Central Michigan

Company History: Central Michigan Railroad runs on the former Grand Trunk Western mainline from Durand to Bay City, Michigan. Through the late 60's and early 70's Penn Central engines and cabooses where a common site in Bay City using the former Meredith Jtc. to then cross the river on the north east side of Saginaw (now owned by CSX), then proceed north. By the late 1980's railroad traffic on the GTW line was minimal and one of the two sets of tracks where removed through Bay City. The Straits Corporation then purchased the line from GTW and established the Central Michigan Railway. The Straits Corporation purchased and sold the former Detroit & Mackinaw (now Lake State Railway) prior to it's ownership of the Central Michigan Railway. Today we find the line in constant use, servicing a wealth of customers throughout Mid-Michigan.

Central Michigan was the result of the 1987 spin-off of two lines by Grand Trunk Western. The first ran from Owosso through Durand to Bay City for about 70 miles, with a 21 mile branchline. The other ran from Ionia through Grand Rapids to Ravenna for about 55 miles.

In 1989, a segment was sold to a new shortline, the Coopersville & Marne. In 1990, another segment was sold to Michigan Shore Railroad. Later the Owosso to Ionia segment was abandoned. In 2004, the Central Michigan was purchased by the RailAmerica shortline group and merged into the Huron & Eastern.

Successor/Parent History: The Huron & Eastern began service in 1986 on a line from Kinde to Croswell, Michigan that they purchased from CSX. Two years later, they bought the adjoining route from Saginaw to Bad Axe, also from CSX (these were former Pere Marquette routes.) At that point, the HESR was 141 miles long. Three years later, in 1991 they took over as designated operator of 48 miles of former New York Central trackage that had been operated by Tuscola & Saginaw Bay.

For more than a decade, the HESR was powered by a half dozen geeps (one 7 and five 9’s.) These units were painted in something very similar to Pere Marquette’s passenger paint scheme. Around 1999, they began to acquire variations of EMD’s GP38 model to assist with the growing traffic. Each of the locomotives has a name in addition to a road number: County of Huron, County of Sanilac, City of Bad Axe, County of Tuscola, County of Saginaw, and so on.

In March of 1992, Huron & Eastern became the first railroad in the RailAmerica family of shortlines (Saginaw Valley Railway was acquired the same month.) In 2004, the Saginaw Valley and the Central Michigan Railway were merged into Huron & Eastern bringing the HESR mileage up to 384 making it a bit longer than Central Vermont in relative size. HESR joined the Genesee & Wyoming family of shortlines, along with the rest of the RailAmerica group, in 2012. HESR moves around 650 cars in a typical week.

Brief History: The U.S. is a country of 50 states covering a vast swath of North America, with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii extending the nation’s presence into the Pacific Ocean. Major Atlantic Coast cities are New York, a global finance and culture center, and capital Washington, DC. Midwestern metropolis Chicago is known for influential architecture and on the west coast, Los Angeles' Hollywood is famed for filmmaking.