Railroad Junction

Torch Lake, built by Mason Machine Works in 1873, hauled ore for the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company on Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula. The engine is an articulated design. The driving wheels pivot under the boiler, allowing the locomotive to handle sharp curves. Torch Lake joined The Henry Ford's collection in 1969.

This locomotive pulled passenger trains on the Detroit & Lima Northern Railway, a predecessor of the Detroit, Toledo & Ironton Railroad. After Henry Ford purchased the DT&I in 1920, this engine was the first modified under his extensive plan for improvements to the line. Ford adopted the locomotive as his favorite and donated it to The Henry Ford in 1930.

The Smiths Creek Depot stood on the Grand Trunk Western Railway about nine miles southwest of Port Huron, Michigan. The railroad station was a center of 19th-century small-town life. More than a place to catch a train, the depot was where customers sent and received packages and telegrams, caught up on the latest news, and shared gossip.

Where space was too tight for a loop or wye track, railroads could turn locomotives and railcars around using a turntable. Some turntables also provided access to roundhouse stalls. The Pere Marquette Railway used this one in Saginaw, Michigan, before moving it to Petoskey, Michigan, in 1913. This well-balanced turntable had no motor and was rotated by hand.

Steam locomotives required constant maintenance from an army of skilled and unskilled workers, and the roundhouse is where that work took place. This roundhouse was built in 1884 in Marshall, Michigan, for the Detroit, Toledo & Milwaukee Railroad. Today it services the locomotives and equipment of Greenfield Village's Weiser Railroad.