This daytime only cache is at the location of the former stop Moeller on the Pere Marquette Railroad between Greenville and Sidney, now the Fred Meijer Heartland Trail. Please stay out of the foundation. It is on private property. Parking for bikers or hikers is available at the Sidney Trailhead (wee waypoints). There is room for one car either on Ferris Rd (.6 miles west) or Miles Rd (.5 miles east) for hikers. Do not block the trail or the Sheriff's Department may have you towed.
Photo by A.G. Hudley © 2017.
Foundation of potato warehouse next to grade at Moeller
Moeller
Little is known about the location except that it appears on some old maps and on Pere Marquette time tables in the early twentieth century. It is mentioned as a stop on the Pere Marquette between Greenville and Sidney in the History of Montcalm County Michigan, Its People, Insustries and Institutions (1916). No passenger station was ever established at Moeller although it may have been a flag stop.
Michigan Railroads, G.G. Cram Co., 1916, courtesy of Seeking Michigan.
Moeller shown on a 1916 map of railroads in Montcalm County
Moeller was located 2.9 miles south-west of the station at Sidney. The foundation shown above is at that distance. It was most likely a potoato warehouse due to the height of the concrete walls. As the summer growth blooms, this foundation all but disappears from view. According to a 1903 Pere Marquette Employee Time Table, there was a passing siding here capable of holding a sixty car train. This is unusual for a stop in the middle of nowhere.
Railroad:
The rail line between Greenville and Stanton, through Moeller and Sidney was one of the last places in Montcalm County to get railroad service. In 1900, the PM purchased the Grand Rapids, Belding and Saginaw Railroad, which, in 1899, connected Lowell with Belding. In 1901,the PM built the connection between Greenville and Stanton to become the Grand Rapids to Saginaw Main Line. Heavy trains regularly traveled the line which shortened the distance substantially over traveling from Ionia to Howard City and then east.
The PM came under control of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad in 1929 and was merged into the C&O in 1947, long after Moeller ceased to exist as a stop. The C&O operated the Saginaw Division until 1987. At that time, the line was sold to the Mid-Michigan Railroad. The portion between Greenville and Edmore was abandoned (and east to Alma was abandoned in and after 1988 and has become the Fred Meijer Heartland Trail. The portion from Elmdale (south of Lowell) to Greenville was operated by the Mid-Michigan which used the Greenville depot as its headquarters. With the closing of the Frigidaire plant in Greenville, the Mid-Michigan abandoned the line between Greenville and Elmdale in 2007. The Lowell to Greenville segment is in the process of being improved as the Fred Meijer Flat River Valley Trail.
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