Time Line - 2005

Last Year | Next Year

• February 12: The Lake State Railway bridge over the AuSable River in Oscoda is destroyed when a southbound freight train derails and a car pushes the bridge off it's support structure. The bridge, which was built in 1913, was replaced by a new structure on February 26th.

• March 20: The Lacota depot, in Van Buren County is destroyed by fire. [MFM]

• April 4: General Motors concludes their sale of their Electromotive Division to an investor group led by Greenbriar Equity Group, LLC and Berkshire Partners LLC. The new company, Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD), Inc. will continue to be based in LaGrange, Illinois. [PRNewswire].

• May: Michigan's Steam Railroading Institute purchases No. 76, a 2-8-0 locomotive from the Ohio Central Railroad collection.  The SRI will restore the locomotive for operation at Owosso. [SRI]

• September 10: RailAmerica's Mid-Michigan Railroad begins operation on the former CSX line between West Olive and Fremont, via Muskegon. Mid-Michigan has trackage rights to Waverly Yard near Holland. CSX's Cannonball departed Muskegon's North Yard on September 9th, taking all CSX power with it. [NN]

• October 30: Lake State Railway, through a subsidiary (Saginaw Bay Southern) begins operation on former CSX lines between Mount Morris and Midland (via Saginaw) and between Saginaw and Bay City. The last day of CSX operation was on October 28. [NN]

• November 12:  Marquette Rail begins operation on 129 miles of former CSX lines north of Grand Rapids to Ludington and Manistee.  The last scheduled CSX trains (D704, D712 and D771) ran on November 10, and CSX has a special one way move (D904) to bring CSX locomotives from those towns to Wyoming Yard.  [NN]

• December 14:  Schaefer Tower in east Dearborn is closed after installation of new signals and a remote interlocking.  The tower is torn down the next day.  [DJB]

No general entries.

Time line Key:

• Railroad event in Michigan
• Event relating to mining
• Event related to car ferries
• Event outside of Michigan
• Improvement in Technology
• Railroad built or extended
• Railroad abandoned and/or removed
• Economic panic or depression