Repainted IC SD40-3 6256 leads a T-bird south through Iron Junction.

A loaded T-bird heads south toward the United Taconite Fairlane Plant.

One of the last T-bird runs of 2017 bring with it bitter cold temperatures. The overnight night low was a cool -27 F but the daylight sun brought the air temp up a bit to -15 for this shot.

A break in the clouds lights up CN 2112 on a T-bird heading south toward the Utac processing plant.

CN 2112 leads a raw ore train from Largo to Fairlane or from Cleveland Cliffs Thunderbird mine doen to the plant where this rock will be turned into taconite pellets for the steel industry.

Under the pending darkness and with light snow falling, an anniversary pair of C40-8's slog 119 ore empties back to the mine from the plant.

After almost a yearlong shutdown due to soft demand in the iron ore markets, United Taconite has been restarted and so too have the T-Bird trains which shuttle the taconite rock from the mine to t... (more)

DMIR 403 leads cars of taconite rock towards the United Taconite Fairlane plant in Forbes, MN nearly completing the 10 mile trip from the mine near Eveleth, MN. The plant, once owned by the Ford ... (more)

Classic searchlight signals and classic Missabe maroon as DMIR 403 rolls south through Iron Jct. with it's train in tow.

With favorable signals, DMIR 403 takes the light and proceeds to get it's train of crude ore rock from the coarse crusher down to the processing plant to keep United Taconite humming along and mak... (more)

When DMIR 403 leads a train the foam usually comes out of the woodwork to document the occasion. Here is DMIR 403, the last maroon Missabe tunnel motor on the vast CN roster, leading a T-Bird cru... (more)

A matched pair of C40-8's in the anniversary edition paint scheme rolls through the classic searchlight signals at Wolf as they move rock from the Thunderbird mine to the Fairlane plant of United ... (more)

A crude ore train dumps at the Eveleth Taconite plant on a bitter cold day (-37F was the low, -14F was the high).

The Keenan Road Switch heads north on the far track as a T-Bird rolls through Iron Junction headed for Fairlane.

The last raw ore train to load at Evtac's Thunderbird North mine before the operation closed. Fortunately it would reopen at the end of 2003 under new ownership and continues to be a big shipper f... (more)