Save the Southern Michigan Railroad Society

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The little railroad that could.

In 1982, three 14-year-old boys saw their local railroad being abandoned, and they decided to stop it - by buying the line. They convinced adults to form a nonprofit organization, the rail company gave them a good deal, and the race was on to pay the mortgage and establish "Michigan's heritage railroad."

The Southern Michigan Railroad doesn't run a wine train or a murder-mystery train. It runs a historic train. It owns Michigan's oldest branch-line railroad, the Clinton branch. And it runs trains with historic equipment that actually ran on the line. It is a nonprofit, all-volunteer public charity, working to build the best railway museum in Michigan.

But several adjacent landowners have obvious interest in taking the group's land. They have made several plays to seize the land, interfere with the charity's operation, extort the charity into bargaining away its property, or just plain run it bankrupt. So far, they have directly caused the organization over $50,000 in direct "cash out of pocket" costs. There is no sign of this harassment abating. You need to know the truth about this.

This website is not affiliated with SMRS or any other organization.

Published by Robert MacDowell
236 West Portal Ave #224
San Francisco, CA 94127

By manner of information, but not affiliation, Robert MacDowell is a volunteer, ~~board member and president~~ of the Western Railway Museum. Before moving to California in 1992, I was very active at SMRS for 7 years, and for 3 of those years was on the board. I was only a simple member, not involved in SMRS management, during the time of the SMRS takeover attempt. I ran for SMRS board, won in the 2009 election and was seated on April 10, 2010. Why this site went away, and returned.

Word of the day: Sewer Service

"Sewer service" is when a person swears he properly served (delivered) court documents to the opposing party, but in fact, he threw them in the sewer. The victim doesn't know he has a court date so he doesn't show up, which tends to go really well for the perpetrator. It can be a lazy process server who doesn't want to chase you down, or a debt collector who lets it happen on a massive scale. Their victims suddenly find their bank account emptied or a lien on their home because of a lawsuit they didn't even know about, and they must work much harder to unwind all that. Improper service is a serious offense against the court.

Of course it's mighty hard to prove. It's the defendant's word against the plaintiff AND the server, and reputation is everything. The crooks above were also serving individual citizens, not attorneys. Maybe they couldn't find a guy with a busy life... but to not find his lawyer? Impossible. They're open 9-5 for that very reason!

And once lawsuits are underway, service gets a little more informal. They don't necessarily have to send a process server to "throw papers at you" as my lawyer puts it. But still, service has to happen, and the party has to swear they served the other.

To me, that just seems like a big hole in the system. Given that it's in the partisan's advantage to do sewer service... given that it's fairly hard to catch them at it... shouldn't some neutral party be responsible for serving notices? In some jurisdictions, a third party is mandatory. That's a start. But still, clearly, not enough. Maybe the court should dictate which process server to use, at random, to bust the scam of using a sewer-server specifically because he doesn't serve.

Anyway, my attorney and I were shocked to discover we have an appeals court date three weeks hence in the Dobronski case. The telling fact is that we found out so late, and I didn't receive any notice, and my lawyer says he didn't receive any either. If we hadn't found out on our own, we would have missed it, and the matter would have been decided without our presenting arguments. In front of a court annoyed that we didn't show up.

The way my lawyer tells it, Dobronski was responsible for noticing us. I don't know about that, but I didn't get anything, and he would have told me if he got anything. *shrug* Like I say, hard to prove.

Elections: Mission accomplished! Overwhelming majority. IN: Mel Dickerson, Clifford Buehrer, Chuck Fannin. Good Bylaws: PASSED.

Lawsuit: SMRS and others settle and are out. MacDowell wins legal fees, Dobronski appeals.

Now we make SMRS great!

400 ties a year for 10 years does this.

How? Track machines make the impossible -- easy. This track gang is 4-5 volunteers and they insert 50 ties a day. That does not include maintaining the track machines, bringing ties out to the work, or picking up tie butts. They budget about $25,000 for buying and maintaining track machines. For that we need money.

Finding the Money

Can you find $50,000/year in this picture? (hint: average fare is about $10.)

What happened in 1991? Why is the blue bar so much lower than the red? The red is 24 trains in October. The blue is 60+ trains over 5 months.

You are seeing the power of publicity. Early on, SMRS had relied on volunteer publicity, which covered the whole summer, and Fall Color Tours benefited as a side-effect. SMRS converted mostly to paid advertising (newspaper ads). Advertising 1 month was a lot cheaper than advertising 5. So the next budget crunch, they cut the slower 5 months and focused on the hottest 1 month. That kept Fall Color Tours happening, but the summer got slower yet.

But this justified the decision! So they did it more. It took only 2 years for summer service to drop 75% and it has never recovered.

Fixable? Perhaps. There is no reason to believe Fall Color Tours will grow much beyond their 22-year levels. However the "lost summer" is a huge area of opportunity.

Entertaining New Ideas

Next, we need to find some way to reduce the friction at which SMRS entertains new ideas. As you can plainly see from the publicity chart, the organization settled into patterns of thinking. The belief "fall color tours must be promoted above summer service" has become a sacred cow.

Politically speaking, killing a sacred cow is a bloodbath.

I got reinvolved in SMRS in 2009. As an outsider I saw dozens of these "sacred cows" that SMRS was committed to, and I wasn't sure they served the organization. Of course I said so. But I was hardly the first to say the same. So what happened to all the others? Why did none of them have any effect on the organization? Either they were convinced to buy into the sacred cow... or they left. Why would they leave? Because challenging these ideas is a bloodbath. SMRS management not only controls the organization by doing the actual work, they are good fighters to boot. My own battle have cost me dearly in reputation within the organization.

Everybody wants change, but nobody wants to change anything.

To be clear, this is not a question of "evil management". Nothing of the sort. This is commonplace with ALL organizations. Everywhere. Universally.

Court dismisses MacDowell, calls frivolous, awards sanctions.

The case was finally transferred to Lenawee court. There, Dobronski filed this Response which stated more boldly some assertions made earlier.
MacDowell and his attorney made this this Reply again requesting summary dismissal with sanctions, and again saying no, MacDowell is not a Michigan resident nor an SMRS director, not by any stretch of the imagination.
The judge said no matter if he's a resident, the case should have been filed in Lenawee, the action was frivolous, the judge dismissed MacDowell and awarded reasonable legal fees to MacDowell.
The other parties had also filed for dismissal, however 21 days must elapse, and that time had not elapsed yet.
Article in the newspaper about this...

Dobronski's action in Wayne court, 'broomed' to Lenawee court.

The Wayne judge threw the entire defamation case over to Lenawee court, citing the "Lenawee jurisdiction" clause in the non-disparagement agreement. The case is alive and well, because some parties filed "answers" that demand things from Dobronski, so he can't just fail to refile. The Wayne judge also lumped all defendants together, and did not separate out-of-state defendants who were not involved in governance of SMRS.