Michigan Railroads and Railroad Companies (Trains and Railroads)

By Graydon M. Meints

Michigan Railroads and Railroad Companies is an invaluable reference manual for everyone interested in regional transportation history, the history of railroading, and Michigan history in general. It contains complete, cross-referenced listings for every company formed to operate a railroad in the state of Michigan. In addition to the comprehensive entries for major lines, Graydon Meints has included details about the many small, common-carrier steam and electric companies, logging roads, and numerous other primitive and contemporary rail systems. This encyclopedic reference guide also contains information on the so-called "paper railroads," companies that were projected but which never laid a foot of track.
Michigan Railroads is divided into three parts. One includes alphabetical entries for the actual and intended railroad companies themselves, the date and purpose for their organization, and a brief history from their origins to their dispositions. Included in this portion of the work are a number of railroad "family trees" showing the corporate antecedents of the largest of the rail lines operating in the state today. Another contains a chronology of significant corporate events; it works as a useful finding aid for accessing source data contained in the first section. A third contains a statewide county-by-county listing of railroads, both paper and real.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0870133187
• ISBN13: 9780870133183
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Michigan State University Press
• Length: 305 Pages
• Weight: 2.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 8.8" x 11.3"

Customer Reviews

Every Michigan rail-fan/historian should have it.

'This isn't just a print-out from a database but a comprehensive compendium of all proposed and operated common carrier and private rail lines in the state including street railways and lumbering roads and more.Contents include,1)Introduction to Michigan Railroads (nice and short),2)List of Companies (much more than just a list!),3)Corporate Family Trees,4)Chronology of Corporate Actions,5)Corporate Actions by Year, and6)County Listing of Companies.I found only one road not listed - the Beaver Island Lumber Company.Not only a great reference but interesting to read.'