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The Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railway (DSS&A; ) was an American
railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...
serving the
Upper Peninsula of Michigan The Upper Peninsula of Michigan—also known as Upper Michigan or colloquially the U.P. or Yoop—is the northern and more elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; it is separated from the Lower Peninsula of ...
and the
Lake Superior Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. Lake Michigan–Huron has a larger combined surface area than Superior, but is normally considered tw ...
shoreline of
Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...
. It provided service from
Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan Sault Ste. Marie ( ') is a city in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Chippewa County, Michigan, Chippewa County and is the only city within the county. With a population of ...
, and
St. Ignace, Michigan St. Ignace ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Mackinac County. The city had a population of 2,306 at the 2020 census. St. Ignace Township is located just to the north of the city; the two are administered separat ...
, westward through
Marquette, Michigan Marquette ( ) is the county seat of Marquette County, Michigan, Marquette County and the largest city in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, United States. Located on the shores of Lake Superior, Marquette is a major port known primarily for shippin ...
, to
Superior, Wisconsin Superior (; ) is a city in Douglas County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. The population was 26,751 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Located at the western end of Lake Superior in northwestern Wisconsin, the city l ...
, and
Duluth, Minnesota Duluth ( ) is a Port, port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of St. Louis County, Minnesota, St. Louis County. Located on Lake Superior in Minnesota's Arrowhead Region, the city is a hub for cargo shipping. The population ...
. A branchline stretched northward from Nestoria, Michigan, up to the
Keweenaw Peninsula The Keweenaw Peninsula (, ) is a peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. Part of the greater landmass of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Upper Peninsula, the Keweenaw Peninsula projects about northeasterly into Lake Superior, forming Keweena ...
and terminating at
Houghton, Michigan Houghton (; ) is the largest city and county seat of Houghton County, Michigan, Houghton County in the U.S. state of Michigan. Located on the Keweenaw Peninsula, Houghton is the largest city in the Copper Country region. It is the fifth-larges ...
, with two branches extending further to
Calumet, Michigan Calumet ( or ) is a Village (United States), village in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. The village is located within Calumet Charter Township, Michigan, Calumet Township, Houghton County, Michiga ...
, and
Lake Linden, Michigan Lake Linden is a village in Houghton County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 1,020 at the 2020 census. The village is mostly within Schoolcraft Township, though a tiny portion lies in Torch Lake Township. History Lake Linden ...
. The first predecessor of the DSS&A began operations in 1855. The railroad fell under the control of the
Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway () , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadian Pacific Kansas City, Canadian Pacific Ka ...
(CPR) in 1888 and was operated from 1888 until 1960 as an independently nameplated subsidiary of the CPR. In 1949, a reorganization of the DSS&A took place, creating new heralds and designating the company a railroad instead of a railway. In 1961, the DSS&A was folded into the CPR-controlled
Soo Line Railroad The Soo Line Railroad is one of the primary United States railroad subsidiaries for the CPKC Railway , one of six U.S. Class I railroads, controlled through the Soo Line Corporation. Although it is named for the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Saul ...
. Since 2001, the remaining operating trackage of the former DSS&A has been operated by the
Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company () is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN is Canada's largest railway, in terms of both revenue a ...
(CN). Short stretches of original DSS&A trackage are still operated between Trout Lake and Munising Junction, from Ishpeming to Baraga, and between White Pine and Marengo Junction.


Independent railroad

The development in the 1850s of
hematite Hematite (), also spelled as haematite, is a common iron oxide compound with the formula, Fe2O3 and is widely found in rocks and soils. Hematite crystals belong to the rhombohedral lattice system which is designated the alpha polymorph of . ...
iron ore mines in the Upper Peninsula hills above Marquette encouraged the development of numerous railroad plans for spur lines and connecting routes between mines, local boom towns, and the shores of the Great Lakes. While most of the Upper Peninsula's iron ore and Keweenaw copper was shipped to the rest of the United States by lake boat, the inability of water-based shippers to offer service to northern Michigan in winter encouraged railroad promoters to launch numerous plans for lines in the Upper Peninsula. By the 1870s, a maze of corporate charters and tiny stub lines had been created or built in the central Upper Peninsula, primarily to carry iron or copper ore from the mines down to smelters and docks on the shores of Lake Superior and
Lake Michigan Lake Michigan ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and depth () after Lake Superior and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the ...
. In 1879-81, venture capitalists led the construction of the
Detroit, Mackinac and Marquette Railroad The Detroit, Mackinac and Marquette Railroad was a land grant railroad that was built and operated briefly (1881–1886) in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. Incorporated in 1879, the -long railroad began operations in 1881. It w ...
(DM&M), a
standard-gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...
mainline from St. Ignace, on the
Straits of Mackinac The Straits of Mackinac ( ; ) are the short waterways between the U.S. state of Michigan's Upper and Lower Peninsulas, traversed by the Mackinac Bridge. The main strait is wide with a maximum depth of , and connects the Great Lakes of Lake M ...
, to Marquette on Lake Superior. The roadbed included a surveyor-straight east-west section, the ancestor of today's "Seney stretch". Although the state of Michigan granted the DM&M more than 1.3 million
acre The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...
s (5,300 km) of state land, almost 9000 acres-per-mile (23 km/km) as a construction subsidy, by 1886 the new DM&M went into receivership. The DM&M was reorganized by venture capitalist
James McMillan James (or Jim or Jimmy) McMillan or MacMillan may refer to: Sportspeople * James McMillan (footballer, born c. 1866) (c. 1866–?), played for Sunderland * James McMillan (footballer, born 1869) (1869–1937), played for Scotland,Everton and St B ...
of
Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
, who led the rapid consolidation of the DM&M and many of the UP's smaller railroads during the early 1880s. The new Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic went into operation as a merger of these lines in December 1886.


