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Niles, Michigan
Posted By: reh321, 11-22-2022, 03:28 PM

During my time in Grad School, I was home for Thanksgiving, and took time to visit the Penn Central station in Niles Michigan - about a dozen miles from where my parents lived back then - and I used my rangefinder camera to take the photo below.



According to my notes, that was Nov 24, 1972. On US Thanksgiving Day, that will have been fifty years ago! We will be busy then, and this appears to be the best day this week. so I returned there again today. Events have happened in the past fifty years. Penn Central - then their successor Conrail - moved Detroit-bound freight to their main Chicago - New York route through South Bend {apparently they have a link up to Detroit from near to near Toledo}, then Amtrak - which had always used the tracks through Niles for Chicago-Detroit trains - purchased the whole thing. The city/state eliminated an ugly highway bridge over the tracks, Amtrak added a platform for EB traffic and eliminated the now redundant-tracks, locals cleaned up and painted the building {including grit-blasting the exterior}, and a local gardening club even gets credit on a sign for landscaping the exterior {no flowers showing now!}. As I look at the two photos, I notice that someone also added a flag. So today, I made a return trip and for the first time, took a second photo of a particular train station.



This time I photographed from the SW instead of from the SE {the spot from which I took the first photo is now behind an Amtrak security fence complete with serious-looking "no trespassing" signs}. Of course back then I was limited by the camera's 45mm lens, and now I was able to use a wide-angle lens {and platform provided me a safe place to stand}, but it also shows how my style, etc have changed in those fifty years.

Last edited by reh321; 11-22-2022 at 06:25 PM. Reason: matching quote mark
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11-22-2022, 04:03 PM   #2
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QuoteOriginally posted by reh321 Quote
During my time in Grad School, I was home for Thanksgiving, and took time to visit the Penn Central station in Niles Michigan - about a dozen miles from where my parents lived back then - and I used my rangefinder camera to take the photo below.



According to my notes, that was Nov 24, 1972. On US Thanksgiving Day, that will have been fifty years ago! We will be busy then, and this appears to be the best day this week. so I returned there again today. Events have happened in the past fifty years. Penn Central - then their successor Conrail - moved Detroit-bound freight to their main Chicago - New York route through South Bend {apparently they have a link up to Detroit from near to near Toledo}, then Amtrak - which had always used the tracks through Niles for Chicago-Detroit trains - purchased the whole thing. The city/state eliminated an ugly highway bridge over the tracks, Amtrak added a platform for EB traffic and eliminated the now redundant-tracks, locals cleaned up and painted the building {including grit-blasting the exterior}, and a local gardening club even gets credit on a sign for landscaping the exterior {no flowers showing now!}. As I look at the two photos, I notice that someone also added a fag. So today, I made a return trip and for the first time, took a second photo of a particular train station.



This time I photographed from the SW instead of from the SE {the spot from which I took the first photo is now behind an Amtrak security fence complete with serious-looking "no trespassing signs}. Of course back then I was limited by the camera's 45mm lens, and now I was able to use a wide-angle lens, but it also shows how my style, etc have changed in those fifty years.
Penn Central was on the edge of bankruptcy, and without intentionally showing it, comparing my photos shows it

Last edited by reh321; 11-22-2022 at 04:11 PM.
11-23-2022, 03:23 PM   #3
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Quite a transformation!
11-23-2022, 03:45 PM   #4
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It's so cleaned up and brightened it hardly looks like the same station. When rail travel was at it heights numerous tracks went through these locations. Like Julie noted, it is quite a transformation. Thanks for sharing the images and information.

11-23-2022, 06:56 PM   #5
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QuoteOriginally posted by OrchidJulie Quote
Quite a transformation!
QuoteOriginally posted by MikeNArk Quote
It's so cleaned up and brightened it hardly looks like the same station. When rail travel was at it heights numerous tracks went through these locations. Like Julie noted, it is quite a transformation. Thanks for sharing the images and information.
Thanx to both of you for your responses.

I’m not sure of the timing now. When I showed both pictures to my wife, the first looked more like what she remembered - she returned through Niles several times in the early 1990’s. She was an academic administrator, had meetings in Chicago, and coming back through Niles had made more sense than coming back through South Bend because of how the train schedules worked.
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