Henry's Railroad

1916 Brooks - Consolidation 200

Henry Ford, seeing the possibility of his supply lines being severely restricted if the Detroit, Toledo and Ironton Railroad went bankrupt, decided to purchase the railroad in 1920. Then he would be assured of an uninterupted flow of materials for building automobiles. One of the first things Henry reportedly did was raise the pay of the engineers to equal that of the conductors. Henry's reasoning was that the engineers were the ones actually 'driving' the train. After extensive rebuilding and some expansion, Ford sold the railroad in 1929 to the Pennroad Corporation which was associated with the Pennsylvania Railroad.