ADRIAN & BLISSFIELD RAIL ROAD GROUP

The Adrian & Blissfield Rail Road Group includes five freight railroads and two dinner trains. The five freight railroads are the Adrian & Blissfield Rail Road Company, the Charlotte Southern Railroad Company, the Detroit Connecting Railroad Company, the Jackson & Lansing Railroad Company, and the Lapeer Industrial Railroad Company. The two dinner excursion trains are The Old Road Dinner Train – Blissfield, and The Old Road Dinner Train – Charlotte.

As their names indicate, these railroads service the cities and counties within which they reside: Adrian and Blissfield in Lenawee County; Charlotte in Eaton County; Detroit in the Eastern Market District of Wayne County; Jackson and Lansing in Jackson and Ingham Counties; and Lapeer in Lapeer County.

We have a diverse collection of industrial customers that reduces the impact of seasonal commodity ebb-and-flow. Our customers include an ethanol manufacturer, grain elevators, fresh produce wholesalers, paper products (cardboard container) manufacturer, steel (bar, coil, plate) processors and wholesalers, as well as processors of scrap metal, plastics and plastic pellets, ceramics, and fertilizer. These customers are located across all our railroads, not just on an individual railroad, which also minimizes seasonal and economic volatility.

The Adrian & Blissfield Rail Road Company was formed in 1991 to operate the Lenawee County lines which were owned by the State of Michigan at that time. Eventually, the Adrian & Blissfield Rail Road Company bought the railroad from the state in the first (and so far only) divestiture of railroad lines (20 miles) by the State of Michigan, which had purchased them from the Penn Central estate and Conrail when Conrail had no further interest in these lines.

In 1999 and 2000, the Adrian & Blissfield Rail Road Company purchased three short spurs from Grand Trunk Western Railway, to preserve rail freight service on thee light-density lines:

1. Charlotte Southern Railroad Company in Charlotte, Michigan (3.5 miles)
2. Detroit Connecting Railroad Company in Detroit Eastern Market (2.5 miles)
3. Lapeer Industrial Railroad Company in Lapeer, Michigan (1.5 miles)

Then, in October 2010, the Adrian & Blissfield Railroad Company acquired 47 miles of rail formerly operated by Norfolk Southern. The newly acquired line became known as the Jackson & Lansing Railroad Company. This transition from NS to Jackson & Lansing Rail Road has brought daily service to existing customers according to their schedules and their shipping and/or receiving needs. It has also provided former rail customers along the line the option of shipping by rail again.

With such a diverse customer base, the Adrian & Blissfield Rail Road Group also provides logistics management. Not only can the Adrian & Blissfield Rail Road Group provide cars to suit a customers’ needs, but because the Adrian & Blissfield Rail Road Group also connects to all three eastern US Class 1 railroads (NS in Jackson, Michigan; CN and CSX in Lansing, Michigan), competition among the three Class 1s for haulage of our local industries’ products results in lower overall transportation expense for our customers. These interchanges provide existing rail customers expanded options. Additionally, each railroad has an assigned superintendent who is able to interact personally with the customers on that line, as well as provide local and immediate customer service.

Of historical significance, the Adrian & Blissfield Rail Road Company was originally built as the Erie & Kalamazoo Rail Road, beginning construction in 1835 as the first railroad built west of the Allegheny Mountains (prior to Michigan statehood, while Michigan was still a territory). And, in 1836, there were only 200 miles of railroad in the entire United States, located primarily in New York and South Carolina.

The second railroad built in Lenawee County incorporated the first railroad junction in the Northwest Territory. That line was known as the Palmyra & Jacksonburg. The junction currently the center of the Adrian & Blissfield, is today known as Lenawee Junction, and Jacksonburg is currently known as Jackson, Michigan.

Prior to the Civil War, today’s Adrian & Blissfield was part of the only railroad link between New York City and Chicago, running from New York City through Albany and Buffalo, New York, and Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio, then up through Michigan to Adrian, then Hillsdale, Elkhart (Indiana) and on to Chicago.

After the Civil War, the railroad completed a line across northern Ohio and Indiana connecting Toledo and Elkhart, without going up into Michigan. The new railroad was known as the “Air Line”, the old line became known as “The Old Road”.

© ADBF, as appeared in the Michigan Railroad Association, Michigan Rail Update Newsletter — Moving Michigan