well apirl just ended on a good note · 10:03pm April 30th
with today being the last day of apirl i just think the month just ended n a good note. the good note is that csx has unveiled their 13th heritage unit yesterday. the unit is no. 1899 for the pere marquette.
the pere marquette was a railroad that operated in the great lakes part of the us and the canadian province of ontario. the railroad was named after jacques marquette a french jesuit who founded Michigan's first european settlement sault ste marie.
the pere marquette railroad was incorporated on November 1 1899 in anticipation of a merger of three michigan based railroad companies that had been agreed upon by all parties. It began operations on January 1 1900, absorbing the following companies:
the flint & pere marquette railroad
the detroit grand rapids & western railroad
and the chicago & west michigan railroad
the company was reincorporated on march 12 1917 as the pere marquette railway. In the 1920s the pere marquette came under the control of cleveland financiers oris and mantis van sweringen. these brothers also controlled the nickel plate road the erie and the chesapeake & ohio railway and planned to merge the four companies. however the icc didn't not approve the merger and the van sweringens eventually sold their interest in the Pere Marquette to the c&o in 1929. the company continued to operate separately as the pere marquette railway until being fully merged into the c&o on june 6 1947. until forty years later the c&o was absorbed into csx.
the unit wears the pm's passenger livery and it's pretty slick. so this is another great job the csx employees at waycross did. now that they've done the 13th unit there's still a few more to go (the seaboard coast line and the pittsburgh & lake erie are the next one's as i've shared just curious what the last reaming ones are). as always there will be a follow up when the video comes out.
i hope you guys enjoyed this announcement on the 13th heritage unit/history post. and this is the last post for apirl and i hope to do more for may. thank you for reading and see you in the next post.
