Re: GTW Old Main (W side) questions
Good discussion. I grew up close to the old GTW main on its west end. Caught more than one cab ride in a GTW switch engine between Ballenger Highway and Corunna Road Yard when I was a kid. Besides Chevy in the Hole there was the Central Grocery Warehouse on Corunna Road. My brother unloaded boxcars there as a college job. There was also a lumber yard on the north side of Corunna Road, just beyond the grade crossing. I recall seeing boxcars there when I was very young. There was a fence/gate that crews had to open when they would take a car in or out, which seemed very interesting to me when I was young. I am not sure if there were additional customers between Corunna Road Yard west to the GM parts plant in Swartz Creek. That area was still very rural in those years. Like Elba Steve I also have good memories of seeing trains during shopping trips to downtown Flint (via the Corunna Road bus; Miller Road had no bus service then, as there was essentially nothing on Miller Road in those years). On the C&O Old Main I recall the Atlas Warehouse lead having a boxcar or two during the mid-1980's, and the Art Train parking on the Old Main around the same time. The last time I recall seeing anything at all on the C&O Old Main was when a line of whitelined boxcars sat there for some time, awaiting their fate. That too would have been in the mid-1980's.
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