Greenfield Village, MI (GFV)

Ticket Revenue

FY 2009

N/A

Station Ridership

FY 2009

N/A

Note: Fiscal year is from
October through September.

Greenfield Village is not a regular station stop; passengers wishing to detrain should use the nearby Dearborn station. Large groups visiting the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village complex must make advance arrangements with Amtrak to be dropped off near the depot and roundhouse in Greenfield Village during museum hours.

The State of Michigan and the City of Dearborn have plans to relocate the Dearborn Amtrak Station to a location more proximate to Greenfield Village, as the current Dearborn station has become too small for the number of passengers it handles.

Many visitors to Dearborn are drawn to the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village complex, which was dedicated in 1929 amid a crowd that included Orville Wright and Madame Curie. The museum holds a diverse array of objects that represent a wide spectrum of American history and experiences. The collection includes a Stradivarius violin, the Fokker Tri-motor airplane that flew the first flight over the North Pole, and the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. In accordance with Ford’s important role in the formation of the automobile industry, there is also an Automotive Hall of Fame. “Motor Muster” and the “Old Car Festival” are annual events that celebrate the technology and beauty of automobile design. More than 500+ cars are displayed at each event, making them meccas for car enthusiasts.

Greenfield Village in an extensive 90 acre indoor-outdoor museum that showcases hundreds of historic buildings moved to the property from their original locations and arranged in a “village” setting. Buildings include the Connecticut home of famed spelling reformer and author Noah Webster and the Illinois courthouse where Abraham Lincoln practiced law in his early career. Like the Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village was envisioned as a novel approach to learning in which visitors could experience American history through its built environment. Buildings from the 17th century through the 20th century are “inhabited” by costumed interpreters who give visitors an idea of the continuity and change in American life over four hundred years.

Rail enthusiasts are drawn to the village because it employs a steam locomotive to move people throughout the site. Popular attractions include the late 19th century Detroit, Toledo, and Milwaukee Roundhouse as well as the Smith’s Creek Depot which once stood in a village south of Port Huron. The handsome red brick station with Italianate influences dates to 1858 and served the Chicago, Detroit and Canada Grand Trunk Junction Railroad before it came under the auspices of the Grand Trunk Western Railroad in 1928. Today the depot it is one of the few remaining pre-Civil War stations left in the country. Ford wanted the depot for his museum because of its associations with a young Thomas Edison, and he had it moved in 1929.

Tours of the Ford River Rouge Complex can also be set up at the Henry Ford Museum. Constructed over eleven years from 1917-1928, when completed River Rouge was the largest integrated factory in the world, and helped make Detroit a powerhouse in the automobile industry.