Saturday, July 22nd was a sunny summer morning with temperatures transitioning from 60 to 80 degrees. Twelve people driving seven cars headed for Grass Lake, MI to The Lost Railway Museum.
We had members from Windsor, ON (1955 XK) and Grand Rapids, OH (80s XJ6) make the journey. Gary and Shelly Decker, of the Windsor-Detroit MG Club, joined us for the event, and we welcomed getting to know new British car enthusiasts.
After the scenic backroad journeys, we entered The Lost Railway Museum. It was like a step back to 1901. The first thing we did was watch a video that detailed how the early pre-car electric Interurban railway system moved people between Grass Lake, Jackson, Detroit, and much of the rest of Michigan. And the developing competition between two early entrepreneurs who developed interurban railways throughout western Michigan with hopes of going coast to coast, which never was obtained. As the interest in personal travel (Model As and others) increased, the use of the mass-transit electric interurban railways diminished. The Lost Railway Museum exists to keep that history and railcars alive. We next boarded the Borman Express, car 29, leaving Jackson’s Platform 517, which took us on a (virtual reality) ride back in time from Jackson to the spur of Wolf Lake, and into Grass Lake. It was an experience that was both fun and informative giving us a view of how people of that era traveled.
Phil Crutchfield