The Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway by David P. McLelan and Bill Warrick

Abstract

Formed from a group of lines which provided the first rail connection between New York City and Chicago, the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway (LS & MS) was one of the most important and well-known railroads of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its earliest underlier, the Erie & Kalamazoo Railroad, began operation in 1837 between Toledo, Ohio and Adrian, Michigan., In 1869 the LS & MS was formed to link Buffalo and Chicago by the consolidation of four railroads: the Buffalo & Erie; the Cleveland, Painesville & Ashtabula, linking Erie, Pa. with Cleveland; the Cleveland & Toledo, connecting those cities; and the Michigan Southern & Northern Indiana, which ran from Toledo to Chicago with branches.