Is that Henry Ford or Thomas Edison getting on the Train?

The first thing I notice when I look at the picture of the locomotive on this post card, is how large, and how unusually shaped the smoke stack is. The train locomotive pictured on the front of this post card is what they call

an “American” type of locomotive in the Whyte Classification nomenclature. This one is a wood-buring locomotive. I know this is true because of 1) the load of wood behind the locomotive in the tender and, 2) the shape of the smoke stack. I think this locomotive is one of the types of locomotives that many people think of when they hear “steam locomotive”. The website: https://steamlocomotive.com/locobase.php?country=USA&wheel=4-4-0 tells us that “the locomotive was widely used in North America during the 1800's. This wheel arrangement was well suited to the grades and curvature of the railroad of that time. Around 25,000 4-4-0 locomotives were built by companies including Rogers, Baldwin, Cooke and Mason.” The website also includes a listing of a) all the railroad companies that used 4-4-0 locomotives and b) where all the surviving locomotives can be found – whether on display or being used. This particular 4-4-0 is sitting at the Smith Creek Station in Greenfield Village, near Dearborn, Michigan. Today, Dearborn is home to the Ford Motor Company and Henry Ford actually has a connection to this station! The following information (the picture is from the second website) was taken from these two websites: https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/artifact/49722#slide=gs-218677 http://www.michiganrailroads.com The Smiths Creek Depot stood on the Grand Trunk Western Railway, about ten miles southwest of Port Huron, Michigan. The railroad station was the center of 19th century small-town life. More than a place to catch a train, the depot was where customers sent and received packages and telegrams, caught up on the latest news, and shared gossip. The station was built in 1858 by the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada. Smith's Creek was settled about 1861 and was the county seat of St. Clair county from 1869 to 1871.

Smith's Creek was a station stop on the Grand Trunk Western (GTW) line from Port Huron to West Detroit. As a boy, Thomas Edison operated a concession on GTW trains from here including a printed newspaper. Later, Henry Ford moved the Smith's Creek depot to historic Greenfield Village in Edison's honor. The railroad built a new depot in 1929 to replace it. Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum is a historical village created by Henry Ford in the 1920's and opened in 1933 in west Dearborn. The Village has a connection on the Michigan Central main line (Detroit to Chicago) about 1 mile west of the Southfield expressway. The Village has a standard-gauge railroad loop which is about 1.5 miles long which pulls tourists around the facility from Smith's Creek Station. The line also has period semaphore signaling installed, as well as a working roundhouse and water tower.

This post card is what is called a "Real Photo Post Card". It is a picture that taken from a camera and transferred (printed) directly to the post card. It was published by Artcraft Photo Company of East Rutherford, New Jersey. In my mind, I have made a connection between East Rutherford and Thomas Edison. Menlo Park, NJ is only 30 miles from East Rutherford. It would certainly be interesting to know if there is a connection among Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and the owner of Artcraft Photo Company.....