Last revised: October 20, 2026
By: Adam Burns
The Detroit & Mackinac Railway Company was the shore railroad of northeastern Michigan. Reporting mark DM. On the timetable it was the Turtle Line. The name Mackinac is said Mackinaw along this shore. The main line ran from Bay City to Cheboygan, with the lake on one side and the cut-over pinelands on the other, and the branches reached Rose City, Rogers City, and the Au Sable. The company was incorporated on December 29, 1894. On February 1, 1895, it received the Detroit, Bay City and Alpena. In 1992 the operation passed to the Lake State Railway, which bought the lines in 1997.
At valuation it was a single-track, standard-gauge steam railroad. The Commission described the main line as about 195 miles, from Foss through Alpena to Cheboygan, and the company reached Bay City over 1.80 miles of trackage rights on the Pere Marquette. The diesel fleet on this page is eighteen locomotives, each frame once. Alco built the road engines. A General Electric 44-tonner and a Plymouth completed the list.
Detroit & Mackinac RS-2 No. 4610 in the snow, about 1964. Serial 74988, built in November 1946, and later given a 1,600-horsepower Alco engine. No. 466, the first production RS-2, is a different locomotive.
On this page: A lumber railroad · The Railway · Bay City and Cheboygan · The Turtle Line · At a glance · The 1910 map · The Straits · Diesels · Lake State
The Commission’s corporate chart begins with a Lake Huron company, and the transcription of the report calls it the Lake Huron and Southeastern Railway, incorporated on March 4, 1879. Michigan accounts call that beginning the Lake Huron & Southwestern, incorporated on April 15, 1878, by the Tawas City lumbermen Charles and Sylvester Hale. The Commission puts the company in receivership on May 23, 1879, and dates a judicial sale October 1, 1879. Charles Prescott bought the property at that sale. The road the Hales opened ran from Tawas City toward Prescott on a gauge of 3 feet 2 inches. The Commission records 21 miles, built in 1879, from Tawas City to a point near Mills. The Michigan account says 26 miles to Prescott.
The Tawas and Bay County Railroad was incorporated on February 19, 1880, for a term of thirty years. The Lake Huron property was conveyed to it on September 7, 1880. On April 2, 1883, the Tawas company owned 26.04 miles, the Commission’s 21 miles plus its own 5.04 from Mills to Prescott, described as the line from East Tawas to a point near Prescott, and sold that road the same day. The buyer was the Bay City and Alpena Railroad, incorporated on January 18, 1881, which took the name Detroit, Bay City and Alpena on the day of the sale. The Tawas company was still in existence on the valuation date. On May 17, 1886, it took a lumber railroad of 33.050 miles, from a point near Lincoln to the Black River, with a spur from Mud Lake Junction to Mud Lake, and conveyed those miles the same day to the Detroit, Bay City and Alpena. Russell Alger’s lumber trade stood behind that expansion. The Detroit, Bay City and Alpena built from a point near Prescott to Alger in 1883, 9.360 miles, and from East Tawas toward Lincoln in 1883–1885, 31.950 miles. George Hilton records that this 3-foot 2-inch railroad was laid on standard-gauge ties, and that the gauge was changed in 1886.
The Detroit, Bay City and Alpena then pushed a branch from Rose City to Goodar in 1886 and 1887, 35.980 miles, and reached Alpena from the Black River in 1888, 23 miles. Logging spurs added another 8.860 miles. The whole of that older railroad, including what the Tawas company and the Lake Huron company had built, came to a recorded 168.240 miles. On November 1, 1893, the company went into receivership. It was sold at foreclosure on November 8, 1894.
The Detroit & Mackinac Railway Company was incorporated on December 29, 1894, under the general laws of Michigan, to acquire the Detroit, Bay City and Alpena. J. P. Morgan & Co.’s syndicate books record the reorganization under January 10, 1895. On January 6, 1895, James D. Hawks told the Detroit Free Press that he had been in New York on the business of the reorganized company. On January 9 the paper reported his election as manager, with G. M. Crocker as auditor. Receivers and a purchasing committee ran the property until February 1, 1895, the day it was surrendered to the new company.
Hawks was still vice president and general manager in 1916, and the general office that year was the Boyer Building in Detroit. The Commission’s principal office, on the valuation date, was Alpena. The 1918 report places the office of the president in New York. Henry K. McHarg of Stamford, Connecticut, was on that board, and by 1917 the Commercial and Financial Chronicle described the company as controlled by McHarg and his associates. The shops, and the headquarters of the railroad’s later years, were at Tawas City.
