DT&I: Detroit, Toledo & Ironton

Unknown Author, Public Domain
This is a map of the Detroit, Toledo and Ironton Railroad
as of 1918, with trackage rights in purple
 and then-proposed lines dotted.

The Detroit, Toledo & Ironton route started as various narrow gauge railroads. With a series of bankruptcies and corporate maneuvers, it became a contiguous standard gauge railroad between Detroit and Ironton with a branch to Toledo. When Henry Ford was building his huge River Rouge Complex, he bought the DT&I on July 9, 1920 and added the Dearborn branch shown on the map below. The DT&I route connected his plant to all of the major east/west railroads and allowed him to choose which railroads handled which shipments. But his vision was much more than a glorified industrial spur. He planed to build an extension to Deepwater, WV where it would connect with the lucrative Virginian Railway. He then planned to buy that railway to give him a connection to an Atlantic port. He also planned to electrify the DT&I. The Dearborn Branch was built with 25-cycle, 22kv catenary. And his company built two electric locomotives to use on that branch. But the bully and horse&wagon attitudes of the Interstate Commerce Commission took all the fun out of playing with railroads. So on June 27, 1929 he sold the DT&I to Pennsy. The route ended up as part of Grand Trunk Western in 1978 instead of becoming part of Conrail. [american-rails] Remnants of the route are now part of the G&W's Indiana & Ohio Railway.

Peter Dudley shared, cropped
A c. 1976 map shows the north end(s) of the Detroit, Toledo & Ironton Railroad (DT&I).
The Dearborn Branch (extending north from D&I Junction) still features about 100 reinforced-concrete electric catenary arches (overhead electrification was unplugged in 1930).

In the background of the photo below you can see some of the 7.5 ton concrete catenaries that were built over the double-track Dearborn Branch. I read that they are gong to be torn down.

Assembling a Manitowoc 999