This coverage is made possible through a partnership between IPR and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
Driving toward the Buckley Old Engine Show, a plume of gray smoke hovers in the sky.
Much of that smoke pours from the black stack of a 1918 steam locomotive — a train.
Pete LaBelle, part of the show’s train committee, claims it's the only full-sized steam train operating in northern Michigan, at least right now. (Steam enthusiasts can find other opportunities around the state.)
The engine show is a place for people who love to preserve and restore old technologies. According to organizers, around 50,000 visitors and participants come each year to see and show the trains, antique tractors and cars that stretch out across a field. And, LaBelle said, it’s a chance to learn about the past.
“If you don't have any registration of what it was like 50, 70, 100 years ago, you really don't know how far we've come,” he said.
The train has three cars and rides around a one-mile loop. (Organizers say the club recently put $90,000 into upgrades for the track, paid for by entry fees.) LaBelle estimates that at least 10,000 people ride the train over the four-day show.
LaBelle has come to the show since the mid-1970s. For nearly a decade he’s been a member of the volunteer Northwest Michigan Engine & Thresher Club.
He’s passionate about steam engines — he owns a 1912 steam tractor — but this work goes further, he said: “I enjoy history in all facets, and this is a chunk of history. And you know, by all rights, all of this equipment we're seeing here should have been scrapped years ago. But some people had the wherewithal that — this is cool stuff. We need to save some of this stuff,” he said.
Climbing up into the cab of the train, you’re hit by a wave of heat coming from the large, black boiler. Four men are working inside.
“Every one of them are sweaty, dirty, gloves, long sleeve shirts, long sleeve pants, standing next to this giant wood stove with smiles on all their faces right now,” he said.
“We love you, too, Pete,” one replied.
Crew members shovel coal into the small round door on one side of the boiler to feed the fire inside. (“It’s like your campfire with about eight leaf blowers blowing on it,” LaBelle said.) The fire boils water to make steam, which is then funneled through a series of pipes down to pistons connected to the trains wheels. That pressure pushes the pistons back and forth, and moves the train forward.
Once the train slowly pulls away from the small platform, the wind blows through the cab. At every intersection a bell is rung to let people know the train is approaching.
The train hisses and clanks as it moves down the track. "The sounds, I mean, you can't get that in a museum," LaBelle said.
This short trip touches on a long history of steam engines in the Great Lakes. From ships to trains, this technology propelled the region’s development in the 1800s.
Theodore Karamanski, a history professor at Loyola University in Chicago, said just a century ago, you could travel by train to many cities and towns because of an extensive passenger rail network.
“There was a railroad that built up from Fort Wayne through Grand Rapids to northern Michigan, and that just set off the whole recreation industry in northwest Michigan, along Traverse Bay, and then further north along Little Traverse Bay,” he said.
But as the 20th century chugged along, the state poured more money into cars and roads.
“That road network then could be the basis for short-haul trucks, which took away the freight business from the railroads, which made the railroads then uneconomical,” Karamanski said. “Individual car ownership took away the passenger riders from the railroads. So in that sense, it's a fairly simple story, and one that Michigan played a role in making this true for the whole nation.”
Now, passenger rail is still possible in Buckley, at least for a few days each August.
The Old Engine Show runs through August 18.
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