Detroit & Mackinac C425m No. 381 near Grayling in June 1991. Built as Pennsylvania 2444 in December 1965, serial 3433-08. Karl Miller photo.
The new company bought the Alpena and Northern on April 15, 1895. That railroad had been incorporated on November 1, 1893, and in 1893 and 1894 it had built, on a narrow gauge, from Alpena to La Rocque, 28.900 miles, and from La Rocque out to Valentine Lake, 25.800 miles. The Detroit & Mackinac carried the line on from La Rocque to Onaway, 17.290 miles, between August 27, 1897, and May 31, 1899, and from Onaway to Cheboygan, 27.500 miles, between July 1, 1901, and June 30, 1904. Cheboygan was the north end.
South of Tawas the new main line into Bay City opened on September 20, 1896. The Commission measures it as 47 miles, from Emery Junction to the Saginaw River bridge, built between May 16, 1895, and that opening day. In 1896 and 1897 the company took an undivided half interest, with the Pere Marquette, in 0.260 mile of road and in the bridge at Bay City. From Bay City back to Foss, 1.80 miles, its trains used the Pere Marquette under an agreement of January 23, 1896, for fifty years. Bay City was the market, and the interchange, with the Michigan Central, the Grand Trunk Western, and the Pere Marquette. The Chesapeake & Ohio acquired the Pere Marquette in 1947.
The Harrisville cutoff, Lincoln Junction to the Black River, was finished on December 15, 1901, 23.310 miles along the lake. The Rogers City branch was finished on June 18, 1911, 14.410 miles. From May 11, 1912, the Michigan Limestone and Chemical Company used 2.20 miles between Calcite and Rogers City, and the railroad rented that company a coach, at $2.50 a day, to carry quarry men between the shops and the town. Limestone joined the older lumber traffic. For the year ending June 30, 1916, gross earnings were $1,175,726. In 1915–16 forest products were still 26.44 percent of the traffic. The shore towns shipped limestone, cement, sugar beets, and the rest of the general freight.
The company’s own construction came to 198.260 miles. Beyond Bay City, Cheboygan, the Harrisville cutoff, and Rogers City, the shorter pieces were Alabaster, 4.260 miles, finished between June 30 and October 31, 1898; Hillman, 23.300 miles, in 1907–1909; Onaway to Black Lake, 5.140 miles, finished November 30, 1903; Omer to Au Gres, 7.950 miles, finished February 29, 1904; Tower toward the Wolverine Road, 12.000 miles in 1899, and Tower to Indian River, 9.100 miles by June 30, 1900; Fletcher Junction to Fletcher Dam, 2.000 miles, about 1898; and 5.000 miles south from Case, built between 1900 and 1906.
A second narrow-gauge logging road came in from the Au Sable. The Potts Logging Railway was incorporated on August 5, 1887, and on July 17, 1891, was sold to the Au Sable and Northwestern Railroad, incorporated that day. On January 2, 1906, that railroad was sold to H. M. Loud’s Sons Company. A new Au Sable and Northwestern Railway, incorporated on January 8, 1908, acquired the property on June 5, 1914, and sold it to the Detroit & Mackinac the next day, June 6, 1914. The purchased mileage was 61.360: Au Sable to Comins, 50.340 miles, and Hardy to Beevers, 11.020. The Commission describes those miles as narrow gauge on the day of the sale. The Potts mileage the Au Sable railroad had bought was about 37 miles, from Au Sable to McKinley. The Michigan account remembers the road as a 3-foot line following the river, built to bring J. E. Potts’s lumber down to the shore interchange.
The Commission published several measurements, and they answer different questions. The main line it describes is about 195 miles. The road the company wholly owned and used is 359.605 miles. Another 4.259 miles, Alabaster Junction to Alabaster, was owned and leased to the Erie & Michigan Railway & Navigation Company from July 29, 1907. That branch had been built as 4.260 miles. Add the company’s own construction, 198.260 miles, the 168.240 miles from the reorganization, and the two purchases, 54.700 and 61.360, and the books show 482.560 miles. Subtract 87.650 abandoned, of which 15.820 was construction, 50.410 was reorganization mileage, and 21.420 was purchase, and the recorded figure is 394.910. The difference between that figure and the mileage inventoried is 31.046, which leaves 363.864 miles inventoried on the valuation date. The Chronicle for July 1, 1916, counts the operated system at 387.12 miles: Bay City to Cheboygan 195, the Au Sable division 50, Rose City 31, Prescott 12, Lincoln 14, Au Gres 8, Alabaster 4, Hillman 22, Rogers City 14, and logging branches 36. The subtotals in the table are the sums of the rows in each group. The recorded total is those two subtotals plus the two purchases. The rows under that total are the Commission’s reconciliation.
