• Source: Coopersville and Marne Railway

The Coopersville and Marne Railway is a non-profit tourist railroad and common carrier in West Michigan. It connects with the Grand Rapids Eastern Railroad in Grand Rapids. The company owns the track, which runs from Walker, Michigan to Coopersville, Michigan
in Kent and Ottawa counties, approx 14 miles.
It runs passenger excursion trains from Coopersville to Marne and back. Some are theme oriented while others are just train rides. They also service one freight customer, near the eastern end of the line, with cars of lumber.
As of 2008, one car in their fleet was selected to be handicapped accessible in the near future.
As of 2022, the handicap-accessible car was still under restoration. No completion date had been announced.
As of 2023, the handicap-accessible car had completed restoration and is operational.
The heritage of the line can be traced back to the 1850s, as the Oakland and Ottawa Railway. It later became part of the Detroit and Milwaukee Railroad, being the mainline to Grand Haven where they operated lake ferries to transport cars across Lake Michigan. Ultimately becoming part of the Grand Trunk Railroad, it became a branch line after the Trunk moved its ferry operations to Muskegon, via a shared trackage route with the Pennsylvania Railroad from Walker to Muskegon, thru Conklin and Ravenna. The Coopersville to Grand Haven route became a lighter use branch line for the remainder of the GT ownership, eventually being cut back to Coopersville before being sold to the Central Michigan in 1983. The Central Michigan also purchased the Muskegon route, eventually abandoning and removing the rail to be sold or used elsewhere. This fate was spared for the Coopersville segment, however, as a General Motors owned facility in Coopersville had a strategic supply contract in place with the US military at the time, requiring rail access in case of wartime needs. The tracks had already began to be removed on the west end of Coopersville city limits, when this was discovered. The tracks were placed back into operation and the line was put up for sale, as the Central Michigan did not have interest in owning the line for lack of customers.




Locomotives



Source




References






See also



Employer determination [1]

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Coopersville and Marne Railway
• Coopersville, Michigan
• Grand Rapids Eastern Railroad
• List of common carrier freight railroads in the United States
• West Michigan
• List of heritage railroads in the United States
• List of reporting marks: C
• List of Michigan railroads
• List of shortline railroads in the United States by state
• Central Michigan Railway