The interaction of two railroads in northern Michigan is captured in this real photo postcard including some very rare rail equipment. We are at Gaylord in 1926 in this scene looking south along the Michigan Central’s Mackinaw Division towards where this route crosses the Boyne City Gaylord & Alpena (BCG&A), the photographer standing about on Main Street (the letter annotation is the text below refer to the annotated version of the postcard).
The Michigan Central (MC) depot (A) is on the left with a crowd gathered waiting for the next Michigan Central train with the freight house (B) just visible behind the depot. Looking down the Michigan Central, we see a locomotive switching; there is not enough detail to know if this is a BCG&A locomotive switching the interchange or an Michigan Central locomotive switching (C). Next to locomotive, there appears to be a Merchants Despatch reefer (D) similar to the one closer to the photographer. Behind the BCG&A cars is the Hankey Milling Company warehouse (E), a warehouse for flour, coal, feed and cement. Merchant Despatch reefer #156185 (F) sits at the Leonard Cross potato and produce warehouse (G), likely the car has been staged for potato loading. The real gem of this particular postcard are the two BCG&A self-propelled rail cars, cars #1 and #2 (H).
Like several other railroads that served rural areas in Michigan, the BCG&A turned to self-propelled rail cars (sometimes colloquially called doodlebugs) to reduce costs associated with the operation of the passenger trains. The BCG&A would acquire at least three of these cars, one from the Sheffield Car Company of Three Rivers Michigan (#17 built 1908) and the two pictured here from the Bowen Motor Railways Company of St Louis Missouri (cars #1 and #2, built in 1923). The Bowen Motor Railways Co. was a minor manufacture of rail equipment building only six doodlebugs (an excellent source on self-propelled railcars is “Interurbans Without Wires by Edmund Keilty 1979). The BCG&A would acquire their two Bowen cars second hand from the Norwalk & Shelby Railroad around 1925.
In consulting the June 1926 edition of the Michigan Railway Guide, these are BCG&A Trains No. 17 and No. 18. Train No. 17 would leave Alpena at 0800hrs, arrive at Gaylord 1305hrs, leaving Gaylord at 1440hrs (95 minute layover) and arriving at Boyne City at 1600hrs. Train No. 18 left Boyne City 1145hrs, arrived in Gaylord at 1317hrs, laying over to 1345hrs and arriving in Alpena 1800hrs. The crowd on the platform are waiting for Michigan Central Train No. 206, a southbound passenger train originating in Mackinaw City and scheduled to arrive in Gaylord at 1332hrs. If the trains are running on time this picture was taken between 1317hrs and 1332hrs.
The BCG&A traveled through Gaylord east-west down the middle of 3rd Street. In 1926, the Michigan Central had three diamonds for crossing the BCG&A, the Mackinaw Division ‘main’ as well as two sidetracks servicing the industries of Gaylord. Connecting tracks between the two roads were to the northwest and southwest of the diamonds. BCG&A passenger trains would use the connection tracks to run on the MC to the depot.
Scanned from a real photo postcard, photographer unknown, the postmark is difficult to read but appears to be 1926.
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