| Piece | Miles |
|---|---|
| Turned over February 1, 1895, from the Detroit, Bay City and Alpena | |
| Lake Huron company, Tawas City to near Mills, 1879 | 21.000 |
| Tawas and Bay County, Mills to Prescott | 5.040 |
| Lumber railroad conveyed May 17, 1886, near Lincoln to the Black River, and the Mud Lake spur | 33.050 |
| Near Prescott to Alger, 1883 | 9.360 |
| East Tawas to near Lincoln, 1883–1885 | 31.950 |
| Rose City to Goodar, 1886–87 | 35.980 |
| Black River to Alpena, 1888 | 23.000 |
| Logging branches | 8.860 |
| Subtotal, February 1, 1895 | 168.240 |
| Built by the Detroit & Mackinac | |
| Emery Junction to the Saginaw River bridge, opened September 20, 1896 | 47.000 |
| La Rocque to Onaway, finished May 31, 1899 | 17.290 |
| Onaway to Cheboygan, finished June 30, 1904 | 27.500 |
| Alabaster Junction to Alabaster, 1898 | 4.260 |
| Fletcher Junction to Fletcher Dam, about 1898 | 2.000 |
| Tower to a point near the Wolverine Road, 1899 | 12.000 |
| Tower to Indian River, finished June 30, 1900 | 9.100 |
| Case to a point south, 1900–1906 | 5.000 |
| Lincoln Junction to the Black River, finished December 15, 1901 | 23.310 |
| Onaway to Black Lake, finished November 30, 1903 | 5.140 |
| Omer to Au Gres, finished February 29, 1904 | 7.950 |
| Alpena to Hillman, 1907–1909 | 23.300 |
| Rogers City, finished June 18, 1911 | 14.410 |
| Subtotal, built by the company | 198.260 |
| Purchases | |
| Alpena and Northern, April 15, 1895. Alpena to La Rocque 28.900, and La Rocque to Valentine Lake 25.800 | 54.700 |
| Au Sable property, June 6, 1914. Au Sable to Comins 50.340, and Hardy to Beevers 11.020 | 61.360 |
| Recorded total, the two subtotals and the two purchases | 482.560 |
| Less abandoned: construction 15.820, reorganization 50.410, purchase 21.420 | 87.650 |
| Recorded mileage after those abandonments | 394.910 |
| Difference between recorded mileage and the mileage inventoried | 31.046 |
| Inventoried on the valuation date | 363.864 |
| Wholly owned and used | 359.605 |
| Main line described by the Commission, Foss via Alpena to Cheboygan | about 195 |
The railroad took the slogan The Turtle Line and spent its early years on heavier rail, new locomotives, and the summer trade. It advertised the Lake Huron shore to fishermen and to people leaving the cities, opened the Tawas Beach Resort, and helped organize the Tawas Bay Yachting Association. Through 1911 it dispatched six passenger trains a day in each direction. After the first war the automobile thinned that business. The seasonal trains faded through the 1930s, and after the second war the passenger account was a steady loss.
In 1949 the company asked the Michigan Public Service Commission for permission to take off the remaining trains. The permission was given, and then withdrawn after the protest. A six-month trial with the Grand Trunk Western, through Bay City into Detroit, left the passenger account where it stood. The commission allowed the trains to end. The last ones ran on March 31, 1951, with RS-2 No. 466 on the point, from Alpena down to Bay City. After that the railroad was a freight road: stone from Rogers City and Alpena, cement, sugar beets, and whatever the shore mills still shipped.
Three Detroit & Mackinac RS-2s on southbound freight AB-2, Alpena to Bay City, south of Tawas City on July 13, 1976. The track north of Alpena was later removed. Bob Lenardson photo.
