Railroads at Tustin

Glen and I have put our heads together, and here are our conclusions- he knew most of this already.

This is the station sign for Tustin station on the Grand Rapids & Indiana railroad. This north-south line was the first through the area, reaching Tustin about 1872. At it's height, it extended from Indianapolis to Mackinaw City and was the longest north-south rail line in the country.

In 1889, a group of Ludington and Manistee businessmen, in the lumber and salt industries, set out to create an east-west line from Manistee to Grand Rapids, and that is what the railroad was named (later becoming the Michigan East & West). In 1893 the track ended at Tustin, meeting the GR&I. Here's where it gets interesting.

I found this map which shows a wye at Tustin, which makes some sense because where a railroad stops, it has to have a way to turn the train around. However, neither Glen nor I can find any other record of this wye. Anyway, the M&GR is the gray dotted line, with the WYE (which may not have existed, I suppose). The strong blue dotted line is the GR&I which is now the multi-use White Pine Trail.

See the purple dotted line that I added? Glen is pretty sure that is the location of the spur that was added to bring cars from the main M&GR up to the station. The spur needs to be about that long, or there is too much of a grade.

Eventually, the M&GR was extended a little farther east to Marion where it connected with the Ann Arbor Railroad

Here's where it gets interesting.

In order for the train to continue east, the M&GR had to pass under the GR&I because the grades were not at the same elevation. Glen showed me where that overpass was. They had to raise the GR&I some, so there was room to do this. In this picture, we are standing on the berm of the GR&I where the White Pine Trail now passes. The edge is marked with the orange line. The higher berm was built so there was enough clearance for the overpass. And it was built beside the old berm, not on top of it.

The yellow line is the old GR&I berm which was lower. When the M&GR was extended the lower berm was cut out to allow passage.

You can also see a large stone at the left of the picture.

That is one of the stones that formed the walls of the overpass.

The passage is all filled in now, but part of the header can be seen on the west side.

But more of the massive stones are obvious on the east side.

In 1913, the Michigan and Grand Rapids Railroad was insolvent, and was sold, becoming the Michigan East & West Railway. By 1919, that track was all gone. One of the surprising things is that it was standard gauge track, which was not always the case with these old railroads. You've seen some other pictures of this grade on my blog before (link below). It was a well-built track, but it eventually could not compete with the Pere Marquette and Flint, which is now Marquette Rail that runs in back of my house.

Gosh, I love figuring this stuff out!

I worked some on almost all my projects today. Pat me on the back!

See Michigan East and West Railroad

An Ethical Dilemma

Yesterday, one of the yellow plants in my garden that I showed you is "Fig Buttercup," more correctly known as Lesser Celandine, Ficaria verna.

I've had this in my garden for over 25 years. It has never spread anywhere else, and it is reliable yellow color in the spring between the daffodils. Then the foliage dies back.

But now Michigan has listed it as an invasive species and wants instances of it reported to them. So far there is no penalty for having it, but...

I am thinking about digging up that whole bed and putting the daffodils back, with allium for summer blooms and autumn crocus (Colchicum) for later in the year. These are all bulbs. I could still put in marigolds and or Coleus for in between.

My Drumstick Alliums in August:

Colchicum seen in Ludington- it does come in other colors too:

I could also put Naked Lilies in for fall- I have quite a few bulbs, but those don't reliably bloom for me and they are very tall.

Then I'd get rid of the Celandine. But, dang. I hate to destroy them because they've done so well for me and haven't escaped.

In other news: I did laundry, errands, bell choir, editing, and took a walk.

Miles walked in 2026: 144.7

Methodist Church Trails: 1.8 miles

See An Allium Solution

Festival in Yellow

I have daffodils everywhere!

And other things in yellow too. The Donkeytail, Euphorbia myrsinites, is starting to bloom in the rock garden.

More dafs. These are in the driveway bed. I just moved these bulbs here in the fall of 2024, and quite a few are blooming. (You can see some iris leaves looking healthy, and a bunch of grape hyacinth starting to bloom in the front).

The forsythia is just about perfect.

The "big bed" that I've been sort of trying to reclaim is full of daffodils- several kinds.

And here is fig buttercup. More on that another day.

There are even more clumps of daffodils in bloom in various other places. It's quite lovely. In fact, I need to get some of these patches split up and give a bunch of bulbs away.

It's been a few years since I did a "daffodil tour" to show all the varieties. Would you like to see that again? Some bloom earlier and some later.

I worked quite a lot on Confidence Camp today and did a few errands

See A Riot of Daffodils

Bell Choir- April 2026

Today was bell choir Sunday. The first song we did is one of my favorites. It's "Spirit Song."



And I like the second one a lot too. It's "Shout to the Lord."



Hope you enjoy!

Most of the rest of the day I spent working on things for Confidence Camp. There were lots of other things I should be doing too. But at least I didn't goof off. It was cold and windy outside. Expect flowers tomorrow!

See Bell Choir- February 2026

Tustin and Potatoes

What does the village of Tustin have to do with potatoes, you ask? The Pine River Museum is located in Tustin, in a former potato warehouse. The building is 200 feet long, but narrow so that it had multiple bays that fronted on the railroad.

And surprisingly, it has a basement that was also filled with potatoes at harvest time. They cut through the floor in one place and added crates and fake potatoes to show how that would have been used.

The primary agricultural product of the area was potatoes. Actually, there still are a lot of potatoes grown in the area. This is a field of them in blossom just a little south from there. (another year, another month)

This is one display of hand tools used in the ag business of 100 years ago. there are potato and corn planters on the left, along with a number of itmes that were used in other farm pursuits- a fruit picking bag, shearing scissors for sheep, wooden grain shovels, corn knife, hay rake, hay knife, and more.

I was especially surprised at this. These are hand-carved yokes for carrying two buckets. I have one of these that belonged to my grandfather. I guess I sort of thought these were an eastern thing. But, nope! Here are four more. Mine is most like the second one down. I'll show you some day.

I worked on various projects today including starting to get materials collected for Confidence Camp. It was cold outside, and I was a little sore from yesterday, but I did stuff.

See When I first saw the museum building