This was located on Windsor’s west side on Pelletier St., just a block from Crawford & Tecumseh.
This photo was a MCRR Company shot, taken in 1943.
The station was once the arrival point of all the celebrities coming to Windsor who played at the Elmwood Casino. It was also the point of arrival for Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs for a long time as well.
Once the Michigan Central line switched hands a few times, Amtrack abandonned the Windsor MCS, just like they did the Detroit one. It was somewhere before 1984 when the station ceased passerger travel. It was in semi use as offices for the cargo lines that used to rumble past the 1911 station heading through the rail tunnel.
After many years of vacancy, the evening of November 15, 1996 saw an arsonist put an end to the MCS. By the time the sun rose, the station was gone.
I drove past this building, the day after the fire, I had fogotten about it since then. Thanks for posting the pics, and bringing back memories.
Great stuff Andrew. I’m shocked that the Detroit MCS wasn’t levelled for SBXL.
I’m sick of the morons on the DetroitYes forum never crediting my pix. It’s all YAP YAP YAP lazy gen X kids on an ego trip – I’m sick of it…
II feel ya. Sadly it’s not what it once was over there. However every once in a while something good comes out of it, and I keep hanging around….
well i am a westender in windsor and i do remember this station , i still eat at the station resturant that is still located near the penn station…well i know it is all gone now but i still miss it very much! all our old building ‘s are gone …but i still have them on my walls in my home. thank you andrew good work you do…..your awesome!! keep it up… i would love to do what you do, i do make a good historian…….i have many photo’s….let me know if you want any….cpr station was gone in the 30’s when they built the penn station…. i have many photo’s of them….take care…bye
The Pelletier street that I know of is between Rankin and Askin????
Confused,
Stef
Hi Stefani B. it is actually located off college and down mckay street then on your left on pelletier….close to tecumseh west. there is a resturant there called the station, it is really good there too it’s a bit of a greasy spoon , but yummy…please suport them if you want some good breakfast try it out…. i gave them some historic photo’s of the old central pen station….they have them up the walls in there it awesome! nice people own it…..bye for now hope i helped you….
When I was a kid we called it the Wellington Street Station. You could walk down a underpass from Wellington Street under the tracks and in to the Station. It was just beautiful inside. The small resterant behind it was called the Station Lunch. When I was in the Navy I would pay 25 cents to go through the tunnel to the RR Station and could walk home from there to Curry Avenue.. Nice to see someone that has a photo of it. I had 4 Great Uncles that worked that line Michigan Centeral, all retired after 50 years. Two lived onver on MxKay Avenue.
William
Great memories;
I was raised on Wellington Ave.and will never forget the good times at the Train Station and the Station Lunch.
Back in the early 60’s the Station Lunch was owned by Paul,his wife and two daughters.
As teenagers we always hung around with our girlfreinds,ate burgers and fries and put a ton of money in the Jukebox and Pinball Machine.
Thanks for the memories you really did a great job on this website-Your a real Professional…
Great picture! I’m only 28, but have lived on Wellington St. since I was born. I remember the fire that night… I watched it from the collage bridge and the back fields. I have always been interested in trains and have always enjoyed watching them come out of the tunnel. I remember the track went parallel to the tunnel lines between the tunnel lines and Wellington street. Supplied businesses like the old Windsor Star building, an old lumber yard that’s now a self storage facility, and a bunch of others. Directly behind my house is where they had the signal thing (not sure the actual name for it, it was also connected to a piece that would sit on top of the track. One of the guys would walk down, across the Essex Terminal line, and drop activate the lever, lowering the block off the track.) Long long gone now is this line. Does anybody have any old windsor railway maps? I’d be very interested in them, as there are a bunch of old track hidden in the roads (wellington, Elm, Elliott Streets).