A Detroit & Mackinac train unloading the Chief Wawatam in June 1979. Rob Kitchen photo.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Legal name | Detroit & Mackinac Railway Company |
| Reporting mark | DM. The Turtle Line |
| Headquarters | Principal office at valuation, Alpena. General office in 1916, the Boyer Building, Detroit. Shops and the later headquarters, Tawas City |
| Officers | James D. Hawks, manager from January 9, 1895, and vice president and general manager in 1916. Henry K. McHarg of Stamford, Connecticut, and his associates, in control by 1917. President’s office in 1918, New York |
| Gauge | 3 feet 2 inches on the Detroit, Bay City and Alpena, converted in 1886. The Alpena and Northern was narrow gauge when sold in 1895. The Au Sable mileage was narrow gauge in 1914, and the Michigan account calls that road 3 feet. At valuation the railroad was standard gauge |
| Incorporated | December 29, 1894. Property of the Detroit, Bay City and Alpena surrendered February 1, 1895. That company’s receivership began November 1, 1893, and the foreclosure sale was November 8, 1894 |
| Genesis | Lake Huron company. Michigan accounts: Lake Huron & Southwestern, April 15, 1878. The valuation transcription: Lake Huron and Southeastern, March 4, 1879 |
| Main line | About 195 miles, Foss via Alpena to Cheboygan, plus 1.80 miles of Pere Marquette trackage rights, Bay City to Foss |
| Owned and used | 359.605 miles of road. Inventoried mileage, 363.864. On July 1, 1916, the Chronicle counted 387.12 miles operated |
| Branches | Rose City, Rogers City (finished June 18, 1911), Harrisville cutoff (finished December 15, 1901), Au Sable to Comins and Hardy to Beevers (purchased June 6, 1914) |
| Cheboygan | Onaway to Cheboygan finished June 30, 1904 |
| Bay City | Opened September 20, 1896. Half of the Saginaw River bridge with the Pere Marquette |
| Last passenger trains | March 31, 1951, RS-2 No. 466 |
| Diesels | 18 frames, each once |
| Operation | Lake State Railway from 1992, under a lease. The lines were bought in 1997, no later than April 16 |
The public sheet of 1910 still shows the railroad at its widest: the shore line from Bay City to Cheboygan, the Rose City branch, the Rogers City branch, the Harrisville line, and the Au Sable lines inland to Comins. Logging spurs on a sheet of that date come and go with the timber. The operated mileage the Chronicle printed six years later, 387.12, is the system this map belongs to.
An official 1910 system map and timetable of the Detroit & Mackinac Railway. Author’s collection.
The car ferry at the Straits belonged to the Mackinac Transportation Company, owned by the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic, the Grand Rapids & Indiana, and the Michigan Central. Its boat from 1911 was the coal-fired Chief Wawatam, launched that year at Toledo. The Detroit & Mackinac met the ferry only after it began operating the old New York Central line, the Michigan Central’s Mackinaw route, from Bay City through Gaylord and Cheboygan to Mackinaw City. Accounts differ on the year. One places the trackage and the trackage rights in 1976, after Penn Central and the coming of Conrail. Another places a purchase, and a state designation of the Detroit & Mackinac as operator, in 1979. Either way, the inland line put the Turtle Line on the Straits at last, and a Soo crew waited on the St. Ignace dock for the boat.
The Mackinac Bridge opened to traffic on November 1, 1957. Highway ferries ended that day. The Chief kept the railroad crossing, with a state subsidy after the Commission allowed the ferry company to quit in 1976. Her last crossing was August 21, 1984.
Across the Straits at St. Ignace, Soo Line GP30 No. 708 unloads the Chief Wawatam in June 1979. The ferry was the Mackinac Transportation Company’s, and the railroad on that dock was the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic, later the Soo Line. Rob Kitchen photo.
The diesel fleet is eighteen locomotives, each frame once. Alco’s S-1 No. 646 came in June 1946. RS-2s 466 and 467 followed that October. No. 466, serial 73645, is the first production RS-2, and it drew the last passenger trains on March 31, 1951. Three more RS-2s, 468, 469, and 4610, came in November 1946, and No. 481 in January 1948. No. 4610, in the snow photograph, later carried a 1,600-horsepower Alco engine. The later Alcos were secondhand: two Boston & Maine RS-3s rebuilt by Morrison-Knudsen with 251 engines, a Long Island C420, a Delaware & Hudson RS-2 that had gone to the Long Island, a Long Island RS-3, and four Pennsylvania C425s rebuilt as C425m. A General Electric 44-tonner built for the Minneapolis & St. Louis, and a Plymouth of 1927, complete the list.
