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Would there have been a railroad that hit Chicago, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids and Muskegon on the same line? The closest I could come up with was Grand Rapids & Indiana, but I didn't think they went to Chicago. GTW? But that would be switching routes. PM never went to Kalamazoo, did it?

EWRice wrote:Would there have been a railroad that hit Chicago, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids and Muskegon on the same line? The closest I could come up with was Grand Rapids & Indiana, but I didn't think they went to Chicago. GTW? But that would be switching routes. PM never went to Kalamazoo, did it?

I don't know about all on the same line persay, but the PRR definitely went to all of those places.

Maybe the "Big Four" ?

None on a single line. The Pennsylvania reached all four but would have taken you to Fort Wayne then up the GR&I. The GTW to Pavilion to reach Kalamazoo and across the state to come back west to G.R and Muskegon.

The Pere Marquette didn't reach Kalamazoo. Michigan Electric didn't reach Chicago and I don't believe Muskegon. Big Four came up to Niles. LS&MS reached Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids from Elkhart but not Muskegon. Michigan Central Grand Rapids from Jackson but not Muskegon.

The reason I asked was that somebody had what appears to be an old train schedule board listing all of those cities with arrivals and departures from each. I thought it was odd. No railroad or logo on it. Bus route maybe? After looking a little closer, it appears to be from WW2 era, and from the central time zone.

Michigan was officially Central Time until 1936 (the City of Detroit was Eastern Time).
Any schedule crossing time zones should have had the time zone change noted on the schedule.
(Although if it isn't obvious who the schedule is for they may have forgotten the time zone change.)

Do you still have access to the schedule? If so, can you list other cities on the route that define the path?
If it was a bus schedule I'd expect it to list towns on the Red Arrow Highway (New Buffalo, Saint Joseph, Paw Paw).

I would guess that it would have either been a bus schedule or a hybrid bus train schedule for the Michigan Central Railroad / NYC.

Given that it contained Muskegon, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo and Chicago I would guess the NYC with a bus connection from GR to Muskegon, as they would have reached the other three cities on one route correct?

Did any railroads like the Pennsy and NYC or Pennsy and GTW operate a combined train that might have covered that route?

Could it have been a proposed joint operation that never was successful?

I looked at 1938 and 1946 NYC time tables. Neither lists Muskegon MI as a station. In 1946 they were pitching service to destinations in the west with western railroads obviously changing trans in Chicago or St Louis. I'd put my money on it being the Pennsylvania. The 1946 PRR time table shows service to Muskegon, though not as a single train.





http://streamlinermemories.info/PRR/PRR46TT.pdf

Most efficient routing would be using the connecting service between Michigan Central and GR&I at Kalamazoo. From Grand Rapids you could have taken another GR&I train to Muskegon.

The bottom of the schedule said it was in central war time. I looked that up and found out that it would date from 1942-1945.

Many old timetables I've read have connections from different lines all over their sheets, so it's very possible that you were looking at a timetable with multiple rail lines.

EWRice wrote:The bottom of the schedule said it was in central war time. I looked that up and found out that it would date from 1942-1945.

Then it was sloppy not to include "eastern war time" for the cities in Michigan.

Do you have access to the timetable? Can you list the intermediate cities?

This is not a timetable. This is the arrival/departure board that would hang on the wall at a station. The cities listed are the only ones on the board.

I missed that it was a station board. With no further details we can't be sure what it was for. Perhaps even multiple trains/buses on separate routes.

I believe you are looking at an arrival/departure board from a PRR station. The lack of a Railroad name or logo is understandable since the board would have hung in a depot.

I reviewed a 1936 PRR timetable. The timetable shows several trains with service from Chicago to Kalamazoo via the Michigan Central connecting with the PRR trains serving western Michigan. I recall seeing the same notation on other timetable ediions. I cannot locate the other editions to verify.

The 1952 PRR TT indicates the Chicago to Mackinaw service connected with the Northern Arrow at Fort Wayne.The train was seasonal by this time.

That might make sense. The Pennsy took over GR&I tracks into Muskegon. That time frame would be about right. GTW still had their greenville to Muskegon line in until 1947???ish. So they would have been on that route until after the war.