Escanaba & Lake Superior Railroad: In Service Since 1898
Last revised: October 14, 2026
By: Adam Burns
The Escanaba & Lake Superior is a Class III railroad with headquarters at Wells, Michigan. Reporting mark ELS. It was chartered on November 17, 1898, as the logging railroad of the I. Stephenson Company, and it is still in service. The original main line ran from Wells to Channing, where it met the Milwaukee Road. In March 1980 the company began operating former Milwaukee Road track in the Upper Peninsula, and in 1982 it bought the line from Green Bay to Iron Mountain. The steam locomotives with a builder record are Nos. 11, 12, 14, and 18, below. The diesels, 30 locomotives all-time, can be found on the diesel roster.
GP38 No. 400 near Beaver, Wisconsin, in 2008, passing a house decorated for fall. Mike Derrick photograph.
On this page: At a glance · Charter · Branches · The 1938 timetable · Wells in 1950 · Steam · Hanna and the Larkins · Milwaukee Road lines · Diesels
At a glance
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Railroad | Escanaba & Lake Superior Railroad. Reporting mark ELS |
| Headquarters | Wells, Michigan |
| Chartered | November 17, 1898, as the Escanaba & Lake Superior Railway |
| Reorganized | February 12, 1900, as the Escanaba & Lake Superior Railroad |
| Wells to Channing | 63 miles in the 1950 account. 63.5 miles on the December 1938 timetable. 63½ miles in the same 1950 account’s mileage paragraph |
| Mileage | 118.23 on the December 1938 timetable. 95 miles in 1950, including a 4½-mile Escanaba belt line. The railroad’s own later notes: 278 miles in 1980, and 302 miles after the 1981 Republic purchase. An October 2026 operating account describes a main line of about 196 miles, Green Bay to near Rockland |
| Steam | 4-6-0s Nos. 11, 12, and 14, and No. 18. On this page |
| Diesels | 30 locomotives, all-time. Diesel roster |
| Status | In service. Canadian National is the Class I connection |
Charter
Jefferson Sinclair and Daniel Wells Jr. came to the hardwood along the Escanaba River in the middle of the nineteenth century and built a water mill at the site of the present No. 1 dam. Harrison and Nelson Ludington joined them. The firm became the N. Ludington Company. Isaac Stephenson, of New Brunswick, entered the company in 1850. He increased his holding until 1888, when the name became the I. Stephenson Company. Logs still came down the Escanaba River on the spring drives to the mills at Flat Rock and Wells.
In 1897 the Escanaba River Company, a subsidiary, built a seven-mile railroad from Wells to a hardwood stand at LaFave’s Hill. The Escanaba & Lake Superior Railway was chartered on November 17, 1898, and the track was extended to Watson. The charter officers were I. Stephenson of Marinette, president; John A. Van Cleve of Marinette, vice president; H. A. J. Upham of Milwaukee, secretary-treasurer; John W. Wells of Menominee, general manager; and W. E. Wells of Wells, general superintendent. George P. Eisman of Menominee was a director. The company was reorganized on February 12, 1900, as the Escanaba & Lake Superior Railroad. H. J. Brown of Marinette succeeded Van Cleve as first vice president. C. W. Kates became auditor in 1901 and later rose to general manager.
In 1900 the railroad agreed with the Milwaukee Road to extend the line from Watson to Channing and to haul iron ore to the Milwaukee docks at Escanaba. For years the road ran four ore trains and two log trains a day, with one or two extra log trains in the winter. William Duchaine, writing in the Escanaba Daily Press of December 27, 1950, dates the end of that ore arrangement to 1936, when the Milwaukee Road pooled the business with the Chicago & North Western and left the Escanaba docks unrebuilt. The railroad’s own chronology dates the ore to 1937, the year the balance of the Mashek Branch came up.
