Buick Rail and Truck Dock 1910.

A nice view up Division street from Hamilton Avenue about 1910. More details are shown below. This view is facing north. This is where I first worked at Buick in 1972. I would work here until 1997. It was a vastly different place in my time. The rail lines were still basically in the same place when I worked here.

The blue arrow shows the factory #01 body paint plant and eventual transmission machining plant. The green arrow shows factory #06 assembly. The yellow arrows show different sections of the #03 forge plant. The red arrow is the ramp leading to the rail dock of factory #01.

A closeup showing the rail dock of factory #01. I'm not sure what is in place next to the boxcar but it may be a horse drawn wagon. This ramp seems rather steep to us today but back then an automobile had a real low gear ratio and plenty of ground clearance. There would have been no problem with this incline. Likewise a horse and wagon.

I'm only showing this Randolph truck because it was the third truck company combined with the two truck brands shown below that became G.M.C. Truck company. Also the Randolph was the truck built in the original Buick factory on west Kearsley Street in Flint, Michigan. The Randolph is said not to have had any influence on the G.M. truck line. Randolph was originally built in Chicago.  

The red arrow shows the 1907 stake truck whose parent company was the Reliance Motor Car Co. in Detroit. The Reliance truck  factory was located in Owosso, Michigan. The yellow arrow "I believe" shows the driver of the 1906 Rapid truck (shown farther below) that is waiting it's turn to enter the dock. When I was a clerk on the different truck docks around Buick you would normally not have them arriving at the same time. But it was not unheard of. As a side note the green arrow shows the "Keep Off The Lawn" sign.

Here is an advertisement of the 1907 Reliance truck that is backed into the factory #01 truck dock.

Here is a 1906 Rapid truck waiting it's turn at being either loaded or unloaded on Division Street at Buick. This view is facing north. The yellow arrow shows where the driver would be seated until the first total redesign by the newly consolidated G.M.C. truck company in 1914. The driver then had a more traditional (to us) seating location. Rapid was the first truck company purchased by General Motors in 1909 followed the same year by the Reliance truck company. 

Here is an advertisement for the 1906 Rapid truck shown above. The first General Motors truck plant was located in Pontiac, Michigan at the original location of the Rapid truck factory.  Link: G.M.C. Truck Catalog 

In this photo we see a fully decked out 1906 Rapid truck that has just climbed Pikes Peak. The red arrow shows the bulb horn installed, just as it is in the photo on Division street in front of the shipping dock. The yellow arrow shows the radiator fill spout that is also visible on the truck at Buick in 1910.  Link: Interesting Buick trucks.