Jeff
hey jeff and lilly im a westender too grew by curry park,i delivered papers and would go to that station restaurant with my sister after delivering for hot chocolate and burgers,we liked the 60’s feel,this was in the early 90’s,the lady that owned it was probably in her 60’s & her daughter would visit alot when we were there,i remember the old pictures,jukeboxes,bar stools,and cash registers,any ifo or pics on the area or the detroit train tunnel would be appreciated my email is swoosh652000@yahoo.ca thx
there is a book that was published about the canada southern railroad there is a photograph of Amtraks Niagara Rainbow that ran between detroit and Niagara Falls pulling up to the staion in that photo is a a kid on a bicycle well! i’m that kid boy does that bring back memeories
Jeff that signal thing your talking about is a called a semiphore
Jeff – if your still reading this thread, i’ve been having a terrible time finding any rail maps of the city BUT….the next best thing is to go to the “DTE aerial photographs” you can get black and white HD photos from ’49 to ’97 i beleive. then you can follow your trackage from there. as big a hub as windsor was for RR’ding..there isn’t much that seems to be out there, but my work internet restricts alot of stuff too.
the tracks that cross elliott are old ETR tracks that fed the old brick building where all those cranes and stuff get stored. the track that paralleled the tunnel track also used to have a switch just north of the ETR interlock that would turn right, cross wellington and feed the same old brick building.
as for the tracks on elm street…if your talking between university and riverside, those are steetcar tracks.
ps – i’m only 28 too so this might not be entirly accurate info.
Sorry for the delayed response. I’ve managed to find a couple pictures of the area, that answers my questions.
Let me respond to these posts…
Rick – I’ve never personally been inside the Station Restaurant before. I’ve managed to find a bunch of photo’s of when they were building the tunnel. I’m not sure if you’re on yahoo messenger, but I sent you a friend request.
Gary T – I’d love to see that book, if you know the name of it.
Gary – Thanks for the name!
Aaron – I believe I’ve seen the pictures, but the site isn’t working at the moment. You’re so far correct on your info. The track that came off the line parallel to the tunnel, crossed Wellington and into the old factory (Post Cereal) (My father, and his uncle used to work there many many years ago.) The track that crossed Elliott (the same ones that cross Elliott), also went to Post Cereal. In the yard where the cranes are, these tracks interconnected (the track that came across Wellington connected into the track that cross Elliott). The track that crossed Wellington also split off into two tracks before it connected to the track that cross Elliott. These all went to different parts of the old building. One of the pictures I found that shows this yard is actually on this website, just search for Post cereal factory! I also found a photos from a couple railway sites, not sure if I’m allowed to name them in here though.
Thanks for the info!
I remember this station from the 50’s and early 60’s when I lived on Oak Ave. We used to go down through the baggage tunnel from Wellington and come up in the lobby. Then go out the west entrance, where the restaurant is, to go to Cubs at the former St. Mary’s church on Tecumseh Rd. West near Campbell Ave. We knew it then as the New York Central Train Station.
I remember this beautiful old station as not only the New York Central station, but also as the Canadian Pacific station back in the 40’s and 50’s. My grandparents would arrive there from out west every year on Canadian Pacific passenger trains pulled by the famous Royal Hudson 4-6-4 steam locomotives. I would persuade Dad to take us out there early, long before train time, so we could watch the railroad action going on there. We would descend the long slope off Wellington Ave. and enter a tunnel under the tracks, coming up into the beautiful station waiting room with its big arrivals/departures board. Outside you would see the electric engines hauling trains up out of the Detroit River Tunnel. These trains may have been freights, or they would be passenger trains of both the New York Central and the Canadian Pacific. They had such exotic names as “Empire State Express,” “Wolverine,” “Chicago Express, ” and the “Overseas,” the latter being a CPR train from Chicago which connected to the White Empress ships at Montreal. The New York Central trains were pulled by J-3 class 4-6-4 Hudson locomotives which ran from Windsor to Harmon, New York. Steam engines were not allowed into the tunnels under the Detroit and the Hudson Rivers as passengers and engine crew could be asphyxiated, hence the application of electric engines at both Windsor and Harmon-on-Hudson. Trains running east from Harmon into New York City and west from Windsor into Detroit were therefore pulled by electric locomotives. In Windsor, the big J-3’s were serviced at the New York Central roundhouse located across Howard Ave. from Devonshire Mall, now the location of the Roundhouse Centre shopping plaza. Windsor was a big railroad hub with six steam railroads and two electric railroads operating within its city limits.