Branches
The boom-year branches were the Ralph, Turner, Mashek, Northland, Ford River, and Hendricks lines, more than 100 miles of track in all. Pine drives on the river continued for about fifteen years after the rails reached Watson. In the busy years about 100 million feet of logs reached the two mills at Wells by river and by train. The largest cut was 116 million feet in 1912. One mill was a four-band plant, with two resaws, cutting pine, spruce, and other softwood on a day shift. It ran until 1921. The other was a two-band mill with gang resaws, cutting hardwood day and night until the I. Stephenson Company closed the Wells mill in 1943. That closing ended the logging era on the railroad.
The railroad’s own year list is the branch history in miniature. 1898 brought the line to Watson and the Woodlawn branch as far as Golden. 1901 was the Channing ore extension. 1902 added the Escanaba branch and the Northland line to Gleason, and 1903 carried Northland from Gleason to Austin & Kates. 1909 extended Woodlawn and added the Ralph branch. Turner came in 1911–12, Hendricks in 1915, and Mashek, for hardwood, in 1918. Hendricks reached the Boney Falls Dam in 1920. Then the branches came out: Kates & Austin back to New Kates in 1921, Turner in 1922, Ralph in 1928, Mashek as far as the Escanaba River in 1935, the rest of Mashek with the ore in 1937, and Northland in 1939.
The 1938 timetable
System map carrying the December 1938 public timetable. Wells to Channing, 63.5 miles. Total mileage printed on the sheet, 118.23. General offices, Wells, Michigan.
The sheet is a public timetable as much as a map. Trains ran daily except Sunday. Stations along the main line included Wells, Escanaba, Flatrock, Groos, Lambert, Chandler, Salva, Cornell, Woodlawn, Hendricks, Watson, and Channing, with the branches to Mashek, Northland, Ralph, Turner, and Golden still in the table. Connections printed on the sheet were the Chicago & North Western at Escanaba, the Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie at North Escanaba, and the Milwaukee Road at Channing. The officers named there were E. L. Richardson of Milwaukee, president; G. N. Harder of Wells, general manager; and G. W. Brown, superintendent. Harder and Brown are both on Duchaine’s list of general managers. The sequence he gives is H. J. Brown, Richard MacLean, George N. Harder, George W. Brown, and Emil Christensen.
Duchaine’s mileage paragraph, written twelve years later, counts 95 miles of track, including 63½ miles of main line and a 4½-mile belt line in Escanaba, an oval that served the mills and warehouses in town. His train paragraph, earlier in the same article, calls Wells to Channing 63 miles.
Wells in 1950
By the time Duchaine wrote, the telegraph offices at Turner, Ralph, Northland, Watson, Hendricks, Woodlawn, and Salva were gone. Mixed trains 1 and 2 ran daily except Monday and Saturday, about ten cars to the trip, to exchange freight with the Milwaukee Road at Channing. The railroad asked the Michigan Public Service Commission for permission to drop the schedule. The commission refused. The train still carried an old combination coach. Passenger revenue in 1949 was $80. In the early years of the century the same business had been worth more than $200 a day, with two coaches for lumberjacks, drummers, and schoolteachers. In September 1950 one passenger rode from Wells to Channing. In October the conductor collected five fares.
George W. Brown had come to the job with years on the Milwaukee Road, the Soo Line, and the Escanaba & Lake Superior. After his death, Emil Christensen was general manager. Christensen had hired on in 1909. The president in 1950 was F. N. Weidner of Milwaukee. The railroad had about 75 employees. Christensen made his inspection trips to Channing in a yellow Ford with flanged tires, turned on a hydraulic jack. The freight-car fleet that year was 60 boxcars, 20 gondolas, 25 hoppers, 10 ore cars, and 25 flatcars, plus two cabooses, a coach bought from the Copper Range, and a Russell snowplow from the Ford Motor Company’s abandoned logging railroad at L’Anse. The coach was about fifty years old, lit by Aladdin lamps and heated by a coal stove.
