Timetable: Detroit & Mackinac Ry - Main Line North Division - Alpena to Cheboygan Docks

Station open and passing siding capacity as of 1922.

Key: BB=Bascule Bridge | C=Coal | CS=Car Shop | D=Open > Day | DN=Open Day and night | DS=Dispatcher | DT=Double Main Track | EH=Engine house | HI=Half Interlocker | I=Interlocker | J=Junction | LB=Lift bridge | N=Open at night | P=Passing Track w/40' car capacity | RH=Roundhouse # stalls | RT=Railroad Resort | S=Scales | SB=Swing bridge | T=Turntable | TC=Telegraph call | W=Water | X=Crossing | Y=Wye | Yard=Yard

Notes

[REF] = DM employee timetables plus additional sources.

Time Line

1893. December 6. The A&N railroad posts a time card in the local paper. The northbound train leaves Alpena's DBC&A depot at 7:30 am, and arrives back at Alpena at 6:00 pm. [AAN-1893-1206]

May 1, 1900. Great Damage. Serious Forest Fires Raging in Alpena County. Alpena, Mich., April 30 - (Special) - Hot forest fires are reported raging all along the A&N Railroad, between Millersburg and Valentine Lake. Near the latter place, 16,000 ties, owned principally by T. B. Barry, are burned. At Millersburg many millions of pine and hemlock that are on railroad skids are threatened. Thousands of cords of hemlock bark have been burned. Fishermen who started last night for the trout streams forty miles back from here returned this evening, saying that the smoke was too dense to remain in the woods. Nothing like an accurate estimate can be made on what has burned on account of stuff threatened. Only the lumber that has been put in the streams seems to be out of danger. [DFP-1900-0501]

1902. William Greenfield secured a $2,395 judgement against the D&M for injuries received in a railroad smash up. He was a passenger on a log train coming from Onaway to Alpena on January 21, 1900 when a log rolled from a car which wrecked the train, killing conductor Dunlop and injuring Greenfield and several others. The company contended that Greenfield was not a passenger on the train, but it was shown that the company was cognizant of the fact and permitted him to ride on their log trains in his operations along their line. [DFP-1902-0615]

1903. President Hawks of the D&M railroad says the line of his road will be extended from Tower to Mullet Lake, a distance of 9 miles this summer and intimates that it is the intention of the company to carry the line to Cheboygan. He says his company is looking up the matter of maintaining a ferry across the Straits from Cheboygan the year around. The road wlll also build an extention from Onaway to Black Lake. [BCE-1903-0305]

1903. The Cheboygan extension of the D&M is making rapid progress. Track is now laid to within six miles of Cheboygan and will be up to the Cheboygan river in a few days. This is three miles from the city. The bridge has been promised by the Detroit Iron & Bridge works by the middle of November, and if this promise is kept the line will be in Cheboygan in the first part of December. [DFP-1903-1030]

1905. The Detroit & Mackinac southern Michigan express, a solid vestibule train, leaving Cheboygan at 11:42 a.m. daily for Detroit, was wrecked today about four miles south of Cheboygan. The tender jumped the track and ran for about 200 yards on the ties, when a loose rail caught the rear truck and turned it over. The truck was driven under the baggage car, the front truck of which was knocked sixteen feet out of place, causing the car to jump the track. All of the passenger cars kept the track and no one was hurt but it was a miraculous escape. A big crew of men with a work train came from Tower and are at work on the wreck. It is expected that traffic will be resumed tomorrow morning. [DFP-1905-0909]

1906. The D&M runs from Bay City north along the west shore of Lake Huron and then northwest to Cheboygan, 195 miles. There are 143 miles of short branches, most of which were built to open up timberlands. A great proportion of the timber is hardwood, since Presque Isle county northwest the D&M taps the hard wood strip which runs north and south through most of the lower peninsula of Michigan. President Hawks remarks' "When we bought the Alpena & Northern there were three places where bad reverse curves had been used to detour around houses. These houses have been bought and removed and the line put in proper location as a straight line."  [DFP-1906-1113]

1911. Circuit Judge Emerick fined the D&M railway and the Lobdell & Churchill Co. of Onaway $100 for contempt of court. They violated an injunction by removing rails on a logging switch (track) to Millersburg. [BBAN-1911-0921]

1915. The 8 mile long Gilcrest Branch is removed. [DMAR-1915]

1917. The Michigan Railroad Commission orders the D&M to give service to the Thunder Bay Lumber Co. on their private track extending 700 feet beyond the end of their Fletcher spur (Fletcher Jct.). [MCR-1917]

1925. August 28. The first order allowing railroads to operate motor vehicles on highways was announced today by the state public utilities commission, when the application of the Detroit & Mackinac freight line, between Alpena, Rogers City and Onaway was allowed. The railroad, which is an old logging road, is in financial difficulty. [SJHP-1925-0828]

1964. July. The D&M withdraws its ICC petition to abandon their main line from Posen to Cheboygan noting that the Chief Wawatam at Mackinaw City will continue to operate under court order. The petition had been filed in January. [HDN-1964-0702]

1983. The D&M operates three round trip trains weekly between Alpena and Cheboygan, mostly to serve the paper plant at Cheboygan. [DJB]