Michigan and Ohio Railroad

The Michigan and Ohio Railroad is a defunct railroad which operated in southern Michigan in the mid-1880s. Originally intended to forge a new line from Lake Erie to Lake Michigan, it came close to its goal, completing a line between Allegan and Dundee before financial embarrassment landed it in receivership.

Michigan and Ohio
 KA&GR to Grand Rapdids
 C&WM to Pentwater
0.0
 Allegan
KA&GR to White Pigeon
11.2
 GR&I (Grand Rapids–Kalamazoo)
35.1
 Michigan Central (Niles–Jackson)
41.7
 C&GT (Chicago–Port Huron)
42.0
 Battle Creek
 Air Line to Niles
67.8
 NCMR (Jonesville–Lansing)
 Air Line to Jackson
81.7
 FTW&J (Fort Wayne–Jackson)
89.0
 DH&SW (Bankers–Ypsilanti)
116.8
 LS&MS (Lenawee Junction–Jackson)
123.5
 Wabash (Montpelier–Delray)
 TAA&NM to Owosso
132.9
 Dundee, Michigan
 TAA&NM to Toledo

Corporate history

The company incorporated on June 25, 1883, to consolidate the Toledo & Michigan, an Ohio company, and the Toledo & Milwaukee. The company filed articles on October 9, 1883 and began operations November 29.[1]:417 Beset by financial difficulties, the company went into receivership almost immediately; the Cincinnati, Jackson & Mackinaw (CJ&MK) bought the company on March 25, 1887.[2]:108

Discussing the liabilities assumed by the CJ&MK in acquiring the M&O and other companies, Michigan's railroad commissioner wrote that:

"...a sum so largely in excess of the real value of the property as to suggest unfavorable comment upon the policy of loading down a new enterprise with liabilities that cannot fail to seriously impair the financial standing of the corporation."[3]:iv

Michigan operations

From the Toledo & Milwaukee the M&O inherited 11.5 miles (18.5 km) of track in revenue service between Allegan and Montieth, where the tracks crossed those of the Grand Rapids & Indiana, and a completed-but-not-operational stretch 121.7 miles (195.9 km) in length east from Montieth through Battle Creek and Marshall to Dundee, in Monroe County.[4]:241 The M&O promptly opened this new section opened on November 29, 1883. The Toledo & Milwaukee had also leased the tracks of the Toledo, Ann Arbor & Grand Trunk, which ran south from Dundee to Toledo, Ohio, the company no longer having the funds to complete its own line.[1]:422–423[4]:241[5]:170–171

The M&O continued this leasing arrangement; in 1884, when the TAA&GT merged into the Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Michigan, the M&O continued to lease the Dundee–Toledo line from the new company, although the last two miles from Manhattan Junction to Toledo proper were leased from a new concern, the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad.[2]:145–146[6]:372–373

References
  1. Michigan Railroad Commission (1884). Annual Report.
  2. Meints, Graydon M. (1992). Michigan Railroads and Railroad Companies. East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Press. ISBN 978-0-87013-318-3.
  3. Michigan Railroad Commission (1888). Annual Report.
  4. Wing, Talcott Enoch; Helen Weightman Gay (1890). History of Monroe County, Michigan. New York: Munsell & Company. OCLC 81710795.
  5. Meints, Graydon M. (2005). Michigan Railroad Lines. East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Press. ISBN 978-0-87013-693-1.
  6. Michigan Railroad Commission (1887). Annual Report.
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