The industrial track was the new business. When Herman Mench, vice president and works manager of the Harnischfeger Corporation, asked how long it would take to lay a spur to a truck-crane plant in Escanaba, George W. Brown answered, “We’ll start tomorrow morning.” The crew was out the next day, and the railroad’s share of the job was finished before Harnischfeger had the foundation in. Birds Eye Veneer and the Escanaba Paper Company were among the plants on the belt line. As the originating carrier, the railroad took its share of the rate and handed the cars to the Chicago & North Western at Wells and the Soo Line at North Escanaba.
Two fire cars, each of 8,000 gallons, had stood over the log landings in the Stephenson years. At the Mashek fire of 1926 they saved 2,000,000 feet of logs. When the Chicago & North Western ore docks burned in 1924, the same cars pumped out of Little Bay de Noc and kept the C. Reiss coal docks from going with them. By 1950 the tanks were diesel-oil storage.
The concrete car shop of 1921, 75 by 150 feet, held five cars. It had a second life in the war. Master mechanic Ole Thorsen remembered the emergency ore dock built at Escanaba in case the locks at Sault Ste. Marie were bombed: “The dock project started on October 6, 1942, and we were going here to beat the band on October 10.” The Wells shops retubed boilers and pumps for Merritt Chapman & Scott. They also overhauled thirteen secondhand locomotives for Harry P. Bourke, later sold to the government for cantonments, munitions plants, and air bases, including four saddle-tank engines shipped in pieces from Mexico, and seven locomotive cranes, through 1944. The machine shop cut parts for Lake Shore Engineering of Marquette and for Packard in Detroit.
Steam
Duchaine’s two reserve engines in December 1950 were the last of a small steam fleet. Nos. 11 and 12 were Baldwin 4-6-0s. The Baldwin specification books, as transcribed in Locobase, record three works numbers against a class of two locomotives: 33272 in March 1909, 33338 in April 1909, and 36809 in August 1911. Those works numbers are left unpaired with the road numbers. No. 11 was scrapped in 1943. No. 12 was sold for scrap in September 1946.
No. 14 is a 4-6-0, Baldwin works 45083, built in February 1917 and bought new. It was still on the reserve list with No. 18 when Duchaine wrote. It was sold in 1963 to the Arcade & Attica. No. 18 was built by the American Locomotive Company in 1913 for the Green Bay & Western, and the Wells shops bought it and rebuilt it in 1935.
Hanna and the Larkins
The railroad’s own note closes the Escanaba freight office in 1961. On April 19, 1968, the Escanaba Daily Press reported that Hanna Mining had bought the Wells–Channing railroad through a wholly owned subsidiary, Wells Randville, Inc. Hanna planned an ore dock at Wells and a spur of about 14 miles from the Groveland Mine at Randville to Ralph. The Chicago & North Western complained to the Interstate Commerce Commission.
On July 1, 1969, during a strike, the railroad stopped serving the Escanaba Paper Company. The mill built a connection to the Chicago & North Western and the Soo Line, and the paper traffic fell to a minimum. Hanna later asked the Commission for permission to abandon the line. In 1978 the railroad was sold to John Larkin and his father, Wade Larkin, of Minneapolis. Classic Trains (Summer 2022) describes the purchase as the 63-mile railroad. Larkin had already helped the Northstar Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society run an excursion over the line on October 21, 1973.
Milwaukee Road lines
The Milwaukee Road’s bankruptcy put a much larger railroad in Larkin’s hands, in pieces, and the dates belong to the pieces. The railroad’s own later note says that in 1980 it acquired the Milwaukee Road line from Ontonagon to Green Bay and that the total was 278 miles. The court record divides that statement.
