State Rep. Bill Rogers, R-Brighton, who heads a task force looking into whether the state should grant easements for the rail line along Interstate 96, U.S. 23 and I-94, said the system is within the realm of possibility — provided private funding exists to meet the $2 billion price tag.

Connie Murry Cole of Detroit-based Interstate Traveler Company LLC, the company that developed the plan for the high-speed line, said enough funding has been identified to at least build a prototype within a year, but the location has not been determined.

The “MagLev” rail line would incorporate hydrogen and solar technology, and magnetic forces would help propel train cars along stainless steel tubes that could serve as conduits for fiber optic cable, electrical lines and utilities like water and natural gas.

“If they truly can finance it, I don’t know why it couldn’t exist,” Rogers said. “I just don’t know if the money is there.”

About 75 people attended the hearing, most from investment companies that have bought a stake in the endeavor, or from industries that hope to spin off business if the project goes forward.

Michigan State University history professor James Anderson, an economic historian, said the plan has the potential to revolutionize transportation — if it gets off the ground. He testified in support of the plan.

“It’s going to provide increased transport speed, efficiency and safety,” Anderson said. “And we haven’t even begun to count its job creation potential.”

kbouffard@detnews.com (517) 371-3660

Find this article at: http://www.detnews.com/article/20090615/POLITICS02/906150410/Company-ready-to-build-high-speed-rail-prototype

The petition we’ve made possible here will be presented at the hearing and to the Detroit media.

I want to personally thank all that signed.

Keep your fingers crossed. I will know the outcome of the hearing on the 29th and will post back as soon as I know something.

Thanks again, everyone!

Walter Victor

The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources .

The Michigan Central Station or then known as Penn Central Station is record #157236 on the register.

Listing in the National Register of Historic Places provides formal recognition of a property’s historical, architectural, or archeological significance based on national standards used by every state. Two of the more important for our purposes to save the station are:

• Providing opportunities for specific preservation incentives, such as:
  > Federal preservation grants for planning and rehabilitation
  > Federal investment tax credits
  > Preservation easements to nonprofit organizations
  > International Building Code fire and life safety code alternatives
• Possible State tax benefit and grant opportunities.

What does this mean?  It means if the station were to be restored, some of the cost could be covered by a grant from the government.  Also, from what I read, Michigan could receive a tax-benefit for restoring it.

With the recent news of U.S. cities possibly being linked via high-speed rail, this could be of huge benefit.  Many tracks from many cities already run to the rear of the station, including one under the Detroit river to Canada.

To contact the National Register of Historic Places:

Phone: (202) 354-2211
Fax: (202) 371-6447

To contact the Michigan Department of History:

Phone: (517) 241-2236

Whitney Warren was a cousin of the Vanderbilts and spent ten years at the École des Beaux Arts. There he met fellow architecture student Emmanuel Louis Masqueray, who would, in 1897, join the Warren and Wetmore firm. He began practice in New York City in 1894.

Warren’s partner, Charles D. Wetmore, was a lawyer by training. Their society connections led to commissions for clubs, private estates, hotels and terminal buildings, including the New York Central office building, the Chelsea docks, the Ritz-Carlton, Biltmore, Commodore, and Ambassador Hotels. They were the preferred architects for Vanderbilt’s New York Central Railroad.

The firm’s most important work by far is the Grand Central Terminal in New York City, completed in 1913 in association with Reed and Stem. Warren and Wetmore were involved in a number of related hotels in the surrounding “Terminal City”.

Whitney Warren retired in 1931 but occasionally served as consultant. Warren took particular pride in his design of the reconstructed library at the Catholic University of Leuven, finished in 1928, which carried the controversial inscription Furore Teutonico Diruta: Dono Americano Restituta (“Destroyed by German fury, restored by American generosity”) on the facade. The library was largely destroyed by German forces again in 1940.

The architectural records of the firm are held by the Dept. of Drawings & Archives at the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University.

Among the firm’s other commissions were:

• The Racquet House at the Tuxedo Club, Tuxedo Park, New York, 1890-1900
• The New York Yacht Club, 1899
• 49 East 52nd Street, Vanderbilt guest house, New York City, 1908
• Union Station (Winnipeg), Manitoba, Canada, 1911
• Union Station, Houston, Texas 1911 (Now a part of Minute Maid Park)
• Aeolian Hall (New York), 1912
• The Helmsley Building, originally the New York Central Building, part of the Grand Central Terminal complex, 1913
• The unfinished Michigan Central Station, Detroit, Michigan, 1913, also with Reed and Stem
• The Texas Company (Texaco) Building, Houston, Texas, 1915
• 927 Fifth Avenue, New York City, a cooperative apartment house, 1917
• The Commodore Hotel, now the Grand Hyatt Hotel, part of “Terminal City”, 1920
• The New York Biltmore Hotel, also part of “Terminal City”
• The Crown Building, formerly the Heckscher Building, New York City, 1921
• The Providence Biltmore Hotel, Providence, Rhode Island, 1922
• The Mayflower Hotel, Washington, D.C., 1922, with Robert F. Beresford
• Steinway Hall on 57th Street, New York City, 1925
• Royal Hawaiian Hotel, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1927
• Asbury Park Convention Hall, 1923, and the adjoining Paramount Theatre, 1930
• The Chelsea Piers

Material from Wikipedia and all text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

Before the tunnel, the Canada Southern Railway had connections to Michigan at its west end, all were car ferries.  The Northern spanned across the St. Clair River which connected the St. Clair and Western Railroad.  The Southern one crossed the Detroit River just south of Detroit, and connected to the Canada Southern Bridge Company in Grosse Ile. Additionally a line, which was usually considered the main line, split from the one  in Grosse Ile in Essex, then ran to the Detroit River in Windsor.

The Grand Trunk Railway opened up the St. Clair Tunnel in Port Huron on July 26th, 1910 which gave it an advantage on the Canada Southern’s car ferries.  The Detroit River Tunnel Company formed on August 15th, 1905 being a merger between Michigan and Canada Bridge and Tunnel Company in Michigan and the Canada and Michigan Bridge and Tunnel Company in Canada.  Construction of the tunnel began October 1906 under the supervision of The New York Central Railways engineering VP, William Wilgus. The tunnel opened for passengers on July 26th, 1910.  Freight services began on September 15th and on October 16th all of the  traffic began running via the tunnel which ended the need for the former car ferry.

On the Canadian side, the Michigan Central Railway Tunnel connected to a line that had served a car ferry in Windsor.  On the U.S. side, the tunnel connected to the Michigan Central Railroad main line just west of downtown and the Michigan Central Station was built just west of the junction which opened in 1913.

In 1968 the tunnel changed hands, from New York Central Railroad to Penn Central and then in 1976 to went to Conrail.  Conrail sold the tunnel in 1985 to the Canadian National Railway and to the Canadian Pacific Railway.  Each got half share.  In 2000 Canadian National agreed to sell its part to Borealis Transportation and to only use the St. Clair Tunnel.  Just recently plans were announcec by the Detroit River Tunnel Partnership to construct a new railway tunnel and convert the existing one to a two-lane vehicle tunnel for transport trucks which would lighten the load on the other international border crossings which are close by, namely the Ambassador Bridge, the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, and the Detroit-Windsor Truck Ferry).  The plans have been put on hold while Canada and the U.S. figure out the exact location of a future border crossing.

I put out the word to friends and collegues.  I also emailed Stanley Christmas about the site and he seemed overyjoyed by the support.

The fact is…sigh… it’s not getting signed.  The petition is one of only a few things I can do from Wisconsin.

Please find a couple of minutes and lend your signature to the petition.  It might not make any difference, but what if it did

Click to sign: Save Michigan Central Station Petition

The building is located in the Corktown district of Detroit near Tiger Stadium and the Ambassador Bridge and is about two miles southwest of downtown Detroit.

On September 17, 1974, the Depot was added to the Michigan Historical Register.  On April 16, 1975, the Depot was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

The architecture is that of the Beaux-Arts Classical style.  It was designed by Warren & Wetmore and Reed and Stem, who also designed the Grand Central Terminal in New York.  Cost of construction in 1913 was $15,000,000.  The Depot is approximately 500,000 sq ft in size.  Many of the upper floors were never used or even finished.

After the automotive industry took a down-swing and being laid-off in Michigan, I moved to Wisconsin to look for work.  I became a welder and have since been laid-off from that.  That’s a whole other post

I was alerted by John, a friend of mine still living in Michigan, that the station was to be demolished.  I immediately started searching the web for information about this and found that the Detroit City Council had voted to tear it down.  They actually are considering it an emergency.  I’m not sure at what point it became an emergency, but with the state of the economy and car industy, the MCS is the least of Detroit’s problems.

Shortly after finding out about the council’s decision, I found out that Stanley Christmas and the Eclipse Foundation filed a lawsuit against this.

Since I’m in Wisconsin, I started this website along with the petition, which I would appreciate you signing   I emailed Mr. Christmas and he applauded my efforts and suggested that I place a blog on the site as well.  Which brings us here.

Please help in saving the station, which to a lot of people, is not just another building.