The Saginaw Subdivision is a railroad line in the U.S. state of

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

. The line runs 105 miles from

Toledo, Ohio Toledo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most populous city in the state of Ohio, after Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, and accordin ...

, to

Saginaw, Michigan Saginaw () is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the seat of Saginaw County, Michigan, Saginaw County. The city of Saginaw and Saginaw County are both in the area known as Mid-Michigan. Saginaw is adjacent to Saginaw Charter Township, Michi ...

. CSX owns the line although since 2006, the section from Mt. Morris to Saginaw has been leased to the

Lake State Railway Lake State Railway is a railroad operating in the Saginaw Valley and northeastern quadrant of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. The railroad moves large quantities of aggregate and limestone, as well as coal, grain, and chemical products. Some o ...

but is still occasionally used by CSX. The Plymouth to Mt. Morris line was also leased to LSRC starting in March 2019.

History

Before

CSX Transportation CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

operated trains on the Saginaw Subdivision, it was originally owned by the

Pere Marquette Railway The Pere Marquette Railway 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 in ...

. In the year 1947, the PM was acquired by the

Chesapeake and Ohio Railway The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond ...

. It continued under the control of the C&O until 1973 upon which the

Chessie System Chessie System, Inc. was a holding company that owned the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O), the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O), the Western Maryland Railway (WM), and Baltimore and Ohio Chicago Terminal Railroad (B&OCT). Trains operated u ...

assumed operations of the line. In 1980, when the Chessie System merged with the

Seaboard System Railroad The Seaboard System Railroad, Inc. was a US Class I railroad that operated from 1982 to 1986. Since the late 1960s, Seaboard Coast Line Industries had operated the Seaboard Coast Line and its sister railroads—notably the Louisville & Nashv ...

, the line became owned by its current owner, CSX. Over the years the line has lost a lot of traffic and many of the

industrial spur A branch line is a phrase used in railway terminology to denote a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Industrial spur An industr ...

s have since been abandoned. The

Flint and Holly Railroad The Flint and Holly Railroad (F&H) is a defunct railroad that operated in eastern Michigan from 1863 to 1868. It was founded by Henry H. Crapo, a Massachusetts-born lumber merchant who served as Governor of Michigan (1865–1869). The line was origi ...

was built by businessman, and later Michigan Governor, Henry H. Crapo in the 1860s to serve his lumber mill. A park near the junction of

Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I railroad, Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern United States, M ...

's Holly Subdivision (a branch line of the old

Grand Trunk Western Railroad The Grand Trunk Western Railroad Company is an American subsidiary of the Canadian National Railway operating in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Since a corporate restructuring in 1971, the railroad has been under CN's subsidiary holdin ...

), is named for him and a Michigan Historical Marker about him and the railroad's section stands there.

Toledo to Plymouth

The line begins in

, where it connects with the Toledo Terminal Division. Heading north, the line comes into the village of Carleton, Michigan. In Carleton, the Conrail

Lincoln Secondary The Lincoln Secondary is a railroad line owned and operated by Conrail in the U.S. state of Michigan as part of its Conrail Shared Assets Operations. The line runs from Carleton northeast to Detroit along a former Pennsylvania Railroad line. Its s ...

branches off and the

's Flat Rock Subdivision crosses. Continuing onto

Wayne, Michigan Wayne is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 17,593 at the 2010 census. Wayne has a long history of automotive and transportation related manufacturing. Ford Motor Company currently has two plants in Wayn ...

, the line crosses the Michigan Line, operated by Amtrak. CSX trains can interchange with NS here. There is a Ford automobile plant, which requires

autorack An autorack, also known as an auto carrier (also Flat wagon#Car transporters, car transporter outside the US), is a specialized piece of railroad rolling stock used to transport automobiles and light trucks. Autoracks are used to transport new ...

cars for loading. North of Wayne, it enters

Plymouth, Michigan Plymouth is a city in Wayne County, Michigan, United States. The population was 9,370 at the 2020 census. The city of Plymouth is surrounded by Plymouth Township, but the two are administered autonomously. Plymouth is a western suburb of Metro ...

. At Plymouth Diamond (MP CH82), the Saginaw Subdivision meets the east-west

CSX Plymouth Subdivision The Plymouth Subdivision is a freight railroad line in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is owned by CSX. It connects the Plymouth Diamond at milepost CH 24.5 to Grand Rapids at CH 148.1, passing through the Lansing metropolitan area en route. Othe ...

-Detroit Subdivision line.Michigan Department of Transportation
Michigan's Rail System
/ref>

Plymouth to Mount Morris

Beyond Plymouth the line crosses the now abandoned Michigan Air Line Railroad in Wixom. Then the line continues north. North of Plymouth is the village of

Holly ''Ilex'' (), or holly, is a genus of over 570 species of flowering plants in the family Aquifoliaceae, and the only living genus in that family. ''Ilex'' has the most species of any woody dioecious angiosperm genus. The species are evergree ...

, where the line crosses CN's Holly Subdivision near a historic abandoned depot. In

Flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...

, it interchanges with

Canadian National The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN ...

Flint Subdivision The Flint Subdivision is a railway line in the state of Michigan. It is owned by the Canadian National Railway and runs from a junction with the Michigan Line and CN's South Bend Subdivision in Battle Creek, Michigan, to Port Huron, Michigan. At ...

at the Atwood Wye. Also in Flint is the McGrew Yard and engine facilities for CSX equipment. In Genesee County, it closely parallels M-54 (Dort Highway) for several miles.

began leasing the line from Plymouth to Mount Morris starting in early March 2019.Lake State Railway to lease 53 miles of CSX track in Michigan
''Trains'', February 26, 2019

Mount Morris to Saginaw

On October 29, 2005, Saginaw Bay Southern Railway (now

) began leasing over 67 miles of

trackage, part of which includes the Saginaw Subdivision from Mount Morris to Saginaw.

Traffic

As with most lines in the

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

, metropolitan area, automobiles are the main source of revenue on the Saginaw Subdivision, although other freight is important for the businesses too. Once a month, a BNSF Railway contracted

Powder River Basin The Powder River Basin is a geologic structural basin in southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming, about east to west and north to south, known for its extensive coal reserves. The former hunting grounds of the Oglala Lakota, the area is very ...

coal train works its way up the line. Plus, local freights diverging onto or off the

use the Saginaw Sub to head to or from Toledo.

Passenger service

As of 2019, there is no passenger service on the Saginaw Subdivision.

Pop culture

In the computer game series Trainz, the Saginaw Subdivision is available as a user-created route on the Trainz Download Station. In Trainz 2010, it is available as a built-in route.

References

{{Reflist

External links

* CSX Chicago Division Timetable (2005

CSX Transportation lines Rail infrastructure in Michigan Rail infrastructure in Ohio Pere Marquette Railway