On March 3, 1980, the reorganization court approved the trustee’s sale and option. The Escanaba & Lake Superior agreed to buy Iron Mountain–Ontonagon and planned to buy the rest. The Milwaukee Road would consent to interim service from Green Bay to Ontonagon, Green Bay itself excluded, beginning March 8. The trustee was to keep operating the Ontonagon line until a purchase application was filed. ICC Service Order 1433, decided March 6 and published in the Federal Register of March 20, authorized interim operation of the embargoed Milwaukee track between Iron Mountain and Green Bay from 12:01 a.m. on March 8, 1980, through 11:59 p.m. on March 31. Abandonment of that track was already pending in AB-7 (Sub-No. 85F).
A different March 8 belongs to the ore. In Hanna Mining Co. v. Escanaba & Lake Superior Railroad, 664 F.2d 594 (6th Cir. 1981), the court states that on March 8, 1980, the Escanaba & Lake Superior purchased the Milwaukee Road segment of the Groveland joint haul, Randville to Escanaba, 66.2 miles. Classic Trains dates the reach to Lake Superior, the Milwaukee line from Iron Mountain to Ontonagon, to the same month. In 1982 the railroad bought Green Bay to Iron Mountain from the trustee, which is the holding in Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad v. Escanaba & Lake Superior Railroad, 882 F.2d 1188 (7th Cir. 1989).
The railroad’s own note for 1981 is a separate purchase, the Republic line, after which it counted 302 miles. A further line, the former Soo connection running east and west from the Chicago & North Western at Green Bay, was the subject of an arbitration on December 6, 1985, and of ICC Finance Docket 30760 on January 7, 1986. The Northeast Wisconsin Railroad Transportation Commission acquired that connecting line, and the Escanaba & Lake Superior operates it.
An Escanaba Daily Press column in December 2021 describes the Larkin railroad as having grown from a 65-mile core to more than 235 miles, with $2.5 million put into the track. In 1984 the Northeast Wisconsin commission gave the railroad an award for rehabilitating 50 miles from Green Bay to Crivitz.
After the Smurfit-Stone mill at Ontonagon closed, the railroad petitioned to abandon 42.9 miles from Sidnaw to Ontonagon. The Surface Transportation Board required that abandonment to be finished by March 25, 2012. Scrap removal began southeast out of Ontonagon.
An operating account of October 7, 2026, describes a main line of about 196 miles from Green Bay to near Rockland, a branch from Stiles Junction to Oconto Falls, and switching at Marinette and Menominee. Trackage rights on Canadian National, from Pembine to North Escanaba, were reported at one or two trains a week. The Wells shops repair and paint freight cars, and some of the lines are used for car storage. Canadian National is the Class I connection.
Diesels
DS-4-4-1000 No. 204 at the Wells shops in April 1977. The locomotive was built in 1950 as U.S. Army Corps of Engineers L-4. Rob Kitchen photograph.
A postcard of S12 No. 204 with a short westbound freight (Wells - Channing, Michigan), passing beneath the Soo Line at Wells, Michigan on July 27, 1976. Bob Lenardson photo.
Brown’s economy was a pair of Baldwin switchers. Duchaine’s 1,000-horsepower No. 100 arrived in June 1946. It is a VO-1000. The 660-horsepower switcher, No. 101, was acquired in December 1947. Machinist Frank Winchester, whose father had helped lay the rail to Watson, told Duchaine, “Gosh, they can run those diesels for less money than I can run my car.” The two Baldwins were doing nearly all of the work by the end of 1950, with Nos. 14 and 18 held in reserve.
The later fleet is the diesel roster: more Baldwin switchers, the RS-12s, three GP38s, three SD40-2s, the Reserve Mining switchers and SD9s, an FP7, a stored F7B, and two RF16 sharknose cab units. Nos. 1205 and 1216 have been stored for at least 25 years. They were locked away after the builder plates were stolen. In the fall of 2026 the locomotives named in service included RS-12 300, GP38 400, FP7 600, and SW8s 1200 and 1201. A large part of the stored Baldwin deadline was cut up in the summer of 2026. No. 300, which had been held for special movements, went back to freight that year, and No. 600 returned in September after a traction-motor failure that had kept it out since 2020.
