RAILFAN GUIDES of the U.S.
Todd's Railfan Guide to
JACKSON MI
In General
Getting Here
Map
Sites
Signals
Floobydust
MICHIGAN GUIDE HOME
RAILFAN GUIDES HOME
RAILROAD SIGNALS HOME
Jackson is home to a former Michigan Central depot that now services Amtrak, and Norfolk Southern's East Yard.
Most of the tracks through Jackson have grade level crossings. There are three places where roads avoid the tracks: Jackson St goes under, and over at West Ave and US127.
On the east side of town, just east of of US127, East Yard ends and joins up with the mainline, and shortly after that, the line goes into a single track to head east to Ann Arbor.
On the west side of town, the track does the single to double thing between Wildwood Ave and Laurence Ave, across from Oakgrove Ave when you're on Michigan Ave.
Aerial shots were taken from www.bing.com/maps (it used to be maps.live.com).
The snap-shots off of Bing are made with Snagit, a Techsmith product... a great tool if you have never used it! Give it a try!
My RSUS philosophy: Pictures (oh yea, my maps too) are worth a thousand words, especially for railfanning. Text descriptions only get you so far, especially if you get lost or disoriented. Take along good maps (or a GPS). I belong to AAA, which allows you to get local maps for free when you visit the local branches. ADC puts out a nice series of county maps for the Washington DC area, but their state maps do not have the railroads on them. If you can find em, I like the National Geographic map book of the U.S..... good, clear, and consise graphics, and they do a really good job of showing you where tourist type attractions are, although they too lack the railroads.
As always, if you have something to add or correct, click here
The easiest way to get to the depot is to take exit 139 off of interstate 94
and head south on Cooper. Jackson is about 80 miles west of Detroit,
and 37 miles south of Lansing via US127.
If you're really game for punishment, it's about two and a half hours to/from Deschler via a multitude of backroads, knowledge gained from doing it myself, ugh.... the only plus is that you cross the NS main in Stryker (or Bryan if you wanna go a little further out of your way), which is a very active mainline. According to the Toledo map there are about 90 to 120 trains a day on the line.
Click here for the map in PDF format.
1 The Amtrak Station
The Jackson Amtrak depot was built in 1872 by the Michigan Central as a replacement for an earlier one built in 1841.
Today the depot services 6 trains a day, going between Detroit (Pontiac) and Chicago.
The depot was host to Amtrak's 40th Anniversary train on October 8th and 9th, 2011, and was the best place I've been to (so far) to view the train because it was so well displayed with nothing in the way.
More information at:
http://www.michiganrailroads.com/RRHX/Stations/CountyStations/JacksonStations/Jackson/JacksonMIUnionStation.htm
A little history is at:
http://www.michiganrailroads.com/RRHX/Stations/CountyStations/JacksonStations/Jackson/JacksonMI.htm
Happy 40th Amtrak!
Additional pictures of the train are on my page at:
http://www.railroadsignals.us/amtrak40th/JAC.htm
Looking at the station and Amtrak Birthday train from
Pearl and Francis.
2 East Yard
1 WB Dual head searchlight at the end of the station
2 WB Dwarf signals adjacent to the station
3
EB Interlocking signals near the
corner of Pearl and Francis
High searchlights protect the EB main, while a 3 color
colorlight dwarf handles the job for reverse traffic.
A two head searchlight signal controls the Lansing line
entering the mainline.... notice the smaller backgrounds.
Looking at the signals from the depot.
The grade crossing gates at Pearl and Francis.
Jackson police car.
One of the few places the line is grade separated, at Jackson St.
Another one on the west side is where West Ave goes over. On the east
side of town, US1127 goes over the tracks.
NEW
10/10/2011
Last Modified
29-Mar-2012