EARLY DANBURY-MARBLEHEAD PENINSULA TRANSPORTATION - Lorrie Halblaub

The Railroads- Part 2

Last month, we learned that the steam-powered Lakeside & Marblehead Railroad, which made its first trip in 1887, was the smallest railroad line in the United States. In 1891 it was purchased by the Kelleys Island Lime and Transport Company, mainly to transport quarried stone to market by connecting with other railroad lines at the Danbury Station.

It is hard to believe that a railroad that only had a roundtrip range of 14.7 miles would be profitable, but it was. That train ran until 1978. One can still see the tracks in South Lakeside at the restored Lakeside train station, between Central and Cedar Streets. Most of the rest of the tracks were removed by 1997.

It is even harder to believe that the Marblehead Peninsula got a second railroad in 1905. This train was the Toledo, Port Clinton & Lakeside Railway and it ran on electricity! Trains like this were called interurbans. This train ran from Toledo through towns like Genoa, Elmore, Oak Harbor, and Port Clinton; across the Marblehead Peninsula, then along what is now Northshore Boulevard into Lakeside. In Lakeside, there was a station on Fifth Street. This interurban then continued east on Prairie Street to Marblehead, to a station on Francis street; then to Main Street, where it met the L & M Railroad. Then it went through the village, turning south along the shore to a turnaround at Bay Point, where passengers could get off and catch a ferry to Sandusky.

Comparing train schedules in the year 1925, the L & M Railroad went back and forth across the peninsula twice a day, while the interurban went back and forth a dozen times a day. A person could rely on the interurban to travel for shopping, work, or to appointments. If a passenger travelled all the way to Toledo, they could meet other trains and go anywhere in the United States

Comparing times, if a passenger wanted to travel to Toledo from Marblehead on the L & M, they would get on the 7:50 am train, get off at Danbury at 8:15, wait until 9:06 to catch the New York Central and be in Toledo by 10:35, a trip of two hours and 45 minutes. If a passenger took the interurban, they would get on 6:50 am in Marblehead and arrive in Toledo by 9:05, a trip of 2 hours and 15 minutes. Plus, the interurban train would have more than one choice of times to catch the return train. The interurban could move passengers and freight quickly in either direction, making it ideal for the fruit growers of the peninsula’s interior farmlands to get their crops to market.

Sadly, this convenient, environmentally friendly, mode of public transportation ended in Marblehead in 1940, when the tracks were torn out on Northshore Blvd. and Prairie Street.

Here is a photo of the Toledo, Port Clinton and Lakeside Railway making a stop at Ohlemacher’s Dock on the eastern shore of Marblehead.