With a short brake in the clouds, we catch Duluth Missabe and Iron Range, DM&IR SD40-3 414 - 412, with a load of taconite heading to Two Harbors docks about to enter Iron Juction, Minnesota. Septe... (more)
EMD SD40-3 tunnel motors 414 and 403 are southbound towards Two Harbors with a taconite train.
Three 400-series Tunnel Motors move a Minntac empty north for loading. Judging by the cab roof of 414, it appears to have been loaded already.
The twice-weekly MRF charges north with hoppers filled with bentonite clay for the mines.
Headed for Proctor with 48 empties in the late afternoon sun.
The afternoon Proctor Roadswitch heads back to Proctor with a short 48-car train of empty ore cars.
DMIR 414 departs Fairlane with 136 loads.
Lots of steam from the pellets on this cold +5F morning.
With one engine dead, this loaded ore train is down to 5 mph as it crests the grade at Saginaw.
Loaded ore train heading south towards Proctor passes the abandoned depot at Saginaw.
Loaded ore train heads south towards Proctor after meeting an empty northbound train at South Alborn.
The switch broom will get used when this train departs the siding.
A loaded pellet train departs United Taconite's Fairlane plant under bone chilling conditions (-10F, -35 windchill)
A loaded pellet train waits for a crude taconite train to enter the Fairlane processing plant.
Backlighting highlights the exhaust plume as an empty ore train departs Proctor Yard on a bitter cold morning (-18F, -40F windchill).