Michigan Central Railroad
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The Michigan Central Railroad (MC) is a former Class I railway company in the United States . It goes back to the Detroit and St. Joseph Railroad , which was founded in 1832 and was named Michigan Central Railroad from 1846 . As early as 1869, the New York Central Railroad , owned by the Vanderbilts , owned major shares of the railway company, which it formally leased in 1930. With the merger of New York Central with the Pennsylvania Railroad to Penn Central in 1968, Michigan Central ceased to exist. Today a large part of the remaining track system belongs to the Norfolk Southern Railway .
history
Start time
The Detroit and St. Joseph Railroad was founded on June 29, 1832 to build a railway line between the eponymous cities. Construction began in Detroit in 1836 and on April 22, 1837 the railroad company was sold to the newly formed state of Michigan. The state renamed the company the Central Railroad of Michigan and continued to build the railway. Ypsilanti was reached on February 3, 1838, Ann Arbor on October 17, 1839 , Dexter on June 30, 1841, Jackson on December 30, 1841 , Marshall on August 12, 1844 , Battle Creek on November 25, 1845, and February 2 1846 Kalamazoo . Construction stopped here because the railway company was insolvent. The state of Michigan stopped funding and on September 24, 1846, the Michigan Central Railroad took over the railroad for two million US dollars. It was founded on March 28th of that year by entrepreneur John W. Brooks .
Further development in the 19th century
The new owner continued construction of the railway, not to St. Joseph , but in the direction of Chicago , and in 1849 the track reached Michigan City . Since the concession was only valid for the state of Michigan, the MC acquired the concession of the New Albany and Salem Rail Road for the state of Indiana and in April 1852 reached its western end on the border with Illinois. From there, the trains used the Illinois Central Railroad to Chicago.
On September 7, 1854, the MC leased the Joliet and Northern Indiana Railroad , which opened on the same day from East Gary to Joliet (Illinois) . From the beginning, this beltline was an important bypass for freight traffic around the Chicago rail junction. In September 1870, the MC leased the Kalamazoo and South Haven Railroad , which was founded on April 15, 1869, and opened its railway line between the cities of its name on January 2, 1871. Upon completion in February 1871, Michigan Central also leased the Michigan Air-Line Railway , which was founded on August 28, 1868 and was renamed Michigan Air-Line Railroad on March 19, 1870 . Their route ran parallel to the MC main line from Jackson via Union City and Niles to South Bend . On September 1, 1871, the Jackson, Lansing and Saginaw Railroad was also leased, which had a route from Jackson north to Wenona . This line was extended to Gaylord in 1874 and to Mackinaw City in the 1880s , where a train ferry made the connection to the northern part of Michigan.
A branch of the Mackinaw route, the Pinconning Railroad and Saginaw Bay and Northwestern Railroad from Pinconning to Gladwin, including numerous forest railways that branched off from this route, could be acquired on May 3, 1879. This railway company was incorporated into the Jackson, Lansing and Saginaw Railroad in 1901. On March 22, 1876, the Glencoe, Pinconning and Lake Shore Railroad was founded, which was renamed the Pinconning Railroad when it opened on May 3, 1879 . She owned the stretch from Pinconning to Mount Forest , Saginaw Bay and Northwestern the rest of the way.
The railway line from Detroit to Bay City was from February 26, 1881 in the possession of Michigan Central. That day the rail company acquired the Detroit and Bay City Railroad . Now they wanted to acquire a route to Buffalo through the south of the Canadian province of Ontario . The Canada Southern Railway had been owned by the Vanderbilt Empire since 1876 . On January 1, 1883, Michigan Central leased this railway company, whose route ran from Windsor across from Detroit to the suspension bridge at Niagara Falls . From there to Buffalo, the New York Central had a railway line.
The Bay City and Battle Creek Railroad , whose route ran from Bay City west to Midland , was taken over by the MC on June 1, 1890. Together with the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway (LS&MS), the MC owned the Battle Creek and Sturgis Railway from 1890 , which ran between the eponymous cities. Michigan Central leased the section from Battle Creek to Findlay , the rest of the section from New York Central, to which LS&MS and large parts of Michigan Central belonged.
The Michigan Central Railroad in the 20th century
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The Detroit and Charlevoix Railroad with its branch line from Frederic to East Jordan was acquired on May 1, 1907. On June 19, 1912, the MC acquired the Buchanan and St. Joseph Railroad , whose railway line ran from South Bend to Benton Harbor. Michigan Central had already been in charge of operations on this route, via which it now reached the city of St. Joseph. This completed the route acquisition in Michigan.
The MC had already had a railway line to Buffalo since 1883, but this was separated from the rest of the network by the Detroit River . With the opening of the new Michigan Central Station in Detroit on December 26, 1913, construction work on a connection between the two networks ended. On July 26, 1910, the Detroit River Tunnel Company put the Detroit River Tunnel with a length of 2530 meters into operation, which connected the two ends of the line. The MC had leased the tunnel company from December 19, 1906. On the way to Chicago, however, the trains had to turn around in the old Detroit train station until the end of 1913. The track system in the tunnel was operated electrically.
In two steps in 1901 and 1916 Michigan Central merged with its subsidiaries. Michigan Central was formally leased on February 1, 1930 by the New York Central Railroad. With this and the Pennsylvania Railroad, the MC finally merged on February 1, 1968 to Penn Central , which a few years later became Conrail . Most of the MC network belongs to the Norfolk Southern Railway , the Canadian Pacific Railway section , after the Conrail was dissolved .
attachment
literature
- George H. Drury: The Historical Guide to North American Railroads 2nd Ed. Kalmbach Publishing Co., Waukesha, WI 2000, ISBN 0-89024-356-5
