CSX Plymouth Subdivision


The CSX Plymouth Subdivision is a freight railroad line in the U.S. state of Michigan. 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. Other towns served include Brighton, Howell, Williamston, Grand Ledge, and Lake Odessa. Operationally, it is part of the CSX Chicago Division, dispatched from Calumet City, Illinois.

History

Construction of what is now the 124-mile CSX Plymouth Subdivision was attempted in the 1860s by a succession of short-lived and undercapitalized railroad companies, including the Detroit and Howell Railroad, the Ionia and Lansing Railroad, the Howell and Lansing Railroad, and the Detroit, Howell and Lansing Railroad. Principal construction on the Lansing–Detroit segment was completed by the Detroit, Lansing and Lake Michigan Railroad, with operations commencing on August 31, 1871.
In 1896 control of this east–west mainline through the state capital passed to the Detroit, Grand Rapids and Western Railroad, and subsequently by merger to the Pere Marquette Railroad in 1900. Though never among the most profitable railroads, the Pere Marquette persevered until it merged with the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad in 1947. The C&O became part of the Chessie System in 1972, and was absorbed into CSX Transportation in 1987.

Route

For most of its length the Plymouth Subdivision crosses gently rolling farm and forested terrain, passing through small towns and the state capital. The high point east of Lansing is 1000.4 feet above sea level at Canwell, and the low point 830.6 feet at Beck, for an elevation change of 169.8 feet. The steepest grade in this segment is 1.2% west of Canwell. The high point west of Lansing is 883.1 feet at Saddlebag Road/M-66, and the low point is 690.7 feet at the Thornapple River, for an elevation change of 192.4 feet. The steepest grade west of Lansing is 1.8% in the vicinity of Jordan Lake Avenue on the eastern side of the town of Lake Odessa. Despite the relatively modest grades, trains occasionally stall climbing Salem Hill west of Plymouth and coming east out of the Thornapple River valley.
The route of the Plymouth Subdivision has the following waypoints:
Notable bridges are a three-span Warren deck truss bridge over the Thornapple River, the 1887 "High Bridge" trestle over the Grand River at Grand Ledge, and a deck plate girder bridge over the Red Cedar River and Lansing's River Trail.

Traffic

When it was the Pere Marquette's primary route and the mainline between Michigan's two largest cities, the Plymouth Subdivision's rails were bustling with traffic. Even as late as the mid-1980s, in the first years under CSX, the line saw a dozen CSX and four Soo Line freights daily, in addition to numerous locals and commodity trains. Over time, however, much of that traffic moved southward, using Norfolk Southern's tracks from Detroit to Chicago via Butler, Indiana and CSX's own B&O route between Toledo and Chicago through Garrett, Indiana. As of June 2011, only two pairs of symboled trains are regularly seen on the Plymouth Subdivision, giving it the character of a branch line rather than a mainline. Current and former trains include:
Current trains:
Locals operating west from Plymouth Yard, east and west from Ensel Yard, and east from Wyoming Yard in Grand Rapids switch customers along this line. A nightly local shuttles traffic off Q326 from Wyoming to Ensel. D708 further shuttles cars from D707 to interchange with the GLC railroad at the AnnPere diamond interchange track near Howell.
Full and empty commodity trains operate over the Plymouth Subdivision on an irregular basis.
Former trains:
All CSX operations in Michigan, including the Plymouth Subdivision, are managed by dispatchers in Jacksonville, Florida
The Plymouth Subdivision is CTC signaled from Plymouth diamond west to Lansing Ensel yard.
A 30-mile portion west of Lansing Ensel yard to Lake Odessa is track warrant controlled by CSX form EC1 authority. The track warrant section is protected by automatic block signals in addition to the track warrants. CTC signals resume at Lake Odessa and continue west to Grand Rapids Wyoming yard.
The track warrant controlled section previously consisted of five ABS DTC controlled blocks. The DTC blocks were discontinued in favor of the form EC-1 authorities during the summer of 2011.

Passenger Service

There is no passenger service on the Plymouth Subdivision as of 2017, but surviving depot buildings in towns along its route are reminders of a different era.
In 1946, the Pere Marquette introduced the nation's first post-war lightweight streamlined passenger trains, operating between Detroit and Grand Rapids over the Plymouth Subdivision. These were the first diesel-powered trains on the Pere Marquette system, with power provided by EMD E7As pulling Pullman Standard cars. By 1947, there were three daily trains in each direction, an evening and a morning express and a mid-day local. The expresses had a scheduled trip of 2:40, with intermediate stops in Plymouth and Lansing. The local had a scheduled trip of 3:00 due to additional stops in Brighton, Howell, Fowlerville, Williamston, Grand Ledge and Lake Odessa. The service was continued by the Chesapeake & Ohio under the Pere Marquette name following the 1947 merger. The final passenger train ran on the Detroit-Grand Rapids route in 1963.
The Union Depot at Michigan Avenue, just blocks from the state Capitol, survives and was Clara's Lansing Station restaurant until the restaurant closed in 2016. The Williamston Depot was moved a half mile to Grand River Avenue in 1979, where it now houses a museum and the city Chamber of Commerce. The Fowlerville Depot is still owned by the Pere Marquette successor CSX and used as a base for track maintenance crews. As in Williamston, the Lake Odessa Depot survived through relocation and repurposing as a museum.