Can someone tell me the length of this Ann Arbor RR turntable? Is it still there?

http://www.michiganrailroads.com/RRHX/R ... MIAARR.htm

As I recall, I think this is the location of an effort some years ago to preserve the Great Lakes railroad car ferry S.S. City of Milwaukee AND the railroad yards shown. The car ferry WAS preservered (although I am not sure it was here at Elberta) but I do not know what became of the rail facilities. It is a shame that both weren't preserved as a total effort as the rail end is why the railroad car ferries existed in the first place.

Les

I made the family stop at the Ann Arbor engine terminal on our last trip through that territory. The entire AA yard was remediated of its various contaminants, including the entire track plant, to a depth of 3 or so feet. The grounds around the enginehouse is a park. If I remember right, there is a circular ornament of some kind where the turntable pit used to be, with historical displays on the railroad. The only surviving remnants are the marine station, the enginehouse, and the coal dock (used as a roost by an eagle when we were there).

Some people will be aware that the Elberta buildings are an example of reverse re-use in which obsolete industrial structures were converted to railroad use. The ferry depot was built as a life-saving station, and the square enginehouse, built into the side of a hill, was, unbelievably, a charcoal iron furnace. With the opening of the park, it is now possible to get a good (legal) look at this site. The building is fenced off and inaccessible, but you can see where the stalls were built in the pig-casting part of the building, and where the brick furnace chimneys were truncated. This is one weird building. There is no attempt to preserve or stabilize it, and the wooden parts especially are slowly falling down.

On this same trip we saw the City of Milwaukee in its new home in Manistee, where it seems to be doing well. The dinky 50's motel, which must once have rated high on the red-neon scale, that is also on the site was gutted for overhaul, but how well it will do in competition with the big motel and convention center across the street remains to be seen. Now if they rented out the car deck for weddings or polka parties . . .

I also diverted this trip to St. Johns, to see if the the wood DSS&A 10-section sleeper was really on display at the GTW depot there, as some on this board had speculated. No dice. Instead, there was a camp car made from a box car. So the whereabouts of this remarkable carbody (no trucks) remains a mystery.

Sadly, the engine house came down this past summer. Michigan had the dubious distinction last year of destroying TWO roundhouse/ enginehouses.

TJG