From The Dowagiac Daily News
Light Up the Depot illuminated Dowagiac’s train station with 550 bulbs, with another 650 added to the roof next Christmas as phase two.
“The amazing part about all of this is that the money did not come from individual people, like we thought it would,” Ron Leatz told Dowagiac City Council Dec. 13.
“We originally had the idea each person would throw in a dollar, two dollars, three dollars. That was the whole intent,” the volunteer stationmaster said, “and if we put one light on the station, we’d have one more than we had a year ago.”
About $700 was generated through tip jars in restaurants, with another $150 kicked in at the Christmas parade.
But “the majority” came from eight contributors: St. Denys Foundation, Wolverine Mutual Insurance, Town and Country and Wabigon garden clubs, Dr. Fred Mathews, LADD, Cass County Railroad Club and the Cass County Sheriff’s Office Mounted Division, Leatz reported.
“They gave $3,350, or 83 percent of the money we have right now,” Leatz said. “I really commend the two garden clubs because they’ve stepped forward to make this town look good.”
It’s taken two years, Leatz continued, “but for the first time in 109 years, there’s an Amtrak sign at the train station. A fourth sign at the door to the platform says ‘Dowagiac, Michigan’ in Braille. They also changed the ramp by the parking because the slope was too great. At the east side, where the Dial-a-Ride buses park, is the new enclosure for the wheelchair lift. It sounds like February before we actually get the lift coming from North Carolina. Number two, we can’t use it on the main line because the platform isn’t big enough. That will eventually get rebuilt and raised eight inches. We’ve got progress going on.”
Answering the question of what all that means to Dowagiac, Leatz replied, “The city owns the station and it’s the only transportation we have in town. I don’t consider Dial-A-Ride transportation because it doesn’t go outside the city limits. I’ve had people come into the train station who have to call Cass County Transit to come to Dowagiac to take them to a place because we don’t operate on Saturdays or Sundays. We have no bus lines or taxicabs, nothing. Amtrak is the only way you can get out of town.”
Leatz said Sunday night Amtrak “got caught in that unbelievable snowstorm on the bottom of (Lake Michigan). The sheriff in LaPorte County (Ind.) had to rescue 92 vehicles on Highway 2 with snowmobiles and get people out of cars who sat in there 12 hours in the blizzard. A lot of them ran out of gas.
“What that has to do with the station is I’m going to beg until it’s open to serve the 7 o’clock train — which is going to be late tonight — and the 10 o’clock train because these people are out in this weather with no place to go.
“In 2010, versus 2009, we have a 22-percent increase in ridership in the Dowagiac station.”
Leatz related that nine women got off the train who left Saturday morning, spent the night in Chicago shopping the Loop and returned Sunday “as happy as could be, like kids in a candy store.”
Leatz said a few weeks ago an Ohio derailment diverted the train to Detroit.
“When they got to Kalamazoo,” he said, “and we have a different train control because we’re running high-speed rail, they put Capital Limited engines on the front and Lakeshore Limited on the back. They came through Dowagiac — I was standing on the platform — at 95 mph. Those people from New York City have never gone 95 mph. There were 50 to 60 cars. People waiting at the crossing could not believe it.”
Leatz and council members discussed identifying someone to construct benches.
Benches were removed in 1995. When the station reopened, two benches were obtained from Jackson, which now wants them returned as part of a renovation of the station there, Leatz said.
“If there’s a group of people who would like to build benches, that would be a great idea,” City Manager Kevin Anderson said.
“If they’re ours, they can’t be taken away,” agreed Third Ward Councilman Dr. Charles Burling.
“We already have a four-seat bench that came from the Michigan Central Railroad Saline station, 1900,” Leatz said. “There’s a lot of history when you look at that building. Galien tore down its station two years ago. Where are those benches?”
Source: http://www.dowagiacnews.com/2010/12/15/depot-roof-will-be-lighted-next-year/