the Downriver Detroit industrial zone was built on a lowland marsh adjacent to the Detroit River. Here we see a UDR with CR 6056 and 6246 sloshing southward through a January Thaw as he pulls his train past the Detroit Edison Bellanger Park Power Plant switch. Once he has cleared the switch he will shove his train onto the Edison property. This UDR was made up of ancient 1000, 2000, and 3000 series low slung rotory dump coal cars. Those cars sure looked dated! We are looking north from Great Lakes Road in Ecorse, MI. January 24, 1999.

Marsh Track Stuff

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