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User / Dave Blaze Rail Photography
David Blazejewski / 10,006 items

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After wrapping up my chase of the Union Pacific at Itasca then catching CN L564 I headed off in search of BNSF action for the afternoon and boy did they deliver flushing 4 westbound trains out of Superior on the Lakes Sub in the span of an hour. Throw in a work train and an opposing westbound coal train and I just couldn't get them all!

The BNSF is the other behemoth in the Twin Ports owing to it's Great Northern and Northern Pacific legacy. In addition to countless unit coal and grain trains and a healthy manifest business the BNSF also serves the Iron Ore trade through its ex GN ore dock at Allouez. They generally run 2 to 3 trains in a 24 hr period serving Cleveland-Cliffs Hibbing Taconite plant (Hibtac) and US Steel's Keewatin Taconite plant (Keetac) each of which ship out around 6 million tons of iron ore pellets a year.

Not as busy and nowhere near as popular as CN's ex Missabe ore operations, most visiting fans eschew BNSF's ore trains. Though they use run of the mill power they are still a unique operation by Class 1 standards with their captive fleet of ore gons many of which are still adorned with large Burlington Northern logos.

After the work train cleared up in the remains of the old Carlton Yard on the Brainerd Sub (ex NP) side the railroad let loose and they fleeted three westbounds in perfect light in the span of 35 min...in fact there was a fourth that came through here but I missed it since I moved on to Cloquet and that fourth train was an empty coal that swung west here and didn't follow the other three north. Here again is the UALLBRM2 25T with 180 empty ore hoppers for Hibtac crusing through the interlocking at West Chub Lake, the opposite end of the 9700 ft controlled siding occupied by that empty coal train.

The train is at MP 35 on the Lakes Sub which they will continue on thru Cloquet to Brookston twenty miles away where they will swing north onto the Casco Sub and head up to Kelly Lake Yard in the Iron Range. The empty Keetac train 20 minutes behind them will take the same route, and then the Rapids Local will chase them west with work in Cloquet before continuing out the Lakes Sub to their namesake destination of Grand Rapids.

Historically the trackage they are operating on is former Great Northern dating to 1898 when predecessor Duluth, Superior and Western built from Cloquet to Superior and abandoned their original line from the former to Duluth. However Carlton was known much more as an NP town in days of old, and a large sign a mile or so behind me still proudly proclaims the spot where on February 15, 1870 groundbreaking took place for the Northern Pacific Railroad. Thirteen years later the NP would be completed (sort of by way of the Oregon, Railway and Navigation along the Columbia River from Pasco) as the second transcontinental railroad (though it would be another five years until they possessed their own route to Puget Sound at Tacoma by way of Stampede Pass).

As noteworthy as all that is, Carlton was also on the route of Jay Cooke's Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad which was the first railroad to enter Duluth when it was completed north from St. Paul in 1870. Later reorganized as the St. Paul and Duluth it would ultimately be purchased by the NP in 1900. Additionally in 1879 the St.P&D built a branch from Carlton to Cloquet and then in 1882 the NP would push a line east from Carlton to Superior.

So all told by 1898 the NP had lines in five directions here in Carlton all of which were crossed by the GN! These routes would remain largely intact until the Burlington Northern merger of 1970 and then rationalization would come quickly over the next decade, such that today instead of lines radiating in seven directions trains now only travel in three. The track peeling off in the foreground is the original NP mainline to the west and the only ex NP route still intact as modern day BNSF's Brainerd Sub. The rail served industry in the background uses a short stub of what was once the pioneering LS&M route to Thomson and then down along the St. Louis River into Duluth.

Carlton, Minnesota
Thursday September 12, 2024

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Here is a simple documentary photo just going into the trip journal before moving on. After shooting the pair of empty BNSF taconite trains stacked up at 15.9 I headed toward Carlton for the classic afternoon shots. Just west of the Leimer Road crossing at MP 33 on BNSF's ex Great Northern Lakea Sub mainline I found this coal train tied down at the east end of the 9700 ft Chub Lake Siding. The pair of EMD SD70ACEs are on the point of train CSCMSUD1 55A a loaded coal train from Spring Creek Mine, Montana to MERC in Superior.

Carlton County, Minnesota
Thursday September 12, 2024

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After wrapping up my chase of the Union Pacific at Itasca then catching CN L564 I headed off in search of BNSF action for the afternoon and boy did they deliver flushing 4 westbound trains out of Superior on the Lakes Sub in the span of an hour. Throw in a work train and an opposing westbound coal train and I just couldn't get them all!

