Railroad Pieces

The other fun thing I did on Saturday was drive a bit more of the road called Railroad Avenue in Oceana County. This is the dirt road on which the Pentwater Pathway trailhead is located.

The Chicago and West Michigan Railroad owned various lines at various times. One of them angled northeast from near Muskegon, and that is the part shown in the link below.

But one of their lines ran from New Buffalo (southwest corner of Michigan) to Pentwater. Now portions of that rail bed are roads, including a 5.3-mile stretch between Mears (where I was Saturday) and "sort of" Pentwater. The railroad ran to a settlement on the west side of Pentwater Lake called Frenchtown.

The parts I drove Saturday are roughly inside the red circle.

The access to Pentwater Pathway is almost at the north end of the line. There the road is dirt.

A little south of there the rail bed has been paved and is a road.

Right beside that section is this house. Can't you just imagine that when the rail line was operating (about 1869-1881) this was quite the beautiful place?

And this brings me to mention a category of blog posts that I never really started, but have thought about. Title: "Houses I'd Like to Save." The problem is that often I just see them while driving by and don't have the opportunity to stop and get a picture. I've only done one other post with this tag so far, but I see a lot of houses that would fit the category.

And this is frustrating. I have been in the house that was the station in Frenchtown. I've taken pictures of the railroad berm, and I was really sure I blogged about it. But I sure can't find the post-- on this blog or any other blog of mine! If I ever find the pictures, I'll have to do one.

A good day in terms of getting things done, although I did get off to a slow start.

See Chicago and West Michigan Railway

Chicago and West Michigan Railway

  When I was looking up info about the White River railroad bridge the other day, I learned that the line that went from Muskegon to Big Rapids, passing through White Cloud, was the Chicago and West Michigan Railway. It was bought up by the Pere Marquette Railroad as many of these short lines were. In fact, it's often difficult to keep track (pun intended) of which railroad lines were owned by whom, and what name they were using at any given time. C&WM at some period of time owned the Newaygo and Lakeshore RR, and the Grand Haven RR, and the Chicago & Michigan Lake Shore which ran from New Buffalo to Pentwater. The access to Pentwater Pathway Trails that I sometimes hike is on that previous right of way.

So, anyway, I overlaid the RR map on the trail map, realizing that I was going to cross that former line on my hike on Sunday. I figured if I knew about where to look for it, I might find the old rail bed.

Not a problem! I certainly would have recognized this as a former railroad without a single clue, I just would not have known which one. This is the view looking northeast.

And here is the view looking southwest. It's quite open yet, which probably indicates it was a well-built base- not like some logging lines where they just leveled the berm and threw down some rails. Probably plenty of ballast if you went digging in that. A pipeline and its access road is now parallel to the old rail line (not visible in the pictures).

Here's a wonderful photo of a C&WM Inspection Car, date unknown. Very steampunk, don't you think?

And finally, here is the logo of the line. It's nickname was the Fruit Belt Line. Since it operated from some time prior to 1881 to 1897 when it was purchased by the Pere Marquette, apparently the area was already known for fruit growing. I find this interesting, since logging was the big item then. I always thought almost all the farming followed the clearing of the land. However, I did some research, and the French realized that southern Michigan had the right climate for fruit trees. They were cultivating apples and pears in Michigan in the 1700s. Berrien County (where New Buffalo is located) in the southwest corner of the state, was already known for growing peaches to ship to Chicago by 1834. The French explorers had noted the land adjacent to Lake Michigan would be suitable for growing fruit as early as 1670!

I love figuring out all these old railroad connections. Can't you just picture a train full of people on their way to White Cloud, or perhaps Big Rapids, looking out at the same landscape? OK, minus the pipeline!

In other news: I walked with Cathy in the morning- some road miles, did volunteer work in the afternoon, and then had bell choir.

See White River RR Bridge