| Galien is a very small town in far southwest Michigan.
Tracks through Galien were built by the Michigan Central, in 1848 or 1849.
The charter of the Michigan Central specified that it had
to be built to a port on Lake Michigan. When the charter was written, in
1846, steamboats were the prefered means of transportation. The Michigan
Central was planned as connection between Lake Erie at Detroit and Lake Michigan.
The line was originally planned to run to St Joseph, but the builders realized
that the railroad's real future depended on an all rail route to Chicago.
So west of Kalamazoo, the route turned south, on a more direct route toward
Chicago. Tracks were built through Galien, and then another 10 miles west
to the port of New Buffalo, meeting the legal requirements of the charter.
Construction continued toward Chicago and the first MC train ran into Chicago
in May of 1852.
And the route did carry a lot of traffic. The 1902 Michigan
Central timetable lists 17 passenger trains daily through Galien, but only
6 of them stopped there.
Amtrak took over passenger service in 1971, and bought the
old MC tracks from Kalamazoo to Porter, IN in the early 1970's. So tracks
through Galien remain in service as part of Amtrak's Detroit-Chicago
route.
No Amtrak trains stop in Galien but there are TWO depots
still there! The "new" brick depot, built in 1913/1914, with brick walls
and a slate roof still stands, but in very bad shape. The older depot from
the 1870's which is on the other side of the street and across the tracks,
was heavily damaged by a fire in 1999 or 2000, but is still standing as of
late 2003. |
