Are trains in Michigan Central’s future?

DETROIT — The magnificent indoor space at Michigan Central Station that once hosted New York Central passenger trains has been brought back to life in spectacular fashion by the Ford Motor Company. It joins New York’s Grand Central Terminal, union stations in Washington and Chicago, and Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal as well-preserved classics built in an era when passenger trains dominated the transportation landscape.

But those stations continue to be bustling passenger hubs today. Michigan Central has been restored with a different purpose in mind [see “Michigan Central opens its doors,” Trains News Wire, June 7, 2024], and there is plenty of evidence of the trains it once served, but tracks and platforms were removed in the 1980s.

News Wire visited the structure on Sept. 20, 2019, when the daunting task of restoration had just begun in earnest, and comparisons of the structure then and now and striking.

In the sprawling “open archive” section that was once Michigan Central’s restaurant, a platform tractor that once pulled mail carts is displayed as it was discovered in the rubble when the trainshed and trackage behind the building were demolished.

The question remains, will trains ever return to the station itself? Tracks now owned by CPKC lead to the tunnel under the Detroit River to Windsor, Ontario, that once carried NYC’s New York-Detroit-Chicago Wolverine and Amtrak’s Niagara Rainbow before rolling to a stop at the station. Gates from the concourse where thousands of passengers once passed through daily are now fully occupied by light sculptures.

The tunnels which led to the platforms have been sealed off. The view from a corner of a parking lot under construction shows that the space where trains used to pause, still adjacent to the CPKC main line, is now a massive concrete slab.

Melissa Ditmer, Michigan Central’s Head of Place officer, tells News Wire the area is in the design stage as an eight-acre public space “that we will be constructing next year. It will be connected with the southwest and Joe Louis Greenways from downtown and other neighborhoods.”

In one of the arcades, there is an artist rendering of the park would and its proximity to the station and tracks.

A “mobility hub” south and east of what used to be a mail facility and later a textbook storage building that burned in 1988 — but not close to CP tracks — will have transit connections and 12,000 parking spaces. There is still enough room for a platform and perhaps a stub track next to the existing main line, but access would have to be from a separate building, not directly to the rear of Michigan Central.

Amtrak and VIA Rail Canada have floated a plan to connect one Chicago-Detroit and one Windsor-Toronto round trip, trains that could not serve the current Amtrak station on Canadian National trackage in the New Center neighborhood [see “Amtrak-VIA proposal for through Chicago-Toronto service revealed,” News Wire, Nov. 13, 2023]. To do so would require a time-consuming back-up move that could potentially add 20 to 30 minutes to the journey if a stop at Michigan Central wasn’t developed.

Nevertheless, Dittmer explains, “We are working with the city of Detroit, state of Michigan, and Amtrak to study bringing passenger rail back to the station.” There is nothing concrete at this point, she says, “but we are optimistic.”

Visiting Michigan Central

All scheduled tours as part of the facility’s opening are currently sold out. Beginning June 21, the building will welcome visitors 5 to 9 p.m. Fridays and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays through the summer with the current open-house exhibits. Refreshments will be provided by pop-up vendors and the hours of operation may be expanded, and areas of the station open to the public will increase this fall. See the Michigan Central website for more details.