| Model | Numbers | Builder | Serial | Order | Built | Qty | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 44-ton | 10 | GE | 15122 | — | September 1942 | 1 | Built as Minneapolis & St. Louis 10 |
| DLC-6 | D-120 | Plymouth | 2728 | — | September 1927 | 1 | — |
| C425m | 181 | Alco | 3433-07 | 3433 | December 1965 | 1 | Built as Pennsylvania 2443. Later Conrail 2443. Sold to Waymore Power and scrapped |
| C425m | 281 | Alco | 3433-06 | 3433 | December 1965 | 1 | Built as Pennsylvania 2442. Later Conrail 5076, formerly Conrail 2442. Scrapped |
| C425m | 381 | Alco | 3433-08 | 3433 | December 1965 | 1 | Built as Pennsylvania 2444. Later Conrail 5078, formerly Conrail 2444. The engine near Grayling. Scrapped |
| RS-2 | 466 | Alco | 73645 | — | October 1946 | 1 | First production RS-2. Last passenger trains, March 31, 1951. To the Tuscola & Saginaw Bay as 466. Scrapped in December 2011 |
| RS-2 | 467 | Alco | 73646 | — | October 1946 | 1 | To Mississippi Power & Light |
| RS-2 | 468 | Alco | 74986 | — | November 1946 | 1 | To Lake State 468 |
| RS-2 | 469 | Alco | 74987 | — | November 1946 | 1 | To Lake State 469. Later a parts source |
| RS-2 | 481 | Alco | 75571 | — | January 1948 | 1 | Scrapped |
| S-1 | 646 | Alco | 74437 | — | June 1946 | 1 | To Lake State 646 |
| TE56-4A | 974 | Alco | 80751 | — | October 1954 | 1 | Rebuilt by Morrison-Knudsen with a 251 engine. Built as Boston & Maine RS-3 1512. Later a parts source |
| TE56-4A | 975 | Alco | 80756 | — | October 1954 | 1 | Rebuilt the same way. Built as Boston & Maine RS-3 1517. Scrapped |
| C420 | 976 | Alco | 84779 | — | February 1964 | 1 | Built as Long Island 208. To Lake State 976. Scrapped |
| RS-2 | 977 | Alco | 77571 | — | November 1949 | 1 | Built as Delaware & Hudson 4020. Later Long Island 1520. To Lake State 977. Scrapped |
| RS-3 | 1077 | Alco | 81353 | — | November 1955 | 1 | Built as Long Island 1553. To Michigan Northern 1077, then Ohio Central 1077 |
| C425m | 1280 | Alco | 3433-03 | 3433 | December 1965 | 1 | Built as Pennsylvania 2439. Later Penn Central 2439 and Conrail 2439. To Lake State 1280, then the Saginaw Railway Museum |
| RS-2 | 4610 | Alco | 74988 | — | November 1946 | 1 | Received a 1,600-horsepower Alco engine. The engine in the snow photograph |
Steam had handled the road until these engines. One locomotive remains at the restored depot in Lincoln, and the depot at Standish houses a museum and rolling stock.
In 1992 the operation passed to the Lake State Railway, reporting mark LSRC, owned by James George and Richard L. Van Buskirk, Jr. The Interstate Commerce Commission served the lease-and-operation exemption, Finance Docket No. 32012, on February 27, 1992. By February 17, 1992, Lake State was already a railroad employer. That day an affiliated company, Huron Services, owned by the same two men, began repairing Lake State’s locomotives and running tank-car transloading at Bay City and Oscoda.
Lake State leased the lines and, in 1997, gave notice that it would buy them. The notice, Surface Transportation Board Finance Docket No. 33372, published on March 28, 1997, covers about 275 miles between Kawkawlin and Gaylord and between Pinconning and Rogers City. The pieces are the Pinconning Subdivision, mileposts 5.0 to 11; the Mackinac Subdivision, milepost 116 to the end of the line at 122; the Huron Subdivision, milepost 16 to 151.25, including the Pinconning crossover; the Rogers City Branch, mileposts 0.0 to 11.0; and the Hillman and Alabaster branches. The purchase was to be completed no later than April 16, 1997. The Detroit & Mackinac name stayed on property after that. A notice of February 4, 2004, still names the company as owner of the Bay City Yard line, with Lake State holding an easement to operate over it.
On February 2, 2000, Lake State petitioned to abandon the Huron Subdivision from milepost 125.2, at the U.S. 23 crossing in Alpena, to milepost 151.25, just north of Metz, and the Rogers City Branch from milepost 141.8 at Posen to milepost 11.5, 37.55 miles in all. Lake State still operates the surviving shore line and the surviving inland line. The Lincoln depot and the Standish depot are the places a traveler can still walk into the Turtle Line.
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