The blue hour on National Train Day with the 4-8-4 Milwaukee Road 261 in Duluth , MN.

A relief crew arrives by van to take these pellet loads back to Proctor, MN while a T-Bird train inches up along side to illuminate the train so the new crew can release the handbrakes before take... (more)

DM&IR 403 has already gone by heading towards Two Harbors with steaming taconite pellets and the F.R.E.D. is following along in it's tracks.

It's almost midnight and a light fog/rain/drizzle mix is in the air as a pair of signals protect the CN Iron Range Sub. at M.P. 66.3. In all types of weather, night or day they do their job.

These signals came online in 1976 with the expansion of mining at the Thunderbird South pit of what was then called Eveleth Mines (now United taconite). The signals went dark when the pit ceased ... (more)

A full moon illuminates the landscape and signals at S. Fairlane on the CN Missabe Sub. at 2330.

The two Northern Pacific inspired GP9's that serve the St. Croix Valley Railroad sit outside the office on a cold February night.

Taconite and Timber, the major industries of northern Minnesota. A still steaming pellet train from Hibbing Taconite to Allouez, WI. rolls down the BNSF Lakes Sub which passes through Cloquet, MN... (more)

It's the last day of 2012 and it's cold out here. With the temperature near the zero mark, the Rapids Local sets out a cut of cars under the massive Sappi mill in Cloquet, MN before they head off... (more)

Former Erie Mining and later LTV Steel Alco RS-11 #7209 sits next to the former Missabe RR's Hinsdale branch (which ran to Ely, MN) waiting for movement to it's new owner, Mesabi Nugget, which bou... (more)

A T-Bird train carring raw ore from the mine towards the plant crosses over the yet unfrozen St. Louis river during a snowfall.

Erie Mining/LTV Steel owned three Alco C420’s. Number 7222 was delivered as # 602 in 1965 and in 1991 was assigned to the Hoyt Lakes plant site where it worked crude ore trains hauling rock from t... (more)

Former Erie Mining and later LTV Steel Alco RS-11 #7209 sits under the Hinsdale bridge and next to the former Missabe RR's Hinsdale branch waiting for movement to it's new owner, Mesabi Nugget, wh... (more)

Looking more like the bottom of a bird cage than one of the once mighty Erie Mining/ LTV Steel EMD built F units, EMCO 4214 sits in the weeds in a small three track yard on Cliffs Erie property wa... (more)

One of the former Erie Mining Company F9(A) units and three B units (#4223, 4225 and 4224) now owned by Cliffs Erie sit along trackage that was once used to serve the massive pellet plant ( which... (more)