Friends, Families & Forays: Scenes from the Life and Times of Henry Ford

21. Excursion into Railroading

21 Excursion into Railroading In 1920, Henry Ford acquired 456 miles of deteriorated roadbed, forty-one railroad stations, seventy-five steam locomotives, 2,800 mortgaged freight cars, and twenty-seven vintage passenger cars from a line disparaged as “a streak of rust.” Did he know what he was doing? Ford was a man who was easily annoyed. His Model T automobile manufacturing plant at Highland Park, Michigan, was a model of efficiency , innovative beyond compare, and the envy of other manufacturers . Yet Ford detected weaknesses. His own tremendous success on that fifty-six-acre site had put him into a landlocked situation from which expansion was next to impossible. Another annoyance was his dependence on unreliable transportation to move materials to and from his factory. As early as 1917, six years before the Highland Park facility had reached its peak output, Ford told relatives that what he had at Highland Park was merely “a drop in the bucket” compared with his plans for “the Rouge.” He already had purchased thousands of acres out in the Dearborn area and had decided that his major plants would henceforth be on navigable water. In 1918, he began construction of the Rouge plant. Building the Rouge proved difficult. Ford’s stockholders, including the Dodge brothers, were dead set against it and had to be bought out at tremendous expense. The land bordering the Rouge River was swampy, and the river itself had to be straightened and dredged to allow sizable ships to navigate. Use of the waterway also required the rebuilding of several bridges across the river downstream of the plant. One of these bridges belonged to the Detroit, Toledo & Ironton Railroad (the DT&I), a nearly defunct enterprise that was fully mortgaged and unable to raise the $350,000 necessary to rebuild its bridge. The company asked Ford to guarantee the bonds that would have to be issued to raise the necessary money. Ford not only advanced $521,000 toward reconstruction costs and bond interest payments for the DT&I, but by July 9, 1920, he had purchased controlling interest in the entire 162 Reprinted with permission from the Herald, Vol. 15, No. 1, 1986. system. The following January, a $15 million improvement program was announced, and on March 4, 1921, Ford became president of the railroad. He had paid approximately $5 million for nearly all of the outstanding stock except that held by two bothersome New Yorkers, and he was now responsible for a complete but totally decrepit railroad system. The Detroit, Toledo & Ironton Railroad had started out as the old Iron Railway in 1849, a small but ambitious line. It extended only six miles from Ironton, Ohio, on the Ohio River, to Vesuvius, Ohio. But this short stretch of road into the hills included a 958-foot tunnel and a wrought-iron bridge 97 feet long. Gradually, the Iron Railway was refashioned through purchases, consolidations, and leases of dubious value, until in 1903 it became the Detroit, Toledo & Ironton with its northern terminal in Detroit. By the time Ford became its owner, the railroad had been through twenty-six unsuccessful reorganizations but had remained chiefly a coal-hauling line with miles of branches and sidings leading from small southern Ohio mines to its main north-south system. But a long period of deferred maintenance had earned the DT&I the nickname “Dirty, Twisted, and Inconvenient.” Wags insisted that there was enough scrap iron throughout the system to be worth the price Ford had paid for it. But Ford had not acquired the DT&I blindly. He had clearly visualized the benefits it might provide for his own automotive operations. 163 The Detroit, Toledo & Ironton bridge spanning the Short-Cut Canal that connects the River Rouge Ship Canal with the Detroit River. The bridge has unique underslung counterweights. (833.34942) 164 Simultaneously with his purchase of the railroad, Ford had acquired two coal mines at Wallins Creek and Tinsdale, Kentucky. Later that year, he bought a coal mine at Nuttalburg, West Virginia. These were forerunners of the Fordson Coal Company, a $15 million operation that would more than supply the coal needs of the Ford Motor Company. The DT&I would help bring this coal directly to his Rouge plant. Of course, Ford could not bear to be associated for long with such a disreputable piece of property. Immediately upon becoming president of the railroad, he embarked upon renovations. Incumbent DT&I officers were replaced by Ford men, all with executive offices in Dearborn...