NS New Customer in Toledo?

[jimnorthwood]

Returning home from an Easter day rendezvous with family, I saw several boxcars parked where I've witnessed no rail activity in years. The line I'm referring to is the one marked MCRR on the map, which left the MCRR main just east of Bennett Avenue, crossed Lagrange Street and Stickney Avenue, and went into Boulevard Yard. In modern times this track ended just west of the Stickney Avenue crossing, directly across from the current Jeep plant. The last customer to get service on this line that I am aware of was Textile Leather, which closed in 2009. The Textile Leather building complex was razed recently, in hopes that FCA will construct a new factory on the site in which to build the proposed aluminum body Jeep Wrangler in 2017. The box cars were parked at the end of this track. About 15 years ago NS ran a light engine move on this line in winter. The locomotive hit built up ice in the Detroit Avenue crossing, went off the rails, and ended up perpendicular to the track in the middle of Detroit Avenue.

http://railsandtrails.com/Maps/ToledoTe ... 44-100.jpg

[GlassCityPhotos]

Thanks for the background and historical map for this track. The only thing I have heard about it recently is that the city of Toledo wanted to buy the section closest to Jeep and adjacent the former Textileather property as part of its incentive package to Fiat Chrysler for the aluminum Wrangler expansion http://www.toledoblade.com/Politics/201 ... -Jeep.html. Of course, that does not exclude a new customer on the other side of the Ottawa River.

[MDH]

A few years ago I had seen NS park some MOW cars in there (don't remember right off what all was in there, tie gons and / or boxcars I think) and that's the last time I've seen it used. Could be NS MOW cars? I don't otherwise know of anything going on there.

Michael

[jimnorthwood]

The cars could have been NS MOW. I couldn't get a close enough look at them from the Lagrange Street crossing to be able to tell. They were boxcars, there were two or three of them, and they were painted the standard boxcar red. Should FCA build a new Jeep plant on the former TextileLeather site, I wonder if that track would see use again, or if the vehicles would be trucked, or driven on that non-public overpass, across Stickney to the AAR yard?

[GlassCityPhotos]

An article in today's Blade mentioned that the city is buying even more land for the Jeep plant, this time along Lagrange http://www.toledoblade.com/business/201 ... -Jeep.html. Obviously with the Ottawa River splitting the proposed site in half, any new expansion will involve multiple buildings so it is possible that the existing track could be incorporated into the new layout.

I am wondering if the rail leading into the expansion site could be used for receiving shipments of material, particularly the aluminum for the new Wrangler should the rumors prove true. Based on what I have read in the automotive press, the existing plant cannot switch over to using aluminum without first shutting down for a lengthy cleanup due to contamination issues - something Jeep will not do given the fact that they cannot make enough Wranglers to begin with. The expansion would be built with new assembly lines for the aluminum Wrangler without impacting current production and the existing Wrangler lines would be switched over to some other product once the new section was up and running.

Assuming that the contamination issues also apply to stamping the aluminum into body panels prior to assembly, there most likely would need to be a new dedicated stamping facility at the plant along with the new assembly lines. The old rail could be used to receive aluminum coils into the new stamping facilities without impacting the existing vehicle loading operations on the other side of the current plant. Just speculating...