Lots of history tied together here in a pretty cool way. The thousand foot Mesabi Miner was named to honor the people of the Mesabi Iron Range who had encouraged the development of the mining industry in Minnesota. The former Duluth Missabe and Iron Range Ry. #193 served on the iron range from 1963 until her retirement in the late 1990's when she was donated to the Lake Superior Railroad Museum. The #193 has just pulled a 123 car coal train 26 miles out of storage and now heads for a well deserved rest. Not much can make a locomotive look small but this sure does it! Also of note the locomotive engineer has more than 5 decades running ore trains on the Great Northern, Burlington Northern and BNSF which ties into the fact that the Mesabi Miner became the first "1,000 footer" to load at Superior's Burlington Northern Dock # 5 when a record 54,321 gross tons (55,194 mt) of iron ore was loaded on board on June 14, 1977 as its first load.
