The Pere Marquette Railway 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 Pere Marquette Railroad Company from the merger
of several Michigan railroads, the most prominent being:
- Flint & Pere Marquette Railway
- Detroit Lansing & Northern Railroad
- Chicago and West Michigan Railway
The company was re-incorporated 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
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 Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, with which it formally merged on June 6, 1947.
The Pere Marquette also operated a number of rail car ferries on the Detroit and St. Clair Rivers 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.
The Chesapeake &Ohio Railroad (Chessie System) has since become part of CSX.
In 1984, Amtrak named their passenger rail service between Grand Rapids, Michigan and Chicago the Pere Marquette.
In 2004, The Polar Express featured Pere Marquette 1225, a steam locomotive originally serving the Pere Marquette.
The train seen in the movie, although not the same train in the book, was a model of the 1225 based from actual
measurements and recordings of the 1225. The locomotive was scheduled to be at the premiere in
Grand Rapids, Michigan, originally where the writer of the popular children's book, Chris Van Allsberg, was born,
but cancelled due to interferences with the schedule of CSX.
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