A few miles into the trip from United Taconite back to Proctor, MN the sun makes a quick appearance on BLE 900 before ducking back into the overcast sky.
After loading their train, BLE 900 takes the signals out of the yard at United Taconite to enter the CN Missabe Sub for the trip back to Proctor, MN.
Iron ore loads for Proctor/Duluth catch some of the final rays of the day heading south on CN's Missabe Sub near Zim, MN.
After taking about 18 hours to load their train, BLE SD40T-3 900, IC SD40-3 6253 and CN SD40u 6006 head south on the Missabe Sub. While loading at Fairlane, something let go at the load out causin... (more)
A quad pack of EMD's sound nice as they race by.
DMIR 403 shoves back to it's train of empty taconite cars to tie on and head north for loading at Cliffs Natural Resources owned United Taconite, BLE 900 and DMIR 211 pull cars and shove cars in ... (more)
It's daybreak on a very cold morning and the fresh baked taconite pellets interact with that wind whipped cold air as the train continues south to Two Harbors.
It's Christmas morning at 0800 and the air temperature is -19 degrees with a wind that is whipping about 20 mph out of the north making it feel like -40 degrees out here yet the men and women that... (more)
B&LE 900, painted in CN colors, leads two other units toward the Lakehead Storage Facility to pick up a cut of ore cars filled with limestone, which is being delivered by the Laker Joseph L. Block... (more)
Excitement turned to disappointment when Engineer Schultz and crew, instead of heading down Proctor Hill in great light with taconite loads, instead cut the power off and went to grab empties for ... (more)
Ore empties slow down approaching the wye.
Empty tac cars make their way east behind a recently repainted BLE 900
BLE 900 leads it's train back north from Two Harbors to U.S. Steel Minntac to reload with taconite pellets.
A quartet of EMD SD40s lead this empty taconite train west through Biwabik before returning to Minntac for a fresh load of pellets bound for Two Harbors.
The northbound empties have just cleared the tail end of the still steaming southbound loads after a rolling meet at Jones on the CN Iron Range sub.
