This cache is on Kent County road right of way near the CSX crossing of the Grand River and the site of the Malta Interlocking Tower. Please do NOT record the milepost (mp) value from the cache label and log sheet in your log or in an image attached to your log. This is for an upcoming challenge.
"Photo courtesy of Michigan Railroad History (RRHX), Jack Simmons Collection"
Southbound freight at the Malta Interlocking Tower, Lowell, Michigan, courtesy of RRHX.
Malta:
The second rail line to reach Lowell was the Lowell and Hastings Railroad, which arrived in 1887. When it did, it crossed the Detroit, Grand Haven and Grand Rapids east-west line (formerly the Detroit and Milwaukee and would become the Grand Trunk Western) on the south side of the Grand River. The L&H was responsible for providing interlocking control of that crossing. The Malta tower was constructed and manned to provide that. The tower served until an unknown date in the mid to late 1900s when it was replaced by an automated interlocking system.
UpNorth Memories - Donald (Don) Harrison collection, used with Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Crossing the Grand River, between Lowell and Malta in 1911.
Lowell and Hastings Railroad:
The L&H got its start in 1883 when the Kalamazoo, Lowell and North Michigan Railroad was incorporated as a 3' gauge line to build a 68 mile long line from Kalamazoo, via Hastings and Lowell to Smyrna. The line was never constructed. The rights to the proposed line were sold the Hastings, Lowell and Northern Michigan on August 29th, 1883 (north of Hastings), and on December 31st, 1884 to the Chicago, Kalamazoo and Saginaw (south of Hastings). The HL&NM was incorporated on May 18th, 1883 to build the 32 miles from Hastings to Smyrna, as a standard gauge line. The HL&NM was, in turn, sold to the Lowell and Hastings Railroad on May 31st, 1887.
The L&H had a more modest goal of connecting Hastings with Lowell. Construction was completed and the line opened in December, 1887, on the segment from Freeport to Lowell. The line was graded to the south edge of Freeport, but was never extended to Hastings. On May 1st, 1899, the L&H was sold to the Grand Rapids, Belding and Saginaw Railroad, which extended the line from Lowell to Belding, opening that line on January 1st, 1900, under control of the Pere Marquette Railroad. The PM purchased the GRB&S outright in 1903. The line north of Elmdale, to Belding, Greenville, Stanton, Edmore, and points east became part of the Pere Marquette main line between Grand Rapids and Saginaw, and saw heavy traffic for several decades.
"Map by A.G. Hudley, 2014, using Google Earth and Google Maps Engine"
Map showing railroad locations in and around Lowell, some current, some abandoned.
The portion of the original L&H between Elmdale and Freeport was abandoned by the Pere Marquette in 1935. In 1947, the PM became part of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. The C&O was merged into CSX Transportation in 1987. The line was removed between Greenville, through Edmore to Elwell in 1988. The remainder, Elmdale to Greenville was sold to the Mid-Michigan Railroad whose headquarters were in the Greenville C&O Depot. In 2007, all but the segment from Lowell to Malta (across the Grand River from Lowell) was abandoned. The portion from Greenville to Lowell was purchased by the Fred Meijer Flat River Valley Trail and is in the beginning stages of being improved for bicycling and hiking.
Sources:
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