Related reading on American-Rails.com
- Escanaba & Lake Superior diesel roster
- Milwaukee Road · Chicago & North Western · Soo Line · Green Bay & Western
- Short lines · Logging railroads
Sources
- William Duchaine, “History of the Escanaba & Lake Superior Railroad,” Escanaba Daily Press, December 27, 1950, as republished by michiganrailroads.com. The charter of November 17, 1898, and the officers; the reorganization of February 12, 1900; the 1897 seven-mile line and the extension to Watson; the 1900 ore agreement and its end in 1936; Wells–Channing as 63 miles and, in the mileage paragraph, 63½ miles inside 95 miles, with the 4½-mile belt line; the branch names; the mills, the 116 million feet of 1912, and the closings of 1921 and 1943; mixed trains 1 and 2; the $80 of 1949 and the fares of September and October 1950; Christensen, Weidner, and the count of about 75 employees; the 1950 freight cars, the Copper Range coach, and the L’Anse snowplow; the Harnischfeger spur and Brown’s answer to Herman Mench; the fire cars; the shop work from October 6, 1942, including Thorsen’s recollection, the thirteen engines for Harry P. Bourke, and the crane rebuilds through 1944; Nos. 14 and 18; diesels 100 and 101; the general-manager sequence. The same page carries the railroad’s year list, from Watson and the Woodlawn branch in 1898 through the Northland branch in 1939 and the Wells mill in 1943, and the railroad’s post-1950 notes: the Escanaba agency closed in 1961, the Milwaukee line from Ontonagon to Green Bay in 1980 at 278 miles, and the Republic line in 1981 at 302 miles.
- The system map reproduced above, a public timetable dated December 1938. Total mileage 118.23. Wells to Channing, 63.5 miles. General offices at Wells. Officers E. L. Richardson, G. N. Harder, and G. W. Brown. Connections with the Chicago & North Western at Escanaba, the Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie at North Escanaba, and the Milwaukee Road at Channing. Trains daily except Sunday.
- Escanaba Daily Press, April 19, 1968, as summarized by michiganrailroads.com. Hanna Mining’s purchase through Wells Randville, Inc., the proposed Wells ore dock, and the spur of about 14 miles from the Groveland Mine at Randville to Ralph.
- Escanaba Daily Press column, December 2021. The sale to John Larkin and Wade Larkin; growth from a 65-mile core to more than 235 miles; $2.5 million in track work; the 1984 award from the Northeast Wisconsin Railroad Transportation Commission for 50 miles, Green Bay to Crivitz.
- Classic Trains, Summer 2022. The 1978 purchase of the 63-mile railroad; the Northstar Chapter excursion of October 21, 1973; the paper mill’s traffic cut to a minimum; the March 1980 purchase of the Milwaukee Road line from Iron Mountain to Ontonagon.
- Milwaukee Road First Monday, March 3, 1980. The court’s approval of the trustee’s sale and option, the agreement to buy Iron Mountain–Ontonagon, and interim service from Green Bay to Ontonagon, Green Bay excluded, beginning March 8.
- Federal Register, March 20, 1980, ICC Service Order 1433, decided March 6, 1980. Interim operation of embargoed Milwaukee track between Iron Mountain and Green Bay, from 12:01 a.m. March 8, 1980, through 11:59 p.m. March 31, 1980. Abandonment pending in AB-7 (Sub-No. 85F).
- Hanna Mining Co. v. Escanaba & Lake Superior Railroad, 664 F.2d 594 (6th Cir. 1981). The March 8, 1980 purchase of the Milwaukee Road segment of the Groveland joint haul, Randville to Escanaba, 66.2 miles.
- Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Co. v. Escanaba & Lake Superior Railroad Co., 882 F.2d 1188 (7th Cir. 1989). The 1982 purchase of Green Bay–Iron Mountain from the trustee. The separate connecting line: arbitration of December 6, 1985, and ICC Finance Docket 30760, January 7, 1986, under which the Northeast Wisconsin Railroad Transportation Commission acquired the line and the Escanaba & Lake Superior operates it.
