Railroad: Boyne City Railroad Company

The Boyne City railroad was the successor to the Boyne City, Gaylord & Alpena railroad in 1935. It operated between Boyne City and Moore (Boyne Falls) until 1976 when it was purchased by the Boyne Valley railroad.

BCG&A railroad → Boyne City Railroad → Boyne Valley Railroad

Conveyed from: BCG&A in 1935

Operated for 41 years.

Became: Boyne Valley Railroad in 1976.

Reference: [MRRC]

Photo Info: No. 70 at Boyne City in 1976. [Paul Cahpoton photo]

Notes

Article: Boyne City RR Line Shortest in state - Hauls 28,0-00 Tons a Year

Got its Start in 1897 with Lumber

1960. Northern Michigan can lay claim to another distinction that may come as a surprise to the reader. It has the shortest operating railroad in the state.

The Boyne City Railroad Company is exactly 7.2 miles in length and operates between Boyne City and Boyne Falls.

Incorporated on January 5, 1935, the BCRR has nine stockholders. President of the little line is Lyle H. White, vice president is Seymour Heller, and secretary-treasurer is Erline Strangstad.

The BCRR today is what remains of its predecessor, the Boyne City, Gaylord & Alpena Railroad, known as the White Road. The old BCG&IA ran mostly logging trains, but did operate two passenger trains between Boyne City and Alpena, through Gaylord, for a distance of 91 /2 miles. Petoskey's chief of police, Philo Wakeford, was once a conductor on the BCG&A. The BCG&IA had been incorporated in 1903 from the first standard-gauge railroad out of Boyne City, known as the Boyne City and Southeastern railroad, previously organized in 1897 to serve lumbering interests.

The former BCG&A once owned 13 steam locomotives and two gas-electric motor cars used for mail-express-baggage and passengers. The railroad's business in the days around 1910 was drawn from a chemical works, four sawmills, stave mill, flooring mill, a piano factory, a broom-handle factory, and a short-lived typewriter factory. At that time, Boyne City was nearly twice the size of Petoskey. Lumbering built Boyne City.

Inherited from the old BCG&A, the Boyne City Railroad Company keeps ready for emergencies one steam locomotive, No. 18, built in 1920. A way-car (converted from a BCG&A caboose) for handling less-than-carload freight and Railway Express, and a snowplow were also acquired from the BCG&A. Because of light snow the snow plow has been been used since 1958.

Motive power in use every day on the BBCRR is a fair-sized diesel-electric locomotive built by General Electric in September, 1950 and purchased new in the same year. It generates 400 horsepower.

BCRR makes one trip each way between Boyne City and Boyne Falls on Monday, Wednesday and Friday each week where the various freight cars and package freight is exchanged, or interchanged as railroaders say, with the Pennsylvania Railroad at Boyne Falls.

Yearly traffic over the BCRR runs between 26,000 and 28,000 tons.

Customers of the little railroad include the Michigan Tanning & Extract Co. tannery at Boyne City; two coal yards; two retail lumber yards, two co-op electric plants; the Charlevoix County Road Commission; a Consumers Power Company pole-yard near Boyne Falls; and business places of Boyne City who receive or ship out package freight and Railway Express. [PNR-1960-1025]

Article: Boyne Line Only A Memory Now

Boyne City, MI, June 21, 1976 (AP) - Wild strawberries bloom along the silent tracks of the Boyne City Railroad.

And although the purchase of the railroad at a public auction by local businessmen may have been the big story recently, other stories were everywhere.

Memories of the early days of railroading abound in this spring-green country of soft, rolling hills cradling lakes in their valleys.

The tracks stretch 7.2 miles between Boyne City and Boyne Falls, dodging small farms and widely-spaced homes. Moore Junction, Cushman and Doyle, with their fantasyland passenger shelters, are reminders of days of profit for the time.

At one end of the line, a 21 foot high fiberglass statue of a railroad engineer guarded the Boyne Falls station, a tiny Victorian building. The engineer would later be sold for $2,0o00.

Lake Charlevoix lies at the other end of the line. Nesting swans and ducks dodge through the cattails gone to seed.

Inside the roundhouse, W. Howard FIneout, who for 19 years was engineer on the line, points with pride to "Ladybug", the diesel electric locomotive. Soon it, too, would be on the auction block.

In the last years of the railroad's life, 25,000 passengers a year made the trip between Boyne Falls and Boyne City. The energy crisis forced the line to close in 1973, Fineout said.

Men in business suits and hats mingle at the auction with bearded traders. They fondle worn furniture, poking through sacks of baggage checks and testing machines.

Children walk the rails with tightrope talents. Some gallop and tumble around unfamiliar merchandise. A coal scuttle, telegraphy equipment, switch lanterns and a porcelain Western Union sign are more strange to them than lunar landings.

Bidders from all over the country wait. Tennessee, Florida, Oklahoma and California will be home to many items before the day is over.

The action begins, and the bidding is brisk. Kruse Auction Co. of Auburn, Ind. is in charge. The first item is a brakeman's lantern. It goes for $22.50.

A box of 15 rubber stamps is sold for $55, and a battery lantern for $35. An expert nearby says the lantern could be bought in any store for $10.

Throughout the crowd, those who have come for bargains are shaking their heads. The enthusiasm of the auctioneer and the pace of the bids have put the prices out of reach of most ordinary bidders.

No bargains here. The $85 paid for a brass spittoon draws grans from some in the crowd.

A bag of old railroad tickets goes for $60. There are a dozen more like them. The auctioneer kindles the crowd: "You'd have $10,000 worth of tickets - if you could use them".

Weldon Price, a Charlevoix antique dealer, shakes his head. Later he'll buy a pot-bellied stove for $170, but right now he's discouraged. "They've got to get the junk out early," he says.

Watching in the crowd, former employees of the railroad see the tools of their jobs being carted off by new purchasers.

Austin J. Sevener, former auditor of the railroad, sees the office he worked in emptied, piece by piece. Sevener sketches the railroad's history, which dates to 1893.

It began in that year as the Boyne City & Southeastern Railroad, he said.; The founder of the railroad was William A. White (a picture of White was sold for $85).

It became the Boyne City, Gaylord & Alpena Railroad about 1895, and stayed that way into the [late] 1920's. Then, like everything else in the boom and bust years leading to the depression, the railroad prospered, then went bankrupt.

It was reorganized in 1935 as the Boyne City Railroad, and the runs to Alpena were abandoned.

Sevener is watching as the office wall clock goes for $225. He said he didn't know if it ever ran or not. "They had it hung up so high we couldn't wind it."

The timber industry and a local tannery kept the freight business going, but in about 1969 the supply of tanning bark dwindled. The railroad applied for abandonment in early 1970.

Hollis Baker bought the railroad and continued passenger excursions until 1973. Skyrocketing fuel prices ended that.

At the edge of the auction crowd a small boy tentatively pokes a finger at the ancient typewriter his mother has bought. He's Brant Maitland, a great-great grandson of founder William White. His mother, Barbara, is waiting to bid on the picture of her great-grand-father.

A spokesman for the action company said the event was "more than successful." The costliest single item, the roundhouse and property, went to an Ionia man for $110,000.

And it all had a happy ending. A group of local businessmen, pooling about $150,000, snatched the line from oblivion and said it will resume tourist excursions this summer.

The purchase was greeted by applause from the crowd of more than 1,000. [HPAL-1976-0621]

Time Line