After a hard trip busting drifts and breaking trail during a late season snowstorm coming back from Taconite Harbor, Erie Mining Company F9(A) #4210 and three (B) units park off to the side of the... (more)

It's the spring of 2013 and one of two remaining Erie Mining, LTV Mining and now Cliffs Erie Mining F9(A) units still on the property sits along with Erie Mining C420 #7222 in a small yard near wh... (more)

CN "Test Track Evaluations Systems" on the former Missabe Hinsdale branch.

CN Inspection car #1501 rides down the CN Hinsdale branch passing under the Erie Mining.

With the snow/rain mix under some dark and dreary weather outside, the cab interior of former Erie Mining Company F9(A) 4214 looks a little rough and about the same as the weather outside, the r... (more)

A trio of CN tunnel motors head through Hoyt Lakes with a loaded pellet train.

A pair of mine run RS-11s handle a train for loading of iron ore (taconite). The massive LTV pellet plant and crusher are in the distance as well as a pair of GP38s on the hill. This operation was... (more)

An F9A leads an interesting road set on ore loads departing the mine for Taconite Harbor. The F9A is preserved and operational today at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum in Duluth.

Former NP RS-11 905 (BN 4185) was purchased in 1988 as a parts source and by 2000 it had done its part to keep the LTV RS-11 fleet running and was about to be scrapped. Two other BN RS-11s were al... (more)

This is the last switch stand mainline crews would see from the cab before departing (or the first switch returning) and running the 72.2 mile mainline through the forests of northern Minnesota to... (more)

In the mid-1990s the big U.S. Steel roads swapped a number of units with the Missabe getting SD38s from the B&LE and EJ&E and those roads receiving older DM&IR SD-Ms and SD18/SD9s. The "new" DM&IR... (more)

The control stand of former EMCO/LTV Steel Alco 7222 complete with banana stickers and a ominous calendar from 2001 the year the mine closed. The 7222 (i.e EMCO 602, EMCO 352) was assigned to min... (more)

Shortly after LTV announced it was closing its mine and pellet plant in northern Minnesota an employee spray painted "For Sale" on one of the ore cars. Unfortunately a sale would never come and 14... (more)

During the final full year of operation for LTV Steel Mining Company a loaded mine train behind a pair of Alcos departs the loadout for the crusher while a shorter empty train waits its turn. This... (more)

A dark and gloomy afternoon with rain and fog seems fitting as a IC death star leads 140 empty cars bound for U.S. Steel Minntac to load taconite pellets.