I do think that if the Mackinaw Bridge were built today, rather than in the time frame it was built, we would see the bridge built with rail also included, because there would be federal money put into the project to include the rail. Remember back then the entire climate related to railroads was much different than it is now. Trains still used 4 or 5 person crews to run the train, so the costs associated with the ferry's were not considered as negative as they would be today in the save every penny we can business climate of today.
Sadly, in hindsight, including rail on the bridge would have likely been a huge benefit for the railroads of the upper mid-west and the State of Michigan. Connecting the UP and LP via a railroad bridge would have drastically altered the shipping patterns of goods from the upper midwest and Canada to the eastern US. Trains could have gone through the UP, over the bridge, and down, thus avoiding Chicago. Can you imaging powder river basin coal trains running through the UP, down the old GR&I to west Olive or down the NYC to Bay City to head to plants in the eastern part of the state. We would have had a lot of traffic, that in my opinion, would have avoided Chicago by using the bridge.
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