STANDING TALL IN TOLEDO Ann Arbor Today BY MICHAEL HARDING/PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR
HALLETT TOWER STANDS TODAY as the last manned tower in the Toledo area, a holdback to another era but still oper- ated by the Ann Arbor Railroad. That prior era of the Ann Arbor harkens back to a line stretching across lower Michigan from Toledo, Ohio, up to Frankfort, Mich., with car ferries con- necting to Wisconsin and upper Michi- gan. Those days are gone, but it’s been an interesting journey to get to today’s vibrant short line.
Early in its existence the Ann Arbor was acquired by the DT&I but then shortly sold off to the Wabash. After a long period of Wabash control, the DT&I again acquired control when the Wabash was absorbed into the Norfolk & Western. The 1970 Penn Central bankruptcy forced yet another owner- ship change followed by Ann Arbor’s
own bankruptcy and a temporary take over by Conrail in 1976. The state of Michigan stepped in to acquire the entire line, since Conrail was only interested in operating the southern portion of the former Ann Ar- bor. In October 1977 the Michigan In- terstate Railway was formed as a unit of the Michigan Department of Trans- portation to operate the trackage. The state of Michigan later privatized that entity, selling it off to the new Ann Ar- bor Railroad (AA) and what ultimately became the Great Lakes Central Rail- road (GLC). The new “Annie” was formed on October 7, 1988, to operate the trackage from Toledo up to Osmer just north of Ann Arbor where the line interchanges with the GLC.
Since that time, the Ann Arbor has been a successful short line railroad al-
though heavily dependent on automo- tive traffic. Ottawa Yard is its primary yard and home to their small fleet of Geeps, located right next to Chrysler’s Toledo North Assembly Plant, the birthplace of the modern Jeep. Aside from directly
serving the assembly
plant they also serve a number of other customers in town including trackage rights on the Norfolk Southern Olive Industrial down to the Maumee water- front and on the backside of the Toledo Terminal over to Temperance Yard on CSX. Foundry and “frack” sand from GLC for interchange to NS, unit grain trains interchanged with GLC and au- to part plants in Saline and Dundee comprise much of the remaining core business.
Motive power for today’s Ann Arbor is comprised of three EMD GP38s of
OPPOSITE: The Ann Arbor Railroad road train out of Toledo is making good time heading north towards Ann Arbor with a solid consist of cov- ered hoppers as they split the signals south of Todd Road near Ida Center, Michigan,on July 11, 2011. ABOVE: Ann Arbor 7791 is drilling au- toracks along the west side of Ottawa Yard next to the Chrysler plant in Toledo, on October 1, 2011. This assembly plant is one of the railroad’s most important customers.
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