The Mineral Range railroad of Michigan is a family-owned and -operated railroad in the state’s Upper Peninsula. It’s actually the second railroad of the same name. The “original” began as a north-south, 14-mile narrow gauge mineral hauler, connecting the Osceola Mining Co.’s Osceola copper ore mine near Calumet, Mich., and the company’s stamp mill at Hancock, in mineral-rich Houghton County. The Mineral Range was eventually standard-gauged in 1898 and toiled until largely being abandoned in the 1920s, eventually having its remaining assets folded into the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic on Sept. 20, 1949.
An Upper Peninsula family founded the modern Mineral Range on Jan. 1, 2013, with portions of Chicago & North Western and Lake Superior & Ishpeming trackage in Marquette County. Both Mineral Range railroads happily share the purpose of hauling copper ores and other minerals, both private entities that hold common-carrier status. The new Mineral Range name honors the fallen shortline railroads of the past and is dedicated to keeping this difficult tradition rolling.
Today’s Mineral Range is headquartered at a newly constructed enginehouse on the site of a steam-era C&NW locomotive shop in Ishpeming. This is in the middle of the Ishpeming-Negaunee mining area, which was once an amazing spaghetti bowl of track and railroads serving dozens of mines on the eastern edge of the Marquette Range. A relatively compact area, this part of Michigan would challenge most model railroads for complexity. Read the whole story in the June 2022 issue of Trains magazine.