Canadian control

The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), a transcontinental line, took control of the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic in 1888. In 1892-94, CPR funds financed the construction of the DSS&A westward from the Keweenaw Peninsula to Duluth. During the 1890s, the
timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...
industry reached the peak of its operations on the Lake Superior shoreline properties adjacent to the DSS&A's new mainline, shipping old-growth white pine. After white pines were exhausted, local cutters began to turn to high-quality hardwoods such as sugar maple, and then to pulpwoods such as paper birch and aspen. At the height of the railroad's operations in 1911, the DSS&A operated of track, of which were main line and were branch lines and trackage rights. The railroad operated 3,121 pieces of rolling stock, including 82 locomotives, 67 passenger cars, 35 cabooses, and 2,957 freight cars. In 1913 the DSS&A's freight operations peaked at almost 1 million short tons (900,000 metric tons), of which more than half were forest products. In the late 1910s, timber yields began to decline all over the Upper Peninsula. This was a blow from which the DSS&A could not recover as an independent nameplate. Its story from 1920 onwards was that of the American railway industry as a whole, with negative factors intensified by unfavorable local business conditions in northern Michigan. In 1957, the State of Michigan opened the
Mackinac Bridge The Mackinac Bridge ( ; also referred to as the Mighty Mac or Big Mac) is a suspension bridge that connects the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Upper and Lower Peninsula of Michigan, Lower peninsulas of the U.S. state of Michigan. It spans the Str ...
, a long suspension bridge carrying an all-weather hard road across the Straits of Mackinac into the Upper Peninsula. The DSS&A responded by ending its remaining passenger rail service in January 1958. In 1961, its Canadian owners merged it with the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie, and the DSS&A became part of the Soo Line.


Nicknames and challenges

The DSS&A's own "official" nickname for itself was "South Shore", referring to the railroad line's route along the south shore of Lake Superior. However, the DSS&A's allegedly poor-quality service throughout much of the 20th century inspired angry customers to impose several uncomplimentary
backronym A backronym is an acronym formed from an already existing word by expanding its letters into the words of a phrase. Backronyms may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, or they may be a type of false etymology or folk etymology. The ...
s on the struggling railroad, such as "Dead Slow Service & Agony" and "Damn Slow, Shabby Affair". Dissatisfied workers, meanwhile, suggested that the railroad's initials stood for "Damn Small Salary & Abuse". The DSS&A's thinly settled service area made it difficult for the railroad to raise adequate revenue to maintain its trackage in good condition, especially in winter. The region served by the railroad receives more
snow Snow consists of individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water througho ...
fall in one year than other sections of the United States east of the Rockies receive in several years combined. From 1957 through 2005, the average snowfall on the Keweenaw Peninsula has been per year. Every winter, the DSS&A had to plow this snow off its tracks.


Legacy

Parts of the former DSS&A alignment have been converted to
rail trail A rail trail or railway walk is a shared-use path on a Right of way#Rail right of way, railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed but may also share the rail corr ...
s. The St. Ignace–Trout Lake Trail preserves a section of roadbed from St. Ignace to Trout Lake.


See also

*
Upper Peninsula of Michigan The Upper Peninsula of Michigan—also known as Upper Michigan or colloquially the U.P. or Yoop—is the northern and more elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; it is separated from the Lower Peninsula of ...
* Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Negaunee Freight Depot


References


Further reading

*


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Duluth South Shore Atlantic Railway Railway companies established in 1887 Railway companies disestablished in 1949 Former Class I railroads in the United States Predecessors of the Canadian Pacific Railway Defunct Michigan railroads Upper Peninsula of Michigan Transportation in Marquette County, Michigan Defunct Minnesota railroads Defunct Wisconsin railroads Transportation in Houghton County, Michigan American companies disestablished in 1961