Rails Across the Lake
John Gurda - Cream City Chronicles
Leah Dobkin - Soul of a Port
John Gurda - Cream City Chronicles
Leah Dobkin - Soul of a Port
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"In the 1850s," writes historian John Gurda, "completion of rail links to the east and west pushed Chicago to the front ranks of America's cities.... Milwaukee, once closer to the Atlantic seaboard by lake travel, was now ninety miles farther away by rail. Wisconsin's metropolis began to feel the growing shade of a giant to its south.
"Milwaukee was not about to throw in the towel. The most practical alternative was to bypass Chicago by water. Milwaukee was already building railroads to the Mississippi, and the city had high hopes for a companion line taking shape on the Michigan side of the lake. That line, the Detroit & Milwaukee, was pushing steadily west to Grand Haven, directly opposite Milwaukee. The idea was to coordinate rail schedules in both directions with cross-lake ‘ferry steamers,’ providing a convenient hybrid route from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. "The line's appeal was summed up in a clever newspaper ad: ‘Lake Michigan Bridged.’ "For all its virtues, the ‘bridge’ failed to restore Milwaukee to parity with Chicago. Freight-handlers, in particular, disliked the ‘break-bulk’ nature of the service. Cargoes had to be unloaded from trains on one side of the lake and then reloaded on the other – hardly a model of efficiency. "Service across the lake, on ships large enough to carry whole trains, was the next step. In 1892 the first rail ferry on Lake Michigan went into service between Frankfort, Michigan, and Kewaunee, Wisconsin. Within a decade or two, the lake was criss-crossed with lines, including the Pere Marquette and the Grand Trunk, both of which built docks at Milwaukee.” "Between 1892 and 1980," writes Leah Dobkin, "carferries transported railroad cars, freight, automobiles and passengers, often in stormy, frigid weather, cutting through icy waters and even solid ice like a knife through butter. Carferries were designed to break through three feet of solid ice, and this design feature allowed commerce to continue through the year. “The rail cars were systematically rolled on and off the ships. The ferries could typically accommodate an entire freight train (thirty-two boxcars on four tracks) on the lower deck, and up to three hundred passengers in the cabin or upper deck. “Three railroad companies—the Ann Arbor Railroad, Grand Trunk Line and the Pere Marquette—owned and operated the ships that serviced Lake Michigan. The year 1955 was the zenith of the lake's ferries; during that year, 205,000 passengers and 204,460 freight cars were carried in 6,986 crossings of Lake Michigan. “However, by the mid-1970s, the Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O) Railroad, which had purchased the Pere Marquette Railway, lost interest in operating carferries, because of the rising costs of vessel upkeep, labor and fuel, and advances in railroad technology. In 1980 the C&O abandoned its carferry business in Milwaukee." |