Lake Shore & Michigan Southern: Map, History, Timetables

Last revised: September 10, 2026

The Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway was New York Central’s water-level path from Buffalo to Chicago: Dunkirk, Erie, Ashtabula, Cleveland, Toledo, Elkhart, South Bend. It was assembled on April 6, 1869, from the Lake Shore Railway and the Michigan Southern & Northern Indiana, then took the Buffalo & Erie on June 22. The oldest piece is the Erie & Kalamazoo, chartered April 22, 1833, horse cars Toledo–Adrian on November 2, 1836. Vanderbilt money was on the board from 1869 and held majority control by about 1877. On December 22, 1914, the Lake Shore merged with the New York Central & Hudson River to form the second New York Central Railroad. The name disappeared. The grade did not.

Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway 1910 system map Buffalo Cleveland Toledo Chicago

Lake Shore & Michigan Southern system map, 1910. Buffalo at the right, Chicago at the left, the lake shore in between. American-Rails.com collection.

On this page: At a glance · Erie & Kalamazoo · Michigan Southern · Lake Shore Railway · April 6, 1869 · Vanderbilt · Fast Mail and Ashtabula · Elkhart and Collinwood · December 22, 1914 · 1910 Official Guide · What still runs

At a glance

Item	Detail
Legal name	Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Company
Nickname	The Lake Shore
Headquarters	Cleveland, Ohio
States served	New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois
Genesis	Erie & Kalamazoo Railroad, chartered April 22, 1833. Horse cars Port Lawrence (Toledo)–Adrian, November 2, 1836. Steam locomotive Adrian No. 1, August 1837
Michigan Southern to Chicago	1852. Joint LaSalle Street terminal with the Rock Island
LS&MS formed	April 6, 1869 (Lake Shore Railway + Michigan Southern & Northern Indiana). Buffalo & Erie, June 22, 1869
Route miles	About 1,667 operated (ICC valuation). About 1,700 with branches in later compilations
Track gauge	4 ft 8½ in (after the Ohio / Pennsylvania gauge fights of the 1850s)
Main line	Buffalo–Dunkirk–Erie–Ashtabula–Cleveland–Toledo–Elkhart–South Bend–Chicago. Sandusky Division (Elyria–Millbury) became the through freight main north of Sandusky Bay
NYC control	Board presence from 1869. Majority stock about 1877
Into NYC	Merged December 22, 1914, with the New York Central & Hudson River. Unlike Michigan Central and the Big Four, the Lake Shore did not remain a leased shell
Successor	New York Central (1914). Penn Central 1968. Conrail 1976. CSX east of Cleveland and Norfolk Southern west of Cleveland after June 1, 1999

Dates follow the 1869 consolidations, the 1910 Official Guide map and tables on this page, and the 1914 NYC merger. Information compiled September 10, 2026.

Erie & Kalamazoo, 1833

Michigan Territory chartered the Erie & Kalamazoo on April 22, 1833, to run from Port Lawrence—today Toledo—northwest to Adrian on the River Raisin, then toward Kalamazoo. The Toledo War put about a third of the grade in Ohio. Horse cars started on November 2, 1836. That is the first railroad to operate in what became the state of Michigan. Steam arrived in August 1837 with the locomotive Adrian No. 1. The Detroit & St. Joseph, the other Michigan seed, is Michigan Central.

Michigan Southern to Chicago

The state of Michigan built a Southern Railroad across the lower tier toward New Buffalo on Lake Michigan, as it built a Central toward Detroit. Construction stalled at Hillsdale. Private capital took the Southern a few years after the 1846 Central sale, combined it with the Erie & Kalamazoo, and pushed west to meet the Northern Indiana Railroad. Monroe to South Bend opened in 1851. Chicago followed in 1852, using a joint terminal with the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific at LaSalle Street. In 1855 the Michigan Southern, the Erie & Kalamazoo, and the Northern Indiana became the Michigan Southern & Northern Indiana. An Elkhart–Toledo route was finished the same stretch. Elkhart shops dated from 1851 on Mason Street.

Two Toledo–Elkhart alignments lived on the later map. The Old Road ran north through southern Michigan. The Air Line, or Northern Indiana Air Line, was the through freight cut across northern Indiana. Both were Lake Shore property after 1869.

