The First Detroit River Tunnel

So you want to take the tunnel to Canada?  Sure, there's the tunnel for cars that opened in 1930.  But did you know that 20 years earlier the cities of Detroit and Windsor were connected by a train tunnel?

Map locating Detroit's vehicular and rail tunnels.
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Opened in July 1910, the Michigan Central Railway tunnel connected passenger and freight rail traffic between the two countries.  The tunnel eliminated the 12+ hour wait for rail cars to be ferried across the river. Instead, rail traffic can pass through the 1.6 mile long tunnel in minutes.  On the US side, trains enter south of the Bagley Avenue bridge just past the Michigan Central Station.  On the Canadian side, they enter just north of Wyandotte Street (parallel to Wellington Avenue) in Windsor.

Ferry carries rail cars across the Detroit River circa 1900
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The tunnel was the first built without compressed air.  It was constructed using an engineering method known as Immersion Tube.  The method is cheaper and faster than boring into the Earth and is simple in concept:

• Dig a 13 foot deep trench in the Detroit River bottom
• Float bulkheaded sections of the steel tunnel tube (263 feet (80 meters) long) into place
• Sink the sections into the trench with weights
• Align the new section with the previously sunk section
• Drain the water between the sections
• Seal the connection 
• Backfill the trench and connected tube sections with concrete
• Pump the steel tubes dry
• Finish the inside of the steel tube with 1.5 feet (50 cm) thick concrete 

the Stages of Immersion Tube Construction
Image Credit (figure 4)

Steel tubes being floated into place along the Detroit River
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The Detroit River Tunnel Company built the tunnel for $8.5 million.  It was constructed under the supervision of the New York Central Railway's Engineering Vice President, William J. Wilgus.

Seven workmen operating machinery while building
the Michigan Central Railway Tunnel, 1907.
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Beginning in August 1992, the tunnel's north tube underwent a $27 million enlargement to permit the passage of stacked container railcars and multilevel auto carriers railcars.  Rivaling the engineering of the original design, the enlargement involved the removal of a portion of the concrete ceiling, floor and sides. The link below contains a video describing the history of the tunnel as well as details of the expansion project:

CP Rail Detroit Windsor Tunnel Enlargement

The tunnel today continues to handle an annual volume of approximately 400,000 railcars.

Entrance into the Detroit side of Michigan Central Railway Tunnel
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Closer detail of Detroit side entrance.  Note that the left
tunnel's ceiling and side walls have been modified to
accept taller and wider rail cars.
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Gleit, Jon, "The Detroit River Tunnel Few Have Seen: The Michigan Central Railway Tunnel", April 12, 2016, Detroit Historical Society.

Lee, Ardelia, "The Other Detroit River Tunnel No One's Told You About", July 9, 2016,  Daily Detroit.