Re: Last Customer in Elk Rapids
O.k...I did some research of some of my old notes from various other sources, some collected from Don Wilson who used to be in charge of the Ann Arbor RR magazine, and the little AA room in the Durand Depot. Also, I used to subscribe to a bi-monthly magazine called "The Shortline" back in the 80's and 90's. There is a wealth of information in those also. Anyway, some of my notes go back over 35 years...here's what I dug up...Elk Rapids sub customers near the end...There was some kind of Iron/Steel company, a canning-food processing factory, I was told there was a chemical factory there, and a small lumber yard. The canning company seems to have been the last customer there before abandonment. I fished in Elk Lake in the 60's as a teenager...and recall railroad tracks and freight cars there just across US31 right in town. The last time I was in ER, in 1989, all signs of any railroad there was completely gone. In checking my copy of Chesapeake and Ohio Railway volume 1, page 44 and 45 has some pics of the final days of C&O's Petoskey Sub, and states that the line was abandoned north of Manistee in Feb of 1982. The Elk Rapids line was listed as subdivision 7, and the distance to ER was only 9 miles...that line went out in the late 70's, to the best of my knowledge.
|