- michiganrailroads.com, citing Michigan Railfan. Abandonment of 42.9 miles, Sidnaw to Ontonagon, required to be finished by March 25, 2012, after the Smurfit-Stone mill closed.
- Locobase, class notes for the Escanaba & Lake Superior 4-6-0s, from the Baldwin specification books in the DeGolyer Library. Works numbers 33272, 33338, and 36809 for the two-locomotive class of Nos. 11 and 12. No. 11 scrapped in 1943. No. 12 sold for scrap in September 1946. No. 14, works 45083, February 1917, sold in 1963 to the Arcade & Attica. steamlocomotive.info records the same works number and builder date for No. 14.
- Operating notes on the railroadfan.com page for the Escanaba & Lake Superior, as captured on October 7, 2026. The main line of about 196 miles from Green Bay to near Rockland, the Stiles Junction–Oconto Falls branch, switching at Marinette and Menominee, Canadian National trackage rights from Pembine to North Escanaba, the Wells car shop, and the locomotives named in service that fall.
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Denver & Rio Grande Western diesel locomotives, each frame once. 554 units, from the 1941 NW2 through the 1990 GP60s. FT, F3, F7, and F9 sets are not counted again under their 1950 numbers. -
Rio Grande Railroad: Map, Logo, History, Rosters
Nov 04, 26 11:34 AM
Denver & Rio Grande Western history, from William Jackson Palmer and the October 27, 1870 charter through the Royal Gorge, the Moffat route, the California Zephyr, and Union Pacific common control… -
Lindblom Gift Expands the Fort Wayne Restoration Shop
Nov 04, 26 11:14 AM
Art Lindblom gave the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society more than $1.4 million, its largest single gift, to expand the New Haven shop. The addition is planned for late 2026 and early 2027. A sepa… -
Design Contract Awarded for the Forest Park Branch
Nov 04, 26 11:09 AM
The Chicago Transit Board approved a design contract for about 13 miles of Blue Line track from the Illinois Medical District to the I-290 Bridge. The release summary calls it a $17 million contract… -
Kanawha River Railroad: The Norfolk Southern Lease Is Renewed
Nov 04, 26 10:51 AM
Kanawha River Railroad filed to keep leasing 309.45 miles from Norfolk Southern in West Virginia and Ohio. The second amendment is dated August 17, 2026. The Board has not set the date the exemption t… -
Short Line Center Awarded a $5.625 Million Grant
Nov 04, 26 10:35 AM
The American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association received a $5.625 million CRISI grant on October 20, 2026, for the Short Line Training Center. A 25 percent match brings the project to $7.5 m… -
Palestine and Rusk Track Rebuild Finishes Its First Phase
Nov 04, 26 09:13 AM
The Texas & Eastern Railroad has finished the first phase of a roughly $30 million track project between Palestine and Rusk. Phase I used a $13.4 million CRISI grant. Phase II, at $8.54 million, adds… -
Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx Get Subway Power Design
Nov 04, 26 09:12 AM
STV said on November 2, 2026, that MTA Construction and Development selected the firm to manage design of 10 subway substations and 12 circuit breaker houses in four New York boroughs. No contract pri… -
Chicago's Regional Transit Budget Goes Out for Comment
Nov 04, 26 09:07 AM
The Northern Illinois Transit Authority opened its first regional budget for comment through December 4, 2026. The proposal is $5.04 billion for 2027 operations and $9.73 billion in capital work throu… -
VIA Rail Finishes the Toronto Maintenance Centre
Nov 04, 26 09:05 AM
VIA Rail completed a four-year modernization of its Toronto Maintenance Centre on November 2, 2026. The Government of Canada invested $310 million. The shop supports 32 Corridor trainsets and will sus…
