Michigan Line

It carries Amtrak's Blue Water and Wolverine services, as well as the occasional freight train operated by Norfolk Southern.

Michigan Line
The Wolverine crossing the St. Joseph River at Niles, Michigan in July 2009
Overview
Status	Operating
Owner	Amtrak (Porter–Kalamazoo) Canadian National (within Battle Creek) MDOT (Kalamazoo–Dearborn)
Locale	Indiana and Michigan
Termini	Porter, Indiana Dearborn, Michigan
Stations	10
Service
Type	Inter-city rail
System	Amtrak
Services	Blue Water, Wolverine
Operator(s)	Amtrak
Ridership	589,417 (FY23)
Technical
Line length	232 mi (373 km)
Number of tracks	1
Character	Single track with passing sidings
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Operating speed	Up to 110 mph (180 km/h)
Route map Legend Dist. Station 0 mi Conrail Michigan Line to Detroit 273 mi 439 km Dearborn 271 mi 436 km Greenfield Village CSX to Saginaw Wayne Junction CSX to Toledo Willow Run Yard 243 mi 391 km Ann Arbor GLC to Cadillac AA to Toledo 205 mi 330 km Jackson JAIL to Lansing 184 mi 296 km Albion CN to Port Huron 160 mi 257 km Battle Creek CN to Munster 143.4 mi 230.8 km Kalamazoo 156.4 mi 251.7 km Mattawan 160.6 mi 258.5 km Lawton 168.3 mi 270.9 km Decatur 179.6 mi 289 km Dowagiac 190.0 mi 305.8 km Niles 198.5 mi 319.5 km Buchanan 206.0 mi 331.5 km Galien 211.8 mi 340.9 km Three Oaks CSX Grand Rapids Subdivision 218.9 mi 352.3 km New Buffalo 222.7 mi 358.4 km Michigan Indiana 228.5 mi 367.7 km   228.9 mi 368.4 km Michigan City 229.8 mi 369.8 km South Shore Line 240.7 mi 387.4 km NS Chicago Line This diagram: view talk edit

Amtrak owns the 98-mile (158 km) section between Porter, Indiana, to Kalamazoo, Michigan, the longest stretch of Amtrak-owned rail outside of the Northeastern U.S. The state of Michigan, through the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) owns the 135-mile (217 km) section between Kalamazoo and Dearborn, which it purchased from Norfolk Southern in December 2012. Norfolk Southern retains an exclusive trackage right for freight on the line. A short stretch of track in Battle Creek, Michigan is owned by Canadian National Railway. The entire line was originally the mainline of the Michigan Central Railroad.

The entire corridor (including the portion owned by MDOT) is dispatched and maintained by Amtrak, which as of September 2021^[update], is working to replace worn tracks and integrate the train signaling and communication systems.

In 2002, the section from Porter to Kalamazoo became the first passenger rail line in the United States to have positive train control (PTC) technology installed, specifically GE Transportation Systems' Incremental Train Control System (ITCS). In 2005, Amtrak received approval from the Federal Railroad Administration to run trains at up to 95 miles per hour (153 km/h). Most Amtrak trains outside of the Northeast are limited to 79 mph (127 km/h) due to federal regulations. Regular service at 110 mph (177 km/h) began from Porter to Kalamazoo on February 15, 2012.

In November 2011, Michigan was awarded $150 million to buy Kalamazoo–Dearborn portion of the line from Norfolk Southern. Combined with a $196 million federal government grant announced the previous month to improve signaling and track quality, trains will be able to run at 110 mph (177 km/h) on 77% of the length of the Detroit–Chicago corridor. Before the track purchase and improvement grants occurred, Norfolk Southern was planning to allow track degradation to happen and to eventually reduce the allowable speeds to 25 mph (40 km/h) for passenger trains and its eight daily round-trip freight trains after 2012. On May 25, 2021, service at 110 mph (177 km/h) began between Kalamazoo and Albion.

Despite the presence of the safety system on the Michigan Line, a derailment occurred just east of Niles, Michigan, on October 21, 2012, after a Wolverine train exited the main line and entered a freight yard due to a misaligned switch. The train had a green signal and was traveling at about 60 mph (97 km/h) when it hit the switch. The incident was investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board and was found to be an Amtrak contractor's fault, caused by one of its employees improperly applying jumper wires to the signal system, bypassing safeguards that had been designed to prevent such an occurrence.