Ionia and Lansing Railroad

Ionia & Lansing Railroad
Legend
 mi Station
Michigan Central
0.0 North Lansing
Michigan Central
0.5 Northern Michigan Central
Clinton/Ingham county line
5.9 Delta
Eaton/Clinton county line
11.0 Grand Ledge
Clinton/Eaton county line
15.27 Eagle
Eaton/Ionia county line
19.8 Danby
23.05 Portland
27.4 Stebbins
28.36 Collins
30.63 Webber
31.75 Lyons
36.4 D&M (Grand Haven–Detroit)
37.13 Ionia
38.6 Warden
41.36 Haynor
44.7 Sangsters
45.66 Orleans
48.5 Chadwick
51.4 Kidd
Ionia/Montcalm county line
56.5 Greenville
The above shows the physical line of the Ionia & Lansing as of March 16, 1871, when it was taken over by the Detroit, Lansing & Lake Michigan, including crossings by other lines as they were then constituted.

The Ionia and Lansing Rail Road is a defunct railroad which operated in the state of Michigan in the 1860s and 1870s. The company incorporated on November 13, 1865; the investors hailed primarily from Lansing, Ionia and Portland. The original charter called for a 34-mile (55 km) from Ionia to Lansing; on January 13, 1869 this was amended with a much grander vision: a 125-mile (201 km) line from Lansing to the mouth of the Pentwater River at Pentwater, on the shores of Lake Michigan.[1]

In late 1869 the I&L opened a line between Lansing and Ionia; the first trains ran in December. In September 1870 the line extended further north and west past Belding to Greenville. That year the road was bought out by James F. Joy and other Detroit investors who already controlled the Detroit, Howell & Lansing; on March 16, 1871 the two companies consolidated to form the Detroit, Lansing & Lake Michigan.[2]

The I&L's finances appear to have been rocky throughout its short history. As the author of a study on the Pere Marquette Railway noted:

The Ionia and Lansing Railroad (sic) had difficulty in getting sufficient money to finish its construction and its credit was so bad that it received $770,000 of cash out of a bond issue with a par value of $1,820,000. Later on, in order to complete the line, it had to take on a second mortgage on its property from Lansing to Greenville.[3]

Even as late as 1900, when the Pere Marquette consolidated the I&L's successor, the Detroit, Grand Rapids & Western, it assumed some of the old debt load.[4]

Very little of the I&L's original Lansing–Greenville line exists today. In 1942 the Pere Marquette abandoned the Warden–Kidd segment; between 1972 and 1986 the C&O, successor the Pere Marquette, abandoned the Warden–Eagle segment, leaving only the Kidd–Greenville and Grand Ledge–Lansing segments. The latter is owned by CSX, while the former is owned by the Mid-Michigan Railroad, a Rail America company. In December 2007 Mid-Michigan petitioned the Surface Transportation Board to abandon the Lowell–Greenville section of its line, which includes Greenville–Kidd. The grade is to be converted to a rail trail.[5][6]

Notes

  1. ↑ Meints (1992), 89; Branch (1916), 246.
  2. ↑ Branch (1916), 246; Ivey (1919), 250-251.
  3. ↑ Ivey (1919), 251.
  4. ↑ Interstate Commerce Commission (1917), 23.
  5. ↑ Meints (2005), I, 411-416.
  6. ↑ "Mid-Michigan Railroad, Inc.--Abandonment Exemption--In Kent and Montcalm Counties, MI". Transportation Department Documents and Publications. December 17, 2007.

References