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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