After 1955, the only scheduled passenger train running on the old GR&I was the summer only Northern Arrow from Richmond, IN through Kazoo and Grand Rapids to Mackinaw City. It made its last runs in 1961. If you were in a car along old 131 somewhere between GR and Kalamazoo, and that train was on time ..... you might have caught a glimpse of the southbound sometime between 12:30 and 1:55 AM or the northbound between 1AM and 2:30AM between June 28 and Sept 11, twice a week. eg. Northbound July 1 and 5. Southbound July 4 and 6. Since that train was all-Pullman right to the end of service, including cars from Cincinnati, St. Louis, Louisville, Indianapolis and Chicago patched into at Richmond and Ft. Wayne (and early on Chicago cars at Kalamazoo carried by NYC) I'm guessing it was usually on time or close to it. Quite a train. Usually 20 - 25 cars.
One of my goods friends did see it once at GR Union Station when he and his dad went to pick up someone in the wee hours of a morning who was coming in from somewhere on a Pennsy train that was many hours late. He remembers seeing an incredibly long train waiting under the shed which his dad told him was the Northern Arrow waiting for clearance northbound. It stopped only for a crew change and I think refuel in GR. No passengers could board it there. While I was a rabid teenage railfan in those days and knew what time it came through GR, I was too lazy to get up that early to go see it.
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