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Claude Stoner was an optical engineer for the Ann Arbor Railroad Company with an interesting hobby: He copied and collected photographs. His collection is an invaluable resource for learning about the central role that railroads played in the everyday lives of Ann Arbor's early twentieth-century residents. While Stoner did not leave a journal or letters to accompany his photographs, we invite you to join us on a typical journey down the railroad line. The photographs are from the Bentley Historical Archive's Claude Stoner Collection. They were taken between 1870 and 1940 at various sites across Michigan, but the majority were taken in Ann Arbor. The words are ours, and are entirely fictional, based on our imaginings of the early railroad in Ann Arbor.
"In the distance, I could see a column of black smoke and could just make out a faint whistle. It wasn't the smoke of a fire and the ring of a fire engine-it was the daily freight train from Toledo. For the past year, I've worked as an optical engineer for the Ann Arbor Railroad Company and I've seen hundreds of trains come and go. But each one begins as a smudge of smoke on the horizon among the great grass plains. Many of them come from the west across the Huron River Bridge. Several trains came into the station every day, both freight trains and passenger trains. I could tell from the stark, rectangular cars that this one was a freight train. As it approached the station, the once faint whistle became a loud hissing noise.
On the platform were several bystanders who came down to watch the trains arrive; some come down almost every day. When the train stopped, groups of people carrying baskets and boxes began to unload the front cars of the train. A few brought rope and leads for the livestock. The station soon filled with the smells of horses, cows, fruits and vegetables—food to supplement what was grown at nearby farms. Further down the train, people unloaded coal, lumber, and other supplies.
I often liked to think of all the people these trains came across on their long journeys across the state, the many people required to bring a train here in one piece and on schedule. For some workers, railroading was a dirty business. Tracks and engines needed maintenance. Conducting, while a cleaner job, required precision, and each line had time schedules that had to be met, even on the nastiest of snowy winter days.
One of my good friends was Dick Griffin, a Crossing Guard who worked up in Howell. Crossing Guard jobs were usually given to older railroad employees or men who had been hurt on the job. We didn't have electric stoplights and it was the watching guard's job to stop street traffic when the train crossed a street in a town. Some of my friends had higher positions in the company. They dressed in neat uniforms and maintained order in the railroad station. They had their own offices in the "quarters," behind the offices were passengers bought their tickets.
After about half an hour, the Ohio train passengers were gone and most of the freight was unloaded. The station agent arrived with a big book in one hand to record the unloaded goods and livestock. The conductor checked his watch and blew a whistle. The train roared into life and slowly moved out of the station. Almost on its heels came the passenger train.
For the first years of the railroad, passengers went on the same train as the freight. But when more folks started riding the train, railroad companies made special trains for people. The seats were more comfortable, and they were cooler in the summer and warmer in winter. But most people in town couldn't afford the travel on these large trains just for visiting. They were still pretty expensive back then. Most of the people riding the trains were businessmen either going away on business or coming back home. As this train came to a stop, several people got off and moved toward their waiting friends and cars on one end of the station. The fine-tuned schedule of the railroad left no time for sentiment, however, and amid tearful good-byes and cheerful greetings, the conductor shouted his final call, "All Aboard!" With a hug and a kiss, those leaving town hopped aboard the train just as it roared into life. The train carried those passengers along on its journey across the Huron Valley.
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