The Michigan Line, sometimes known as the Chicago–Detroit Line, is a higher-speed rail corridor that runs between

Porter, Indiana Porter is a town in Westchester Township, Porter County, Indiana, Westchester Township, Porter County, Indiana, Porter County, in the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 5,210 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Porter is in t ...

and

Dearborn, Michigan Dearborn is a city in Wayne County, Michigan, Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. An inner-ring Metro Detroit, suburb of Detroit, Dearborn borders Detroit to the south and west, roughly west of downtown Detroit. In the 2020 United States ...

. It carries Amtrak's ''

Blue Water Maritime geography is a collection of terms used by naval military units to loosely define three maritime regions: brown water, green water, and blue water. Definitions The elements of maritime geography are loosely defined and their meanings hav ...

'' and ''

Wolverine The wolverine ( , ; ''Gulo gulo''), also called the carcajou or quickhatch (from East Cree, ''kwiihkwahaacheew''), is the largest land-dwelling species, member of the family Mustelidae. It is a muscular carnivore and a solitary animal. The w ...

'' services, as well as the occasional freight train operated by

Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

owns the section between Porter, Indiana, to

Kalamazoo, Michigan Kalamazoo ( ) is a city in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, Kalamazoo had a population of 73,598. It is the principal city of the Kalamazoo–Portage metropolitan are ...

, the longest stretch of Amtrak-owned rail outside of the Northeastern U.S. The state of Michigan, through the

Michigan Department of Transportation The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) is a constitutional government principal department of the US state of Michigan. The primary purpose of MDOT is to maintain the Michigan State Trunkline Highway System which includes all Interst ...

(MDOT) owns the section between Kalamazoo and Dearborn, which it purchased from

in December 2012. Norfolk Southern retains an exclusive trackage right for freight on the line. A short stretch of track in

Battle Creek, Michigan Battle Creek is a city in northwestern Calhoun County, Michigan, United States, at the confluence of the Kalamazoo River, Kalamazoo and Battle Creek River, Battle Creek rivers. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a tota ...

is owned by

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 ...

. The entire line was originally the mainline of the

Michigan Central Railroad The Michigan Central Railroad (reporting mark MC) was originally chartered in 1832 to establish rail service between Detroit, Michigan, and St. Joseph, Michigan. The railroad later operated in the states of Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois in th ...

. The entire corridor (including the portion owned by MDOT) is dispatched and maintained by Amtrak, which , is working to replace worn tracks and integrate the train signaling and communication systems.

History

In 2002, the section from Porter to Kalamazoo became the first passenger rail line in the United States to have

positive train control Positive train control (PTC) is a family of automatic train protection systems deployed in the United States. Most of the United States' national rail network mileage has a form of PTC. These systems are generally designed to check that trains a ...

(PTC) technology installed, specifically GE Transportation Systems' Incremental Train Control System (ITCS). In 2005, Amtrak received approval from the

Federal Railroad Administration The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is an agency in the United States Department of Transportation (DOT). The agency was created by the Department of Transportation Act of 1966. The purpose of the FRA is to promulgate and enforce railroa ...

to run trains at up to . Most Amtrak trains outside of the Northeast are limited to due to federal regulations. Regular service at began from Porter to Kalamazoo on February 15, 2012. In November 2011, Michigan was awarded $150 million to buy the Kalamazoo–Dearborn portion of the line from Norfolk Southern. Combined with a $196 million federal government grant announced the previous month to improve signaling and track quality, trains will be able to run at on 77% of the length of the Detroit–Chicago corridor. Before the track was purchased by MDOT, Norfolk Southern was planning to allow track degradation to occur, eventually reducing allowable speeds to for passenger trains and its eight daily round-trip freight trains. On May 25, 2021, service at began between Kalamazoo and Albion. In October 2024, Amtrak was awarded an $8.4 million federal grant for design work to restore double track between Niles and Wayne Township.

Incidents

Despite the presence of the safety system on the Michigan Line, a derailment occurred just east of

Niles, Michigan Niles is a city in Berrien County, Michigan, Berrien and Cass County, Michigan, Cass counties in the U.S. state of Michigan, near the Indiana state line city of South Bend, Indiana, South Bend. The population was 11,988 according to the 2020 Unit ...

, on October 21, 2012, after a ''Wolverine'' train exited the main line and entered a freight yard due to a misaligned

switch In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can disconnect or connect the conducting path in an electrical circuit, interrupting the electric current or diverting it from one conductor to another. The most common type o ...

. The train had a green signal and was traveling at about when it hit the switch. The incident was investigated by the

National Transportation Safety Board The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and inci ...

and was found to be an Amtrak contractor's fault, caused by one of its employees improperly applying jumper wires to the signal system, bypassing safeguards that had been designed to prevent such an occurrence.

References

Notes

External links

{{Amtrak Passenger rail transportation in Michigan Passenger rail transportation in Indiana Railway lines in the United States Rail infrastructure in Michigan Rail infrastructure in Indiana