The Michigan Central Railroad (reporting mark MC) was originally chartered in 1832 to establish rail service between Detroit, Michigan, and St. Joseph, Michigan. The railroad later operated in the states of Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois in the United States and the province of Ontario in Canada. After about 1867 the railroad was controlled by the New York Central Railroad, which later became part of Penn Central and then Conrail. After the 1998 Conrail breakup, Norfolk Southern Railway now owns much of the former Michigan Central trackage.
At the end of 1925, MC operated of road and of track; that year it reported 4,304,000 net ton-miles of revenue freight and 600 million passenger-miles.
Genealogy Michigan Central RailroadRailroads in North America; Some Historical Facts and An Introduction to an Electronic Database of North American Railroads and Their Evolution by M. C. Hallberg (April 24, 2006) Personal.psu.edu Battle Creek and Bay City Railroad 1889 Buchanan and St. Joseph River Railroad 1897 Central Railroad of Michigan 1837–1846 Detroit and St. Joseph Railroad 1831–1837 Detroit and Bay City Railroad 1881 Detroit and Charlevoix Railroad 1916 Frederick and Charlevoix Railroad 1901 Detroit River Tunnel Company Railroad 1918 Jackson, Lansing and Saginaw Railroad 1871 Amboy, Lansing and Traverse Bay Railroad 1866 Grand River Valley Railroad 1870 Joliet and Northern Indiana Railroad 1851 Kalamazoo and South Haven Railroad 1870 Michigan Air Line Railway 1870 Michigan Midland and Canada Railroad 1878 Saginaw Bay and Northwestern Railroad 1884 Pinconning Railroad 1879 Glencoe, Pinconning and Lake Shore Railroad 1878 St. Louis, Sturgis and Battle Creek Railroad 1889
History The line between Detroit and St. Joseph, Michigan, was originally planned in 1830 to provide freight service between Detroit and Chicago by train to St. Joseph and via boat service on to Chicago. The Detroit and St. Joseph Railroad was chartered in 1831 with a capital of $1,500,000. The railroad actually began construction on May 18, 1836, starting at "King's Corner" in Detroit, which was the name by which the southeast corner of Jefferson and Woodward Avenue was then known. However, this is not the location of Michigan Central Station, which apparently replaced this building.
The small private organization quickly ran into problems securing cheap land in the private market, and abandonment of the project was discussed. The City of Detroit invested $50,000 in the project. The State of Michigan bailed out the railroad in 1837 by purchasing it and investing $5,000,000. The now state-owned company was renamed the Central Railroad of Michigan.
By 1840 the railroad was again out of money and had completed track only between Detroit and Dexter, Michigan. In 1846, the state sold the railroad to the newly incorporated Michigan Central corporation for $2,000,000. By this time the railroad had reached Kalamazoo, Michigan, a distance of .
The new private corporation had committed to complete the railroad with T-rail of not less than sixty pounds to the yard and also to replace the poorly built rails between Kalamazoo and Detroit with similar quality rail, as the state-built rail was of low quality. The new owners met this obligation by building the rest of the line some to the shores of Lake Michigan by 1849. However, rather than go to St. Joseph, instead they went to New Buffalo. This was because they had decided to extend the road all the way to Chicago. With this, the first crossing of the state of Michigan (Lower Peninsula) was completed.
This involved passing through two other states and getting leave from two state legislatures to do so. To facilitate this process, they bought the Joliet and Northern Indiana Railroad in 1851. Thus they reached Michigan City, Indiana, by 1850 and finished the line to Kensington, Illinois, (now a south Chicago neighborhood) in 1852, using Illinois Central trackage rights to downtown Chicago. The completed railroad was in length. In the same year the first train ran from Detroit to Chicago.
The first repair shops were built in 1851 and located on 20 acres of waterfront property in Detroit, Michigan. In 1873 they were moved to a larger plot of land on the west side of the city along Livernois Avenue, then consisting of two roundhouses and car repair shops.Starr, Timothy. The Back Shop Illustrated, Vol. 2. In 1919 new freight and locomotive terminals were constructed in Niles, Michigan. However, the primary locomotive and car repair shops during the steam era were located in Jackson, Michigan, established in 1871. They closed in 1949 during a coal strike and never reopened due to the conversion of motive power to diesel engines.
