Railroad: Toledo, Canada Southern and Detroit Railway

The Chicago & Canada Southern railroad (predecessor to the CASO) came to Michigan via a ferry crossing of the Detroit River at Grosse Isle, They continued to build southwest towards Chicago, getting as far as Fayette, Ohio.

The railroad also wanted to tap Detroit and Toledo markets, so they formed this road (Toledo, Canada Southern and Detroit Railway) to do just that. At this point, the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern had already built south from Detroit (1855-56), intersecting their own lines at Monroe and Toledo. The TCS&D laid rail parallel to this route (on the east side of LS&MS line) from West Detroit to Canada Southern Junction (which was a junction with the Wabash and Clover Leaf) and crossing over the Lake Shore east-west main line on a long bridge. In 1882, the MC line entered into an operating agreement with this line and took over operations. This gave the MC their own line to Toledo from Detroit.

Built → Toledo, Canada Southern and Detroit railroad → CASO → Michigan Central → NYC → Penn Central →  Conrail

Chartered: 1872.

Built: 1873

Operated: 43 Years (many as the CASO and MCRR)

Operations Ended: 1916. Merged into the Michigan Central along with other lines.

Reference: [MRRC]

Notes

These parallel lines were operated by the Vanderbilt roads independently by the MB and Lake Shore until around 1900 when the roads began operating the lines from West Detroit to Water Works Junction near Toledo as double track - southbound on the Lake Shore and northbound on the MC line. This road was 47 miles long in Michigan with 11.6 miles in Ohio. It also owned 94.5 miles of spurs and sidings and was standard gauge.

Time Line