Time Line - 1904

Last Year | Next Year

• January 14:  The oil house in Manistique, of the MM&N catches fire and burns to the ground.  [AATHA-W/1990]

• April 6:  The Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic next Sunday will resume their sleeping car service between Chicago and Michigan's copper country.  The service had been out of commission since December 10th, owing to the great difficulty experienced in bringing the heavy trains through the heavy falls of snow that have been experienced.  [CCEN]

• April 14:  Fire destroys the Lake Shore depot at LaPorte, Indiana.   The fire started in the Express office and spread to the rest of the building.  A new station was finally opened in 1910.  [LS]

• June 1:  The Manistique, Marquette & Northern RR car ferry service between Northport and Manistique was abandoned. [MDOT]

• May 1:  Detroit, Flint & Saginaw Railway opens electric line from Saginaw to Bridgeport.  [MRRC]

• May 17:  The Manistique, Marquette and Northern Railroad is sold to the Pere Marquette.  [HH/MIHX8]

• May 20. A loaded eastbound ore train strikes a lone engine and box car head on, on a curve near Gay, in the Keewenaw peninsula. The "cornfield meet" killed the engineer of the ore train. [SSS-2022-Q1]

• June 13: The General Railway Signal Company is incorporated in the state of New York to manufacture and install railway safety devices. The company acquired the plant and properties of the Taylor Signal Company of Buffalo and the Pneumatic Signal Company of Rochester. The Buffalo plant was disposed of and the manufacturing business concentrated in Rochester where the main offices and plant are now located. [RSWG-1923]

• June 25:  D&M prevails in a battle to cross the Michigan Central tracks in Cheboygan.  A supportive mob turned over an MCRR car which was in the way. [HI]

• June 26:  D&M reaches Cheboygan.  The road orders two new solid vestibule passenger trains, complete with 70-ton, high wheeled locomotives, for through service between Detroit and Mackinac Island, via boat from Cheboygan.  [HI/NK/MDOT/GW]

• June 29:  Delray Connecting Railroad completes 2 mile line from Delray to Detroit Southern RR on Zug Island.  [MRRC]

• June 30:  Erie & Michigan Railway and Navigation Co. incorporated.  [MDY33]

• July: The Pere Marquette makes arrangements with the Michigan Central and New York Central for trackage rights to Suspension Bridge, Ontario and Black Rock, New ork, and for passenger service into Buffalo. [RG-1904-0722:37]

• July 9:  A bad derailment occurred on the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic at a low spot called "Plumber's Sag" ten miles east of Mellen, WI.  Excessive speed while attempting to make the hill was blamed for the crash which killed Conductor Wilbur Curry. [SOO-Sp/1996]

• December:  Quinnesec & Western Railway completes line from Everett to Menominee River. [MRRC]

• The legislature enacts a law providing for the exercise of police powers of the State over electric railway corporations, however the law is incomplete that it does not clearly specify the manner and extent to which the authority of the Commissioner is intended to be exercised. {MCR-1904]

• Detroit, Monroe & Toledo Short Line Railway completes electric line from Springwells to Toledo.  [MRRC]

• The Pere Marquette replaces individual passenger and freight depots with a brick combination depot in Mt. Pleasant.  [COHS-2/1995]

• Lansing Manufacturers Railroad (owned by MCRR/LS&MS) opens 6 miles of line on the west side of Lansing. [MRRC]

• The Wyandotte Terminal railroad builds 10 miles of track to serve the Michigan Alkali Company in Wyandotte. [EMR4]

• The W&M builds a branch from Everett Jct. to Miscauno Island. [MW]

• GTW completes double tracking of their main line east of Lansing - [GTWHS 08/01]

• The last 10 steam engines are produced in Jackson and rolled out of the Michigan Central Railroad's machine shops.  Employment at the facility is now down to 1,500.  [JCP]

• The Michigan Central/Canada Southern builds a new brick depot on Grosse Isle, to handle cross river international traffic.  The depot, which was apparently the only island depot in Michigan, still exists today (2001) as a museum.  The route over the island was used prior to the establishment of the Detroit-Windsor railroad tunnel.  [MRP-Volume I]

• The Pere Marquette replaces the Howe truss bridge over the Grand River between Malta (Seqwum) and Lowell with a steel bridge.  [L&H]

• The Lake Shore Elkhart yard "humps" are raised to a height of forty feet, to obtain the necessary speed for rolling cars into the yard.  The Elkhart twin-hump yards hold 2,000 cars, the 2nd largestin the United States (1st being the CB&Q Stickney Yard near Chicago).  [LS]

• Pere Marquette river ferry Pere Marquette 14 launched. [PMHS]

• Coach shops are erected by Pere Marquette Railroad  in Saginaw.  It contains four tracks and has the capacity of eight cars.   [PMHS][PM45]

• A collision on the Pere Marquette at Elmdale kills five and injures 25.  [AAD]

• Ford Motor Company builds the Piquette Avenue Plant, at Piquette and Beaubien St. [BOM]

• Due to congestion in the City of Detroit, an outer belt railroad line was built on the east side of the city.  This line opened up the vast corridor for industrial development just outside the city limits.  [BOM]

• Crawford and Manistee River Railway abandons line 10 miles in length in Kalkaska County, from Sec. 13 T25N R5@ to Sec. 25 T26N R6W.  [MRRC]

• The American Locomotive Company builds the first true "Mallet" locomotive. [SAM]

Time Line Key:

• Railroad event in Michigan
• Event relating to mining
• Event related to car ferries
• Event outside of Michigan
• Improvement in Technology
• Railroad built or extended
• Railroad abandoned and/or removed
• Economic panic or depression