BLE duo pulling 114 cars of taconite rock from the mine heading towards the plant about 10 miles away on a cold spring morning.

BLE 906 leads the L567 (Proctor to Ranier) freight north on the Missabe sub with a planned stop at Keenan yard shortly to drop off the trailing unit and do some work before continuing onward.

A little fog in the air yet as BLE 906 is passing over the spring melt and rain swollen St. Louis River on the way to the United Taconite plant.

Pulling off the Missabe sub and onto the Fairlane leg heading onto the Cleveland-Cliffs United Taconite property with 114 loads of rock pulled by a BLE duo.

Staged and ready. BLE 906 waits patiently for the green light from the mine before shoving under the coarse crusher to load.

About a half hour out from Proctor leading L568 (Ranier to Proctor) with a mixed freight, BLE 906 looks good in the low winter light on a clear afternoon.

BLE 906 and DMIR 409 pause and wait for clearance from the mine operations before they shove under the coarse crusher loadout and begin the process of loading.

BLE 906 departs out of Fairlane with a T-bird.

B&LE 906 leads a T bird North through Iron Junction. The BLE 909 had a traction motor fire earlier in the day so the duo was split up as a result. Still cool seeing two tunnel motors elephant styl... (more)

After coming down from Ranier, MN L568 shoves into CN's Keenan yard to do some planned work. When the setouts and pickups are done, it's off to Proctor, MN.

After a quick crew change it was time to get the train back underway. The old girls were barking.

A pleasant afternoon finds two BLE locomotives and train of ore cars rounding the bend south of Iron Jct. about to duck under the Highway 37 overpass heading along the Missabe sub.

BLE sisters have their train loaded out and taking the light at Largo heading to the Fairlane loop track about ten miles away with taconite bearing rock.

How cool is this in 2022. BLE 906 and sister BLE 909 bring taconite rock loads south and meet up with DMIR 404 and sister DMIR 406 bringing the empties north along the CN Missabe sub.

BLE 906 and sister BLE 909 continue to load rock at United Taconite's Thunderbird mine coarse crusher while a production truck rumbles by on its way to feed the crusher more material.