The Lake Superior and Ishpeming Railway was organized in 1893 as a subsidiary of Cliffs Natural Resources, the iron ore mining company. From the start, the railroad's primary business was the transport of iron ore from the Marquette Iron Range, located west of Marquette, to docks on Lake Superior from which the ore could be shipped to steel mills on the lower Great Lakes. The primary towns on the iron range are Ishpeming and Negaunee, Michigan. Passenger operations were never a major function of the Lake Superior and Ishpeming. In 1904 the railroad carried over 180,000 passenger miles of traffic, compared to over 24 million ton miles of freight. In 1931 two trains a day ran each way from Munising to Lawson, Marquette and Princeton. One train ran from Marquette to Big Bay and one on the East branch from Munising to Cusino. By 1940 the Munising-to-Princeton and Lawton-to-Marquette service had been reduced to one train a day each way, and Big Bay service was operating 3 times a week. This level of service lasted at least to 1950. By 1955 the only passenger service remaining was a single daily train from Munising to Princeton; Marquette and Big Bay were no longer served. All passenger service had been discontinued by the year 1960. The Big Bay spur was sold in the 1960s, and Munising operations ended in the 1980s. As of 2010, the Lake Superior & Ishpeming's primary remaining business continued to be the transport of iron ore over a 16 miles (26 km) short line from the Empire-Tilden Mine, operated by Cliffs Natural Resources, south of Ishpeming, to Lake Superior for transport. RMT-96785 LS&I Ore car set is the first time an 0-Gauge offering of this railroad's ore cars will be produced. A special thanks to LS&I toy train operators, modelers and fans on the OGR/O Gauge Railroading magazine Forum who assisted RMT with research and prototypical information. The hoppers are for you... 'Yoopers'. Michigan's Upper Penninsula area above the Mackinac Bridge is nicknamed the 'UP' which translated phonetically as the 'you-pe', therefore residents are known as 'yoopers' (you-pers). |