Mackinaw City is a village at the northernmost point of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Divided between Cheboygan and Emmet counties, Mackinaw City is the located at the southern end of the Mackinac Bridge, which carries Interstate 75 over the Straits of Mackinac to the Upper Peninsula. Mackinaw City, along with St. Ignace, serves as an access point to Mackinac Island. For these reasons, Mackinaw City is considered one of Michigan's most popular tourist attractions.
West Michigan and Western Michigan are terms for an arbitrary region in the U.S. state of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Generally, it refers to the Grand Rapids-Muskegon-Holland area, and more broadly to most of the region along the Lower Peninsula's Lake Michigan shoreline, but there is no official definition.
The Grand Trunk Western Railroad Company was an American subsidiary of the Grand Trunk Railway, later of the Canadian National Railway operating in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Since a corporate restructuring in 1971, the railroad has been under CN's subsidiary holding company, the Grand Trunk Corporation. Grand Trunk Western's routes are part of CN's Michigan Division. Its primary mainline between Chicago and Port Huron, Michigan serves as a connection between railroad interchanges in Chicago and rail lines in eastern Canada and the Northeastern United States. The railroad's extensive trackage in Detroit and across southern Michigan has made it an essential link for the automotive industry as a hauler of parts and automobiles from manufacturing plants.
Michigan Services are three Amtrak passenger rail routes connecting Chicago, Illinois with the Michigan cities of Grand Rapids, Port Huron, and Detroit, and stations en route. The group falls under the Amtrak Midwest brand and is a component of the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative.
Northern Michigan, also known as Northern Lower Michigan, is a region of the U.S. state of Michigan. A popular tourist destination, it is home to several small- to medium-sized cities, extensive state and national forests, lakes and rivers, and a large portion of Great Lakes shoreline. The region has a significant seasonal population much like other regions that depend on tourism as their main industry. Northern Lower Michigan is distinct from the more northerly Upper Peninsula and Isle Royale, which are also located in "northern" Michigan. In the northernmost 21 counties in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, the total population of the region is 506,658 people.
The Michigan Central Railroad was originally incorporated in 1846 to establish rail service between Detroit, Michigan, and St. Joseph, Michigan. The railroad later operated in the states of Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois in the United States and the province of Ontario in Canada. After about 1867 the railroad was controlled by the New York Central Railroad, which later became part of Penn Central and then Conrail. After the 1998 Conrail breakup, Norfolk Southern Railway now owns much of the former Michigan Central trackage.
US Highway 131 (US 131) is a north–south United States Highway, of which all but 0.64 of its 269.96 miles are within the state of Michigan. The highway starts in rural Indiana south of the state line as a state road connection to the Indiana Toll Road. As the road crosses into Michigan it becomes a state trunkline highway that connects to the metropolitan areas of Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids before continuing north to its terminus at Petoskey. US 131 runs as a freeway from south of Portage through to Manton in the north. Part of this freeway runs concurrently with Interstate 296 (I-296) as an unsigned designation through Grand Rapids. US 131 forms an important corridor along the western side of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, running through rural farm and forest lands as well as urban cityscapes. Various names have been applied to the roadway over the years. The oldest, the Mackinaw Trail, originated from an Indian trail in the area while other names honored politicians. An attempt to dedicate the highway to poet James Whitcomb Riley failed to gain official support in Michigan.
The Boyne City Railroad was a railway based at Boyne City, Michigan, U.S., during 1893–1978.
Northern Arrow was one of the named passenger trains of the Pennsylvania Railroad, starting at Cincinnati, Ohio and ending at Mackinaw City, Michigan. It had merging branches originating from Chicago, Illinois, converging in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and a train from St. Louis, Missouri from the west, converging at Richmond, Indiana. Carrying the number #519 northbound and #520 southbound, it used the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad, a leased subsidiary of the Pennsylvania system.
Chief Wawatam was a coal-fired steel ship that was based, for most of its 1911–1984 working life, in St. Ignace, Michigan. The vessel was named after a distinguished Ojibwa chief of the 1760s. In initial revenue service, the Chief Wawatam served as a train ferry, passenger ferry and icebreaker that operated year-round at the Straits of Mackinac between St. Ignace and Mackinaw City, Michigan. During the winter months, it sometimes took many hours to cross the five-mile-wide Straits, and Chief Wawatam was fitted with complete passenger hospitality spaces.
Area code 231 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the northwestern portion of the Lower Peninsula in the U.S. state of Michigan,
Railroads have been vital in the history of the population and trade of rough and finished goods in the state of Michigan. While some coastal settlements had previously existed, the population, commercial, and industrial growth of the state further bloomed with the establishment of the railroad.
The Michigan Northern Railway was a railroad that provided service to the northern part of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan from 1976 to 1986. At the beginning of service on April 1, 1976, the MIGN operated the former Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad from Comstock Park to Mackinaw City and the Walton Junction Branch to Traverse City. In 1982, the MIGN assumed operation of the former Chesapeake and Ohio Railway from Grawn to Williamsburg and from Charlevoix to Petoskey, and the former Ann Arbor Railroad from Alma to Frankfort.
The Mackinac Transportation Company was a train ferry service that shuttled railroad cars across the Straits of Mackinac from 1881 until 1984. It was best known as the owner and operator, from 1911 until 1984, of the SS Chief Wawatam, an icebreaking train ferry.
The Grand Elk Railroad is a Class III railroad which operates in the states of Indiana and Michigan. It is one of 40+ short-line railroads owned by Watco.
The following is a brief history of the North American rail system, mainly through major changes to Class I railroads, the largest class by operating revenue.
Due to its unique geography, being made of two peninsulas surrounded by the Great Lakes, Michigan has depended on many ferries for connections to transport people, vehicles and trade. The most famous modern ferries are those which carry people and goods across the Straits of Mackinac to the car-free Mackinac Island but before the Mackinac Bridge was built, large numbers of ferries carried people and cars between the two peninsulas. Other ferries continue to provide transportation to small islands and across the Detroit River to Canada. Ferries once provided transport to island parks for city dwellers. The state's only national park, Isle Royale cannot be reached by road and is normally accessed by ferry. The largest ferries in Michigan are the car ferries which cross Lake Michigan to Wisconsin. One of these, the SS Badger is one of the last remaining coal steamers on the Great Lakes and serves as a section of US Highway 10 (US 10). The Badger is also the largest ferry in Michigan, capable of carrying 600 passengers and 180 autos.
The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Station is a railway depot located in Pioneer Park on West Lake Street in Petoskey, Michigan. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. The building now houses the Little Traverse Historical Museum.
