Ralph
...the place

It didn't look as if a train has travelled the single track of the Escanaba and Lake Superior Railroad for quite a while. Indeed, I wonder how the line can ever have carried any meaningful traffic at all, for it merely links a half dozen tiny communities — Cornell, Watson, Mashek, Arnold, Northland and Ralph — scattered amongst small farms and large forests. Perhaps it was one of those lines laid speculatively, with the intention of creating and encouraging a hinterland.

Yet it must have carried the occasional freight, even quite recently, for west of Cornell, a dozen or so miles west of Wells, two decrepit flat trucks and a yellow box car, the latter originating on the Green Bay and Western Railroad, sit in a siding, marooned and forgotten amongst the weeds, waiting for some ghost locomotive to rumble into sight and take them on their way to more glamorous destinations.

At Ralph a spur curves away from the main line, northwards, only to disappear beneath the grass. I wonder what they once loaded here.

This Ralph is a place where one paved and three gravel roads meet. No-one is in sight. There is a Post Office, open mornings only, which bears the sticker "I Love Ralph, MI" on its doorway. There are some pleasant homes, surrounded by manicured gardens, and some not so pleasant, surrounded in turn by the picked-over carcasses of trucks.

There are three swings. A village hall, but not called Ralph Village Hall. The village centre has a neglected, overgrown air, as if everyone wants it to disappear, has turned their back on it. A dog barks. No friendly signs welcome you to Ralph. Or cheerily bid you au revoir. Perhaps people don't really want to live in Ralph at all, but somewhere with a less geekish name.

I pick up a thrown-aside spike, my souvenir of Ralph. We drive on, westwards.

Since visiting Ralph I have learned that the line was constructed in 1909 in order to gain access to forests. It later carried iron ore and acted as a "belt line" linking local businesses. A map at the ELSRR site still shows the line as active... The spur I mention is shown as an abandoned line, presumably one that collected lumber?

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MICHIGAN

LENORE'S TRAVEL DIARY