Timetable: Lake Superior & Ishpeming - Main Line - Munising to Ishpeming Yard

The Lake Superior & Ishpeming was opened around 1893. The majority of stock was owned by the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company along with funding from the Pittsburgh and Lake Angeline Iron Company. The mining companies believed that they could transport ore (and incoming coal) less expensively, as well as assuring a supply of ore cars for their mines which was always a problem with the DSS&A. This construction was accomplished during the Panic of 1893.

This route includes both the original main line as well as part of the Munising Railway and the Manistique and Southeastern railroad between Munising and Presque Isle dock.

Key: BB=Bascule Bridge | C=Coal | CS=Car Shop | D=Open > Day | DN=Open Day and night | DS=Dispatcher | DT=Double Main Track | EH=Engine house | F=Diesel Fuel | HI=Half Interlocked Crossing | I=Interlocked Crossing | J=Junction | LB=Lift bridge | N=Open at night | P=Passing Track w/40' car capacity | Q=Quarry | RH=Roundhouse # stalls | RT=Railroad Resort | S=Scales | SB=Swing bridge | T=Turntable | TC=Telegraph call | W=Water | X=Crossing | Y=Wye | Yard=Yard

Notes

During winter months when Lake Superior and the Sault locks are frozen or closed, the LS&I operates all-rail ore moves to the Detroit or Chicago areas. Trains of pellets are brought from Eagle Mills Yard via Marquette to Eben Junction (for delivery to the Soo Line) or to Little Lake (for delivery to the C&NW). These trains could have been handed off to the Soo and C&NW at Ishpeming, but the LS&I maintained favorable rates by handling the first 100 miles or so of the transport. These ore extra trains use a lash-up of  three diesel locomotives. At the destination (Eben or Little Lake), the ore loads are dropped off and empties picked up and returned to the Presque Isle yard for inspection and reuse. [LSIOR-1969]

Time Line

1896. October 9. The Superior Iron Co. at Ishpeming has begun to remove 22 dwellings from the territory over which the Lake Superior & Ishpeming railway will be extended. [Yale Expositor-2896-1019]

1900. Munising Road Sold. A heavy transfer of property in upper Michigan was quietly completed in Cleveland Saturday, says a dispatch from that city. Attorney John M. Duffy of Chicago, representing Chicago capitalists, purchased all other interests of a number of well known Cleveland and New York parties, including secretary of State Hay and others, in the Munising Land company and the Munising Railway company. 100,000 acres of hardwood lands and sixty-miles of railroad in operation from Munising Bay to Little Lake passed into Chicago hands by the transfer. It is said over a million dollars were paid over. No radical change either in policy or management is expected.

The Munising railway is a comparatively new line, having been completed only four years ago. It was built to connect the ten just founded town of Munising with the outside world and open up a fine belt of hardwood timber which was tributary to the town. The best traversed by the road contains many millions of feet and is one of the finest pieces of hardwood forest in the whole upper country. The railroad crosses the South Shore at Munising Junction and has its terminus at Little Lake on the Northwestern. [LAS-1900-0421]

1946. SNAPSHOT. The LS&I operates a mixed train (freight with one passenger car on the end) leaving Marquette daily except Sunday at 5:05 am. It arrives at Lawson at 6:50 am and terminates at Munising at 9:00 am. The train returns back to Marquette, leaving Munising at 3:30 pm arriving at Lawson at 5:35 pm. The last leg, from Lawson to Marquette leaves at 7:15 am arriving at 9:08 am. The railroad also offers round-trip scheduled freight service between Ishpeming Yard and West Yard (at Presque Isle). [ETT-1946]

1946. All retaining valve handles on eastbound freight and ore trains must be turned up before passing the west switch at Dead River and left up until arrival at West Yard. Also, certain locomotives are not allowed on bridges on the old main line between Ishpeming and Queen Mine. [ETT-1946]

1968. SNAPSHOT: The line between Eagle Mills and Ishpeming operates up to 40 LS&I trains during a 24-hour period. There are at least 6 C&INW and between 4 and 12 Soo Line trains or engine movements daily in this single track CTC territory. [LSIOR]

1973. A Calumet organization known as Trans Northern proposes to purchase the LS&I line between Munising and Eben Junction, to operate passenger excursions. Trans Northern is owned and operated by the Keweenaw Central excursion line, which operated excursion trains between 1967 and 1971. The line would also serve the Kimberly Clark plant in Munising. [EDP-1973-0228]

1976. November 16. The LS&I has once again asked the ICC for permission to abandon nearly 60 miles of track in Marquette and Alger counties. Citing a decline in forest products and elimination of iron ore shipments, LS&I filed the request on October 26. The proposed abandonment would effect two separate stretches of track - 1 47.83 mile section between Munising and Marquette, and a 10.22 portion between Little Lake and Lawson. The line includes the stations at Munising, Munising Junction, Chatham, Eben Junction, Lawson, Vick, Little Lake, Dukes, Skandia and Harvey. [EDP1976-1116]