The Pere Marquette Railway was a railroad that operated in the Great Lakes region of the United States and southern parts of Ontario in Canada. It had trackage in the states of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and the Canadian province of Ontario. Its primary connections included Buffalo; Toledo; and Chicago. The company was named after Jacques Marquette, a French Jesuit missionary who founded Michigan's first European settlement, Sault Ste Marie.
History
The Pere Marquette Railroad was incorporated on November 1, 1899, in anticipation of a merger of three Michigan-based railroad companies that had been agreed upon by all parties. It began operations on January 1, 1900, absorbing the following companies: Flint & Pere Marquette Railroad (F&PM) Detroit, Grand Rapids & Western Railroad (DGR&W) Chicago & West Michigan Railway (C&WM)
The company was reincorporated on March 12, 1917, as the Pere Marquette Railway. In the 1920s the Pere Marquette came under the control of Cleveland financiers Oris and Mantis Van Sweringen. These brothers also controlled the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad (Nickel Plate), the Erie Railroad and the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, and planned to merge the four companies. However, the ICC did not approve the merger and the Van Sweringens eventually sold their interest in the Pere Marquette to the C&O in 1929. The company continued to operate separately as the Pere Marquette Railway until being fully merged into the C&O on June 6, 1947. Forty years later, the C&O was absorbed into CSX Transportation.
In 1984, Amtrak named its passenger train between Chicago and Grand Rapids, Michigan, the Pere Marquette.
The train in the 2004 film The Polar Express was modeled after steam locomotive Pere Marquette 1225. The film also included audio recordings of the locomotive in operation. It is the locomotive that Chris Van Allsburg said was the inspiration for the book, having seen it as a child when it was on the Michigan State University campus. The locomotive was scheduled to be at the premiere in Grand Rapids, where the writer was born, but was canceled because of interferences with the schedule of CSX. It is now housed and maintained at the Steam Railroading Institute in Owosso, Michigan.
Surviving Steam Locomotives
1. PM 1223 - 2-8-4 "Berkshire" displayed at Chinook Pier in Grand Haven, Michigan. PM 1223 is the oldest surviving example of the 2-8-4s in America.
2. PM 1225 - 2-8-4 "Berkshire" operational by the Steam Railroading Institute in Owosso, Michigan. PM 1225 is the real steam locomotive that made an appearance in the Warner Bros movie The Polar Express.
1907 wreck
On July 20, 1907, an excursion train carrying 800 passengers from Ionia to Detroit collided near Salem with a freight train, killing 31 and injuring 101. The accident apparently happened because of a hand-written schedule on unlined paper whose columns did not line up, and was misread by the freight crew. The Interstate Commerce Commission investigation also cited safety violations, including use of pine instead of oak for car walls and the omission of steel plates required for mail cars. This was Michigan's worst rail disaster.