Detroit to Jackson and Across the State By Jack E. Schramm, William H. Henning and Richard R. Andrews For a state that gave birth to the giant automobile industry, it is amazing to contemplate the rich variety of non-automobile transportation Michigan has enjoyed over the years. Michigan had it all: railroads, electric interurbans, excursion boats, overnight steamers, streetcars and buses. But the factories of Detroit, Pontiac and Flint turned out automobiles by the millions, and with the new paved highways which materialized everywhere, they swept aside nearly every other mode of carriage in a hurry. If anything, the transformation was performed more rapidly in Michigan than in most other states. In Part Three, we turn our attention to the corridor that starts in Detroit and runs generally westward: to Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor, Jackson, Lansing, Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, and up to Grand Rapids. The main players were the Detroit United (later Eastern Michigan System) and the partially third-rail Michigan Railway Company, which competed with the Michigan Central Railroad. Michigan did not protect interurbans from bus lines, and they nibbled the interurbans to an early grave. The mainline steam passenger trains endured longer, but they too succumbed to economic forces their operators little understood. Steamships play more of a cameo role, and we even visit the new Detroit people-mover, the only new transit development in Michigan in a long time. It's a fascinating ride through Michigan transportation history. 224 pages, 338 black and white photographs. |
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