Cement City, MI.
In preparing for our upcoming relocation (hopefully!), members of the club have discussed possible additional towns on the Cincinnati Northern that we might include in the new layout, if given appropriate space. One of the towns that seems to have sparked some interest and is high on the list is Cement City, Michigan. Given that I have almost no knowledge about Cement City, it inspired a new research project! My research took me to Cement City, but I also had a couple of sidetrack projects!
Cement City is about 13 miles south of Jackson – so way up on the Northern end of the railroad. It developed as the supporting town for the large Peninsula Portland Cement plant on Goose Lake. The area was first named Woodstock (long before the cement plant), then Kelly’s Corner (after an early local landowner), and then back to Woodstock. It eventually changed to Cement City for the cement plant company.
This is a pic of the Peninsula Portland Cement Company Plant on Goose Lake (founded in 1889, closed 1961) – the first factory in the world to have its machinery and lights powered completely by electricity.
I believe this shot is taken looking south with the Cincinnati Northern tracks running just outside the frame on the left. Goose Lake is the body of water. Little Goose Lake is to the left just left of the Nor mainline. If I have my direction of water travel correct, Goose Creek connects Goose Lake to Little Goose Lake, and then continues to the East of Little Goose Lake allowing the water to drain towards Detroit and Lake Erie. Check out how the spur tracks split off and service numerous areas of the plant. I count around 35 hoppers with a few hidden. One hopper may have coal in it. There’s a handful of boxcars and the same of gondolas.
I’m not 100% sure, but this appears to be a southern looking view between the structures where in the previous pic, a string of hoppers threads between a set of structures. The wooden boxcar to the right has reporting marks of NYC & HR #36529 (? – a little fuzzy) (NYC & HR is the New York Central and Hudson River RR). I had to check out this boxcar – detour further down!
This fuzzy picture shows a concrete bridge under construction. The bridge is named the White Bridge and it spans the small portion of Goose Creek which connects Goose Lake to Little Goose Lake. To the right of the concrete arches, you can just make out the trestle which was used to cross over the swamp land by the creek. This trestle, as was common practice, was later buried in fill to create the hill approach to the bridge. Looking at Google Maps, the bridge appears to be still standing. The Cincinnati Northern crossed the bridge between the lakes, and my guess is that the cement plant spur split off of the main just North of this bridge. I can’t tell whether the pic is looking North or South, but I’d guess North because based on Google Maps, the larger fill approach to the bridge (and the larger swampy area) is on the North side of the creek. So, Goose lake is on the other side of the bridge, and Little Goose Lake is to the right.
…So that wooden boxcar between the buildings. I first looked up what the HR was (Hudson River RR, a subsidiary of the NYC). Then by pulling up the NYC rolling stock roster, I found quite a few series of wooden boxcars built under reporting marks NYC&HR just after the turn of the century – around 1903 to 1907. The different number series on the roster don’t quite match up with this number (36529 – best I can tell). Unfortunately, the roster does not show cars built previous to around 1902. Further searching the NYC historic site, I found this clip from an article in one of their periodical publications:
“…New York Central and Hudson River Railroad’s standard 35-foot boxcar that was built between 1892 and 1902. It was a successful car whose design remained relatively unchanged over its production years. However the N.Y.C. & H. R. like other railroads were always looking to improve their car designs. In this edition of the Early Rail Shop I am continuing the discussion of N.Y. C. & H.R. standard boxcars, with the successor to their 35-foot standard car, the last of the N.Y.C. & H. R.’s wood under frame boxcars…”
The article continues to describe the upgraded cars generated after 1902. But the hint was already given – the early version of the wooden boxcars listed on the roster were built from 1892 to 1902 – car numbers not being shown on the roster since it started around 1902. Here are two pics of the upgraded cars built after 1902 – even with the limited look at the original, the article says they closely match. The difference would be that these two are 36’-10” versus 35’ for the cars built before 1902. So you can probably use these two pics to generate an appropriate model (if you so wish!).
Shortly after the name of the area was changed to Cement City, there became a need for additional housing. This was about the time when builders where beginning to use steel and concrete as a structural base in a number of construction disciplines. It was decided to build a neighborhood of houses where concrete was used rather than wood as the structure of the houses. They began building the concrete houses in 1916.
Most of these houses are still standing, and the community sponsors a historical walk and walk through of some of the houses each year.
While I was digging through the NYC car roster, I took a second detour. I stumbled upon a set of auto-boxcars first built in 1922 that was originally reported under “NOR”. ’22 was late enough that the reporting marks show “NOR” rather than “CN”. (“CN” was given to the Canadian National when the first organization of call marks occurred – I believe around 1916 if my memory serves me correctly.) Here’s a design diagram of the 40’-6” steel underframe auto-boxcar in the NYC roster. The series reporting under NOR went from 3600 to 3849, built from 1922 to 1941. Unfortunately, the roster did not link to any pics of these boxcars. There’s an old Westerfield kit that represents this design in HO – #10104 & #10108.
The next entry on the roster was this Cincinnati Northern 2-bay hopper first built in 1922. The NOR hopper series went from 800 to 1549, built from 1922 to 1944. These hoppers could likely be some of the hoppers shown in the pics above in the cement plant!
Here’s the design sketch. Tichy represented this design in HO – kit #4027. Also, Accurail represented it in HO with Kits #2401, 2408, 2500, & 2504
Getting back to Cement City, here is the first Cincinnati Northern station.
At some point, it was rebuilt/replaced by this station. Something to note on these station pics: In the early station, the order boards were lower quadrant. We noticed this same order board in early pics of some of the other stations. But at some point, most or all of the order boards were converted to upper quadrant like in this photo. This is the design we used for our ‘50s order boards.
Here’s the station today being used as the village hall.
A pic by Rick Belcher last year, shows Bill Leutz in front of the station. Jackson – 13.4 miles to the North, and Cincinnati – 231.3 miles to the South! – The Cincinnati Northern RR.
Thx,
Kevin
Editors Note: The google satellite photo shows the foot print of the old cement plant. What is now Peninsular St was the NYC line. In the red circle google identifies this bridge as The Cincinnati Northern.
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