Great Lakes Central’s Traverse City Turn, Conduit to History

Abstract

The railroad history of Traverse City, Michigan, is explored trough the current-day operations of the Great Lake Central Railroad’s Traverse City Turn. This includes when the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad (later the Pennsylvania Railroad) and Chicago & West Michigan Railway (later the Pere Marquette Railway) were built into the Cherry Capital. The Manistee and North Eastern Railroad, whose history is inextricably tied to that of the Pere Marquette, rounds out the historical companies entering the area in the late 19th century. After a description of mergers and retrenchment in the 20th century, current day operations of the successor, the Great Lakes Central Railroad, is explained.

Reproduced with the permission of the Ann Arbor Railroad Technical and Historical Association. Deposited in CACHE with permission of the publisher, limited to Kalamazoo College users only.

Koenig, Richard. “Great Lakes Central’s Traverse City Turn, Conduit to History” Double A, Volume 36, Number 1, Fall 2020, pp 4-43.