The Lake Shore Railway

East of Toledo the problem was gauge. Ohio and Pennsylvania did not agree, and a through Buffalo–Cleveland–Toledo car was not a given in the early 1850s. The Cleveland, Painesville & Ashtabula—already nicknamed the Lake Shore—opened Cleveland–Erie in 1852. New York Central interests tied up the Buffalo & State Line and the Erie & Northeast; those became the Buffalo & Erie in 1867. In October 1867 the CP&A leased the Cleveland & Toledo. On March 31, 1868, it took the name Lake Shore Railway. On February 11, 1869, it absorbed the Cleveland & Toledo outright.

April 6, 1869

LeGrand Lockwood of the Lake Shore and Elijah B. Phillips of the Michigan Southern & Northern Indiana put the two companies together on April 6, 1869 (some later filings treat a June 2 consolidation agreement as the operating date). Phillips became the first president. Horace Clark and other Vanderbilt men were already on the board. The Buffalo & Erie came in on June 22. One company then owned Buffalo to Chicago along the lake: Dunkirk, Erie, Ashtabula, Cleveland, Toledo, Waterloo, South Bend.

An alternate Ohio line, the Sandusky Division, ran north of the original main between Elyria and Millbury. Not all of that track was in until 1872. In later NYC years it became the through freight main, leaving the older alignment south of Sandusky Bay as secondary. Branches included the Monroe Branch, Adrian to Monroe, connecting with the leased Detroit, Monroe & Toledo; the Kalamazoo, Allegan & Grand Rapids, leased 1868, White Pigeon toward Grand Rapids by March 1869; and later feeders toward Oil City and the coal country that the Central wanted in Pennsylvania.

Vanderbilt’s Chicago extension

Cornelius Vanderbilt had been buying Michigan Southern stock in early 1869 to keep Jay Gould and the Erie from taking the Chicago end. Majority control of the finished Lake Shore is usually dated about 1877—the year he died, January 4, and the year William H. Vanderbilt finished the job. The Commodore’s biography stays on the New York Central page. The Lake Shore fact is that Buffalo–Chicago along the water became the western half of the Water Level Route. Canada Southern (1876) and Michigan Central (1878) were the Ontario and Detroit alternative, not a duplicate of this grade.

Fast Mail, Angola, Ashtabula

The Railway Post Office Fast Mail, New York Central to Buffalo and Lake Shore the rest of the way, made its first New York–Chicago trip on September 16, 1875. About a day. Congress cut the original extra-fast appropriation in July 1876. The 1875 lithograph on the 1870s page is that train.

The Michigan Southern had already shown what a wooden coach and a stove did at Angola, New York, on December 18, 1867. That wreck is the Angola Horror. Nine years later the Lake Shore’s Pacific Express dropped through Amasa Stone’s iron Howe truss over the Ashtabula River on December 29, 1876. Cars burned. About ninety people died. Vanderbilt died five days later. The disaster is Ashtabula, not a footnote to the estate.

Elkhart, Collinwood, Ashtabula

Elkhart remained the western shop town. The Mason Street plant employed about 1,500 at its peak. Cleveland’s Collinwood yard and shops, northeast of downtown, opened a new facility in 1874. In 1901 the railroad spent $2 million on more Collinwood ground; by the 1920s more than 2,000 people worked there, one of the Central’s biggest terminals. Ashtabula opened a freight-car shop in 1913 for ore and coal cars at the port. After dieselization that work folded into Collinwood.

December 22, 1914

On December 22, 1914, the New York Central & Hudson River and the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern merged as the New York Central Railroad. The ICC valuation treats the accounts as running through December 31. Boston & Albany, Michigan Central, and the Big Four were left out of that combination; the Lake Shore was not. After 1914 the Buffalo–Chicago lake line was simply the Central’s Chicago Line. Equipment no longer needed LS&MS lettering. The 1910 Official Guide on this page is the company still listing itself.

1910 Official Guide

The plates below are the Lake Shore’s 1910 Official Guide listing: map, through trains, and the Buffalo–Chicago tables. They are why this page keeps the word timetables in the title. Named trains of the later Central—Lake Shore Limited, the 20th Century Limited on this grade—have their own pages. Amtrak’s present Lake Shore Limited is the 2026 guide.

Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Official Guide 1910 timetable page

Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, Official Guide, 1910. American-Rails.com collection.

Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Official Guide 1910 map or table