The BNSF is the other behemoth in the Twin Ports owing to it's Great Northern and Northern Pacific legacy. In addition to countless unit coal and grain trains and a healthy manifest business the BNSF also serves the Iron Ore trade through its ex GN ore dock at Allouez. They generally run 2 to 3 trains in a 24 hr period serving Cleveland-Cliffs Hibbing Taconite plant (Hibtac) and US Steel's Keewatin Taconite plant (Keetac) each of which ship out around 6 million tons of iron ore pellets a year.

Not as busy and nowhere near as popular as CN's ex Missabe ore operations, most visiting fans eschew BNSF's ore trains. Though they use run of the mill power they are still a unique operation by Class 1 standards with their captive fleet of ore gons many of which are still adorned with large Burlington Northern logos. Here is one such train, UALLKEE2 03T with 180 empties headed for Keetac. They are holding on Main 1 on BNSF's Lakes Sub (ex Great Northern) at MP 13.9 just east of the Mertes Road grade crossing with their train strung back out around the curve through the junction at Boylston. They are stacked up behind the UALLBRM2 25T for Hibtac holding at MP 15.9 as seen here: flic.kr/p/2qu4ao1

Once the work train clears up in Carlton Yard these two will fleet west to Brookston then hang a right onto the Casco Sub to head up to Kelly Lake Yard in the Iron Range, and right on their tail will be the L-TWI620 'Rapids Turn' which will continue west on the Lakes Sub to Grand Rapids.

Unincorporated Boylston
Town of Superior, Wisconsin
Thursday September 12, 2024

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For Monochrome Monday here's another from this chase of Union Pacific transfer job Y-IT61 (I believe) returning home to the ex Chicago and Northwestern Itasca Yard in far eastern Superior with UP 506 (rebuilt GP38N originally a GP38-2 blt. Apr. 1974 as UP 2006) and 584 (rebuilt GP38N originally a GP38-2 blt. May 1980 as SP 4821) and five cars in tow picked up from CPKC Rices Point Yard on their bi-weekly trip to Duluth. The train is on UP's owned island trackage as they work east across town seen here thumping over the BNSF diamond at about UP milepost 62.7 (as measured from Trego, WI)

The UP's continued operation into Duluth proper is a legacy of the Chicago and Northwestern which the UP merged out of existence in 1995. Historically the trackage in the Twin Ports belonged to Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway a 1700 mile Class 1 which was controlled by the CNW from 1883 until officially being leased in 1957 and then merged out of existence in 1972. The Omaha Road, which built this bridge in 1916, had its own yard in Rices Point and passenger depot downtown, though they were accessed from Superior via the NP's Saint Louis Bay Bridge. Today UP's remaining operations in the Twin Ports are an 'island' operation of a dozen or so miles with no UP owned physical connection to the rest of the road's vast system.

This view looks south on BNSFs Hi Line, a historic former Northern Pacific Route to Superior's east end. It exists today primarily to provide BNSF access to the Superior Refinery to the south beyond the UP train and to the isolated former NP east end yards (along the Ashland Line which is abandoned to the east and west) and the Hansen-Mueller Elevators on the old Quebec and Toledo Piers.

Superior, Wisconsin
Thursday September 12, 2024

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For Steam Sunday here is another from my 500 mile long two day chase of this historic trip. The special is seen headed west sweeping through a curve in the south Texas scrubland at about MP 93 on modern day CPKC's Laredo Sub, the former Texas-Mexican Railway mainline.

Running as CPKC train B40B, the tri-national Final Spike special is led by famed CP 2816, the 'Empress', an H1b class 4-6-4 Hudson built by Montreal Locomotive Works in 1930. Orignally retired in 1960 after there decades of pulling CP passenger trains the locomotive was purchased by F. Nelson Blount for preservation as part of his Steamtown collection in Vermont. It later moved with the rest of the collection to Scranton until CP purchased it back from the National Park Service in 1998. Returned to service in 2001 she operated until 2012 when E. Hunter Harrison took the reigns at CP. Eight years later Keith Creel (EHH's successor) reversed course and she was fired up for a test run and then a second restoration began which was completed in 2023.

As a way of celebrating the approval and consummation of the Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern Railway merger on April 14, 2023 CPKC is running a tri-nation tour across the length of their newly combined network. The trip began in Calgary on April 24th and will conclude in Mexico City on June 7th before returning home for a total of three months on the road and 9000 miles round trip! To learn much more check out CPKC's official page for the tour here:

www.cpkcr.com/en/community/final-spike-steam-train

Just outside Benavides
Duval County, Texas
Monday May 27, 2024

Tags:   Benavides Texas United States


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