Pere Marquette Railway

The Pere Marquette Railway (Reporting Mark: PM) operated in the Great Lakes region of the United States and southern parts of Ontario in Canada. It had trackage in the states of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and the Canadian province of Ontario. Its primary connections included Buffalo; Toledo; and Chicago. The company was named after Père (French for Father) Jacques Marquette S.J. (1637–1675), a French Jesuit missionary who founded Michigan's first European settlement, Sault Ste Marie.
==History:==
The Pere Marquette Railroad was incorporated on November 1, 1899 in anticipation of a merger of three Michigan-based railroad companies that had been agreed upon by all parties. It began operations on January 1, 1900, absorbing the following companies:
*Flint & Pere Marquette Railroad (F&PM)
*Detroit, Grand Rapids & Western Railroad (DGR&W)
*Chicago & West Michigan Railway (C&WM)
The company was reincorporated on March 12, 1917 as the Pere Marquette Railway. In the 1920s the Pere Marquette came under the control of Cleveland financiers Oris and Mantis Van Sweringen. These brothers also controlled the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad (Nickel Plate), the Erie Railroad and the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, and planned to merge the four companies. However, the ICC did not approve the merger and the Van Sweringens eventually sold their interest in the Pere Marquette to the C&O in 1929. The company continued to operate separately as the Pere Marquette Railway until being fully merged into the C&O on June 6, 1947. Forty years later, the C&O was absorbed into CSX Transportation.
In 1984, Amtrak named its passenger train between Chicago and Grand Rapids, Michigan the Pere Marquette.
The train in the 2004 film The Polar Express was modeled after steam locomotive Pere Marquette 1225. The film also included audio recordings of the locomotive in operation. It is the locomotive that Chris Van Allsburg said was the inspiration for the book, having seen it as a child when it was on the Michigan State University campus. The locomotive was scheduled to be at the premiere in Grand Rapids, where the writer was born, but was canceled because of interferences with the schedule of CSX. It is now housed and maintained at the Steam Railroading Institute in Owosso, Michigan.
===Surviving Steam Locomotives:===
1. PM 1223 - 2-8-4 "Berkshire" displayed at Chinook Pier in Grand Haven, Michigan. PM 1223 is the oldest surviving example of the 2-8-4s in America.
2. PM 1225 - 2-8-4 "Berkshire" operational by the Steam Railroading Institute in Owosso, Michigan. PM 1225 is the real steam locomotive that made an appearance in the Warner Bros movie The Polar Express.
==1907 wreck:==
On July 20, 1907 an excursion train carrying 800 passengers from Ionia to Detroit collided near Salem with a freight train, killing 31 and injuring 101. The accident apparently happened because of a hand-written schedule on unlined paper whose columns did not line up, and was misread by the freight crew. The Interstate Commerce Commission investigation also cited safety violations, including use of pine instead of oak for car walls and the omission of steel plates required for mail cars. This was Michigan's worst rail disaster.
==Routes and current disposition:==
*Toledo Division — Saginaw, Michigan to Alexis, Ohio and (via trackage rights over Ann Arbor Railroad) Toledo, Ohio (In use by CSX Transportation south of Plymouth, leased to Lake State Railway north of Plymouth)
*Ludington Division — Saginaw to Ludington, Michigan (Partially now part of the Pere Marquette Rail-Trail, between Baldwin and Ludington in use with Marquette Rail, and Saginaw to Midland used by Lake State Railway Company, with the rest of the line removed in 1991; the ferry closed in 1990)
*Detroit Division — Detroit, Michigan to Grand Rapids, Michigan (In use by CSX)
*Grand Rapids Division — Elmdale, Michigan to Saginaw, Michigan (Alma-Saginaw in use by Mid-Michigan Railroad)
*Chicago Division — Grand Rapids, Michigan to Porter, Indiana and (via trackage rights over various lines) Chicago, Illinois (In use by CSX)
**La Crosse Branch — New Buffalo, Michigan to La Crosse, Indiana (Abandoned north of Wellsboro, Indiana by C&O in 1989, most tracks removed; Wellsboro to La Crosse in use by the Chesapeake and Indiana Railroad)
*Petoskey Division — Grand Rapids, Michigan to Bay View, Michigan was the basis for the Pere Marquette's longest route, the Chicago and Detroit-Bay View Resort Special. (In use by Marquette Rail between Grand Rapids and Manistee and by the Great Lakes Central Railroad between Grawn and Williamsburg, with the rest dismantled in 1983 after being abandoned by C&O in 1982)
*Canadian Division — Lines in Canada, including Windsor, Ontario and Sarnia, Ontario via Blenheim, Ontario to St. Thomas, Ontario and St Thomas east to Buffalo, New York via trackage rights over the Canada Southern (Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo Railway trackage rights over CASO from Welland, Ontario to Buffalo via Niagara Falls, Ontario).
*Saginaw Subdivisions — Saginaw, Michigan to Port Huron, Michigan via two routes and to Bay City, Michigan (Mostly abandoned between 1951 and 1988, some sections in use with the Huron and Eastern Railway)
File:Pere Marquette Railway streamliner.JPG|Postcard depiction of the line's streamliners.
File:Pere Marquette streamliner dining car.JPG|Postcard photo of one of the railroad's dining cars.
File:Pere Marquette Flyer 1910.JPG|A Pere Marquette Flyer circa 1910.
==See also:==
*History of railroads in Michigan
*Pere Marquette 1225
==References:==
*Pere Marquette Historical Society
*PM 1225 Steam Railroading Institute
==External links:==
*Pere Marquette System Map
*Remembering the Pere Marquette Railway (Kevin Keefe)
Category:Railways
Category:Railroads
Category:Companies
Category:Defunct Class I Railroads
Category:Class I Railroads
Category:Defunct Railways
Category:Defunct companies
Category:PM Locomotives
Category:Pere Marquette Railway
Category:Defunct Railroads
Category:Pere Marquette Locomotives