The Shore Line Subdivision is a

railroad line Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to road ...

owned and operated by

Grand Trunk Western Railroad The Grand Trunk Western Railroad Company was an American subsidiary of the Grand Trunk Railway, later of the Canadian National Railway operating in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Since a corporate restructuring in 1971, the railroad ha ...

(GTW), a subsidiary of

Canadian National The Canadian National Railway Company () is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN is Canada's largest railway, in terms of both revenue an ...

(CN), which connects the cities of

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

and

Toledo, Ohio Toledo ( ) is a city in Lucas County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is located at the western end of Lake Erie along the Maumee River. Toledo is the List of cities in Ohio, fourth-most populous city in Ohio and List of United Sta ...

, paralleling the shore of

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( ) is the fourth-largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and also has the shortest avera ...

Description

The Shore Line Sub is

single track Single may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Single (music), a song release Songs * "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004 * "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008 * "Single" (William Wei song), 2016 * "Single", by ...

with the parallel Tunnel Industrial track beginning at Milwaukee Junction at MP 54.8 south to Vinewood Interlocking at MP 51.2 where the Tunnel Industrial ends. The line continues past West Detroit junction at MP 50.1 on

trackage rights Railway companies can interact with and control others in many ways. These relationships can be complicated by bankruptcies. Operating Often, when a railroad first opens, it is only a short spur of a main line. The owner of the spur line may c ...

over a Norfolk Southern (NS) railway (originally the

Wabash Railroad The Wabash Railroad was a Class I railroad that operated in the mid-central United States. It served a large area, including track in the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, and Missouri and the province of Ontario. Its primary con ...

mainline) to

Delray Delray is the name of several communities in the United States of America: *Delray, Georgia *Delray, Detroit, Michigan *Delray, Texas *Delray, West Virginia *Delray Beach, Florida *Delray Gardens, Florida *Delray Shores, Florida ;See also * Battle ...

Interlocking at MP 47.8. The line continues along the NS railway until it crosses the River Rouge picking back up on its own trackage. From the

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busine ...

River Rouge Yard begins the short

double track A double-track railway usually involves running one track in each direction, compared to a single-track railway where trains in both directions share the same track. Overview In the earliest days of railways in the United Kingdom, most li ...

portion of the line until returning to a single track at MP 43.2 just south of the

Ecorse River The Ecorse River is an U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed November 7, 2011 river in southern Michigan. Because of its small size, it is often identified as Ecorse Creek. ...

. It continues as a single track (with various sidings) all the way to Toledo. The line parallels the Norfolk Southern Detroit Line directly to its east for the vast majority of its length, namely the northbound track #2.

History

The line was originally built as the

Detroit and Toledo Shore Line Railroad The Detroit and Toledo Shore Line Railroad is a historic railroad that operated in northwestern Ohio and southeastern Michigan. The Pleasant Bay Railway was incorporated in Michigan in March 1898 and purchased the Toledo and Ottawa Beach Railwa ...

(D&TSL). It served as a bridge line for joint owners NKP and GTW until N&W sold its half to GTW in 1981. From that time forward the Shore Line Sub has been lengthened to include territory that was once part of the Wabash Rwy from Rouge Bridge to West Detroit, as well as territory that was part of the GTW Mount Clemens Subdivision.

References

{{Reflist Michigan railroads Rail infrastructure in Michigan Railway lines in the United States Ohio railroads