The was a railroad that operated in the
Great Lakes region of the
United States . The railroad had trackage in the states of
Michigan ,
Ohio ,
Indiana and the Canadian province of
Ontario . Its primary connections included
Buffalo, New York ,
Toledo, Ohio and
Chicago, Illinois .
It was incorporated on
January 1 ,
1900 as the from the merger of several Michigan railroads, the most prominent being:
In the
1920s the Pere Marquette came under the control of
Cleveland financiers
Oris and
Mantis Van Sweringen who also controlled the
New York, Chicago And St. Louis Railroad ,
Erie Railroad and
Chesapeake And Ohio Railroad and planned to merge the four railroads. The
ICC did not approve the merger and the Van Sweringen brothers sold their interest in the Pere Marquette to the C&O, with which it formally merged on
June 6 ,
1947 . The C&O has since become part of
CSX .
In
1984 ,
Amtrak named their passenger rail service between
Grand Rapids, Michigan and Chicago the ''
Pere Marquette ''.
The Pere Marquette also operated a number of
Rail Car Ferries on the
Detroit and
St. Clair River s and on
Lake Erie and
Lake Michigan . The PM's fleet of car ferries, which operated on Lake Michigan from
Ludington, Michigan to
Milwaukee ,
Kewaunee , and
Manitowoc, Wisconsin , were an important transportation link avoiding the terminal and interchange delays experienced by freight traveling around the southern tip of Lake Michigan and through Chicago.
