The nearby detector broadcasts "3-9-F" for temperature, and the calm morning air requires a hoodie. Fall is in the air in the Minnesotan Northwoods and it's only the end of August and the flakes will soon be flying. A pair of SD40-types resonate the cool air with their 645 music and a headlight pierces through the ground fog as the sound of prime movers is drowned out by a fouled Nathan. The engines pass in a fury of sound and smoke at track speed and the steel wheels on steel rails is deafening. If you've ever been to the Iron Range, you'll know the sound. The equipment is tired and the rails are beat up. 68 ore cars pass by in a blink of an eye, and the gates at the crossing I'm standing at go back up. The fouled Nathan continues to blow in the distance as the 645's work down to idle for the Cloquet River Valley and eventually the sound of Minnesota waking up drowns out the train.
It's the last hoorah for these EMD vets. Replacement power is on the way and it's going to change the way railroading is done on the former Missabe. But until the first locomotive shows up, the 645's will continue to sing their song hauling ore through the Northwoods.
Landscape photography is difficult due to the challenge of combining good light and good scenery. Good railroad photography enters another level of complexity since it requires the first two while there is a train in view.
A continuously growing album of photos that IMHO reveal the awesome and seldom-seen beauty of the railroad world from the dimming of day to dawn's early light! From dusk to dawn, trains roll on! (I'm still finding gems of sunset-to-sunrise surprises!)
