See "CN Closing" for more information concerning the the ore docks.
This railroad has the same name today that it had in the early 1900s. That is so rare that the only other non-tourist railroad that I can think of that still has its original name is the Union Pacific.
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| Michigan Railroad History Conference posted Escanaba & Lake Superior #102 and crew pose at the Wells roundhouse. Photo is undated and photographer is unknown. Locomotive #102 is a Baldwin S8 built in 1952. Daniel C Carroll Jr. shared |
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| Greg Bunce commented on the above post What it looks like now. |
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| Terry B. Carlson commented on Daniel's share Still there and still in use. It's a "switched" RH, no TT. Google Earth Imagery Date: 5-24-2023 Location: 45.7765299,-87.065236 |
The ELS started out as a logging road that fed a sawmill in Wells, MI. Between 1900 and 1937, it hauled Milwaukee Road ore trains to an ore dock. But in 1937, Milwaukee Road started sharing C&NW's ore dock. When the ELS picked up trackage from the Milwaukee Road bankruptcy in the late 1970s, it more than tripled its trackage. And it continued to grow as more trackage was shed by Class I railroads. [American-Rails]
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| Edward Gross, Jan 2018 |
"The E&LS has a major business line storing and refurbishing freight cars. They use a former C&NW car shop at Escanaba for car repairs and refurbs." And much of their current trackage is now used to store cars. [MichiganRailroads]
It has accumulated a lot of vintage locomotives. RailroadFan has a list.
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| 1932 Gladstone SE Quad @ 31,680 |
Aug 2026:
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| John Fry Images posted Hitting the road again for another loop around the US and knocking the dust off the camera. It's great to have images to share here again. First stop was Escanaba, MI and I wanted to check in on what was, for many years, the storage location of a long line of old, rare locomotives. For whatever reason The Escanaba and Lake Superior RR began scrapping those locomotives recently and I wanted to see if anything was left. Michigan's upper peninsula is very rural with only a little over 300,000 people inhabiting the over 36,000 square miles of territory. In the 19th century the "UP" bustled with mining and lumber industry driving railroad expansion. Today only scraps are left and most of the railroad right of way's are now snowmobile trails to help bolster the current leading economic draw of the UP- tourism. The ELS is still trying to hang on with whatever business it can eek out, but the visible deferred maintenance and the sale/scrapping of assets is often writing on the wall. The line of old locomotives were moved to the shop tracks and cut up, having now been replaced by boxcars- hopefully here to generate revenue through either storage or contracted repair. The maintenance shop has a gaping hole in the roof, and one of the railroad's newest locomotives languishes in the weeds. Joe Anderson Jr.: Old Roundhouse maintenance shop! They relocated because of the roof issues. Edwin O'Connor: Drove along the Grand Elk yesterday from Trout Lake to Munising. Looks to be in reasonable shape--and I also noticed new ties placed along the tracks. Very positive sign for that line in the U.P.! John Fry Images shared |
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