Fall 2025 Road Trip; One Of The Last Stops; One For You Railfans

Early morning autumn light.  Lovely light.  In the rear of the Quincy Copper Mine property, this 
narrow gauge locomotive, tender and two side dumping ore cars sit disintegrating.  This locomotive
is a 2-8-0 “Consolidation” type and was built for the Quincy & Torch Lake narrow
gauge railroad (3 ft. gauge) #5 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadelphia, PA in 1891.
If you are in the far northwestern part of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, the now closed Quincy
Copper Mine is well worth a visit. (click to enlarge)
All images in this post were made with an OM-3 and an Olympus 12-100mm f/4 PRO lens

This is a continuation of my series of posts about my recent fall 2025, across the U.S. and back, road trip primarily following Route 66 west.  Our trip continued as far north as Spokane, Washington and then we drove U.S. Route 2, 'The High Line," east.  If you are interested, you can read my other posts and see some of the photos I made about this adventure here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

This is my last post ‘chronicling’ the trip.  Friday I’ll have a wrap-up post with my thoughts about the photo gear I took as well as some general thoughts about the trip itself.  After that, I’ll be posting some miscellaneous images and stories of some of the interesting or unusual things we encountered along our way.  Here we go…

As we continued east on U.S. Route 2, we decided to spend a couple of days in the Upper Peninsulas of Michigan.  I spent three days there last year and found it very different from many other places in the U.S.  it is still very rural and woodlands are everywhere.  In fact, it is not unusual to drive for miles with just deciduous trees on both sides of the road and only the solitary house sprinkled Ming the forests.  I will say that traffic is scarce and the roads are in very good condition.  My kind of place.

Lake of the Clouds.  I really interesting place to visit in the Porcupine Mountains State Park in the
Upper Peninsula of Michigan. (click to enlarge)

One of the first places we visited was "Lake of the Clouds."  This is an elevated lake and overlook located in the Porcupine Mountains State Park.  I had visited this place once before but another visit was pleasant.  I've been told the foliage color when in full glory is spectacular but, unfortunately, when we visited it was just starting to turn colorful.

This is the outflow creek from the Lake in the Clouds. The leaves were
just starting to turn when we visited in late September. (click to enlarge)

We stayed two nights in the far western part of the U.P., as it is called (people from the U.P. are sometimes called Yoopers, I am told).  A small city called Houghton.  Our intention was to spend a bit of time exploring the area.  One place two of us had visited last year was the Quincy copper mine just north of Houghton in Hancock, Michigan.  Since our other friend had not been there, we planned to make a stop there for his benefit as the place is fascinating.  We also drove a bit farther north to Calumet and spent an afternoon there.  I’ll have a post and photo from Calumet that is one of my favorites from the trip coming shortly.

Since I had photographed inside the mine last year, I decided to only make some documentary photos of some of the grounds this visit.  Since I have been a railroad aficionado for as long as I can remember, I was especially interested in the rusty, old railroad related artifacts scattered around the place.

What's left of the old boiler building.  Notice the buildings are made from stone. (click to enlarge)

I was getting a little artistic.  Trying to, anyway.  (click to enlarge)

A typical miner's home on the premises. (click to enlarge)

For you railfans, here are some images of a locomotive that sits, rusting away, on the property.  Shame.

This was originally the Quincy & Torch Lake Railroad #1, dubbed “The Thomas F. Mason.”  It is
a “Mogul” type, 2-6-0, narrow (3 ft.) gauge locomotive built by the Brooks Locomotive Works
of Dunkirk, New York circa 1890.  At least that is the best information I’ve found.  (click to enlarge)

Notice the cab on this locomotive is made from wood!  Very unusual.  Also notice how
close the rails are to one another.  Most large railroads today have “Standard Gauge” tracks
which are 4 ft. 8 1/2 inches between the rails.  The Q&TL was a 3 ft. gauge railroad. (click to enlarge)

I think I've gone on long enough about this month long road trip.  From the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, we drove south to one of my companion's homes and stayed two days.  From there, back for a one night stay in our hometown in western Pennsylvania and then back here to my house in southeastern Virginia.  That said, I plan on posting some additional related posts about some of the things I photographed that I feel worthy of sharing with you.

My next post will be a summary and wrap up of the road trip.  I'll discuss some general thoughts as well as extensively write about how the gear I chose to take served me.

Join me over at my website, https://www.dennismook.com.  

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

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