Passenger services The Michigan Central Railroad (MCR) operated mostly passenger trains between Chicago and Detroit. These trains ranged from locals to the Wolverine. In 1904, MCR began a long-term lease of Canada Southern Railway (CSR), which operated the most direct route between Detroit and New York. CSR's mainline cut through the heart of southwestern Ontario, between Windsor and Fort Erie.New York Central's Canadian Streamliners by Douglas N.W. Smith
The new service, known as the Canada Division Passenger Service, saw a major surge beginning at the start of the 1920s. Between 1920 and 1922, the legendary Wolverine passenger train operated in two sections, five days per week along CSR's mainline.New York Central's Canadian Streamliners by Douglas N.W. Smith, p. 45. Then, in the summer of 1923, the eastbound Wolverine began running from Detroit to Buffalo without any scheduled stops in Canada, making the trip in 4 hours and 50 minutes, an unprecedented achievement.New York Central's Canadian Streamliners by Douglas N.W. Smith, p. 46. During the same summer, the Canada Division was moving 2,300 through passengers per day. By the end of the decade, a fleet of 205 J-1 class Hudsons – one of the most powerful locomotives for passenger service yet designed – was hauling passengers along the CSR mainline.New York Central's Canadian Streamliners However, by the 1930s the Wolverine was making stops in the Canadian section of the route."April 1935 Michigan Central timetable" http://www.canadasouthern.com/caso/ptt/images/tt-mc-0435.pdf Also, by the late 1940s, the Empire State Express passed from Buffalo into Southwestern Ontario; however, it terminated at Detroit.April 1948 New York Central timetable http://streamlinermemories.info/NYC/NYC48-4TT.pdf
While Michigan Central was an independent subsidiary of the New York Central System, passenger trains were staged from Illinois Central's Central Station (in Chicago) as a tenant. When MC operations were completely integrated into NYC in the 1950s, trains were re-deployed to NYC's LaSalle Street Station home, where other NYC trains such as the 20th Century Limited were staged. IC sued for breach of contract and won because the MC had a lease that ran for a few more years. The MC route from Chicago to Porter, Indiana, is mostly intact. The Kensington Interchange, shared with the South Shore Line, was cut out. These tracks now belong to Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad, and are overgrown stub tracks ending short of the interchange. Some trackage around the Indiana Harbor Belt's Gibson Yard has also been removed. The MC's South Water Street freight trackage in downtown Chicago is also gone. Amtrak trains serving the Michigan Central Detroit line now use the former NYC to Porter, where they turn north on Michigan Central. Passenger equipment was mostly similar to that of parent New York Central System. Typically this meant an EMD E-series locomotive and Pullman-Standard lightweight rolling stock. Because General Motors (Electro-Motive Division) was a large customer of Michigan Central, use of Alco or General Electric locomotives was less common.
Freight services
Prior to the automobile, Michigan Central was mostly a carrier of natural resources. Michigan had extensive reserves of timber at the time, and the Michigan Central owned lines from east to west of the state and north to south, tapping all resources available. After the advent of the automobile as one of the most dominant forces of commerce, with Detroit at the epicenter, the Michigan Central became a carrier of autos and auto-related parts. The Michigan Central was one of the few Michigan railroads with a direct line into Chicago, meaning it did not have to operate cross-lake ferries, as did virtually all other railroads operating in Michigan, such as the Pere Marquette, Pennsylvania, Grand Trunk, and Ann Arbor Railroads. Michigan Central was part owner of the Straits of Mackinac ferry service operated to the Upper Peninsula as well as cross-river ferry service to Ontario, but these routes did not exist to circumvent Chicago.
Service to Canada
The Michigan Central Railroad (MCR) and then parent New York Central Railroad (NYC) owned the Canada Southern Railroad (CSR), which had lines throughout southwestern Ontario from Windsor to Niagara Falls. The railroad operated a car-float service over the Detroit River from 1883; an immersed tube tunnel under the Detroit River between Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario; and the MCR cantilever bridge at Niagara Falls, which was later replaced with a steel arch bridge in 1925. The car-float operation ended when the Detroit River tunnel was completed.
Control of Canada Southern passed from MCR to NYC, then Penn Central, then Conrail. In 1985, the Canada Southern was sold to two companies, the Canadian National Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway.
The Michigan Central Railway Bridge opened in February 1925 and remained in use until the early 21st century. It replaced the earlier Niagara Cantilever Bridge which had been commissioned in 1883 by Cornelius Vanderbilt; the older bridge was scrapped as the new MCR bridge went into service. The MCR cantilever bridge was inducted into the North America Railway Hall of Fame in 2006, long after it had been scrapped. The Hall of Fame report discussed its significance to the railway industry in the category of "North America: Facilities & Structures."
Railroad ferry and car float service All major Michigan railroads except the Michigan Central operated a rail ferry service across Lake Michigan. The MC had the most direct route across Southern Michigan from Detroit to Chicago. The Michigan Central also had the best access to Chicago of any Michigan railroad. The Michigan Central did own part of the Mackinac Transportation Company, which operated the SS Chief Wawatam until 1984. The Chief Wawatam was a front-loading, hand-fired, coal-fed steamer. It was the last hand-fired steamer in the free world at its long-overdue retirement in 1984. The Chief Wawatam continued to operate until 2009, cut down to a barge. One Chief Wawatam engine was salvaged and restored by the Wisconsin Maritime Museum. Other artifacts from the ferry, including the whistle, wheel, telegraphs, and furniture, are preserved by the Mackinac Island State Park Commission in Mackinaw City. Car floats also ran across the Detroit River to Windsor, Ontario, for high and wide loads that could not fit through the tunnels.
Competitors The major competitors of the Michigan Central were: Grand Trunk Western, controlled by Canadian National (operations integrated with and now operated as CN) Pere Marquette, controlled by C&O (formally merged in 1947 and now owned by CSX) Ann Arbor (controlled by Wabash, then DT&I; now owned by Great Lakes Central Railroad and the new Ann Arbor Railroad (1988) Pennsylvania Railroad (merged into Penn Central with MC/NYC, then into Conrail; owned by various railroads)
Major accidents On June 22, 1918, the engineer of a Michigan Central troop train fell asleep, causing the train to run into the rear of a Hagenbeck–Wallace Circus train that was stopped near Hammond, Indiana. The accident resulted in 86 deaths, with another 127 people injured.