Michigan Railroads and Railroad Companies is an invaluable reference manual for everyone interested in regional transportation history, the history of railroading, and Michigan history in general. It contains complete, cross-referenced listings of every company formed to operate a railroad in the State of Michigan. In addition to the comprehensive entries for major lines, Graydon Meints has included details about the many small, common-carrier steam and electric companies, logging roads, and numerous other primitive and contemporary rail systems. This encyclopedic reference guide also contains information on the so called "paper railroads", companies that were projected but never laid a foot of track. Michigan Railroads and Railroad Companies is divided into three parts. Section one includes alphabetical entries for the actual and intended railroad companies themselves, the date and purpose of their organization, and a brief history from their origins to their dispositions. Included in this portion of the work are a number of railroad "family trees" showing the corporate antecedents of the largest of the rail lines operating in the state today. Section two contains a chronology of significant corporate events; it works as a useful finding aid for accessing source data contained in section one. Section three contains a statewide county-by-county listing of railroads, both paper and real. Michigan Railroads will appeal to scholars, amateur historians, legal professionals, transportation specialists, librarians, economists, government officials, and railroad hobbyists alike; it will become an essential item on the shelf of everyone interested in Michigan railroads and railroading.