Joel Dinda's photos with the keyword: missabe

CN's locked up the viewing tower at the parking lot overlooking Missabe's Duluth Docks. Boo. Hiss. Bah. Rats. And a long string of bad words.

Dock One, on the right, is a pure gravity dock, where trains drop the ore (Taconite pellets, nowadays) into big containers (pockets) and the ships are loaded by opening chutes and letting gravity pull the ore into the boat. Dock Two is a gravity dock on the near side, but a conveyor-driven shiploader on the far side. The thousand foot ships necessarily load at the shiploader, as the gravity docks aren't able to properly balance the loads on the wider vessels. Taken from the lighthouse parking lot. ====================== Although this photograph's fairly sharp, it's unexpectedly grainy, perhaps because of the weather. Looks kinda like I scanned a postcard....

Better large. Mountain Iron, Minnesota, has a viewing tower which overlooks the Mountain Iron, Minnesota Taconite (MinnTac), and Wacotah mines. Mountain Iron was the original Mesabi Range mine. MinnTac was perhaps the last great mine on The Range. Wacotah, as you can see, has become a rather pretty lake. And there's an amazing amount of gear in this picture. Shot August, 1992, with a panoramic point-n-shoot.

Taken in August of 1992 on a trip from Duluth to Mountain Iron and back. The excursion was to celebrate the centennial of the founding of Mountain Iron , and many of the passengers had Merritt family connections. We attended as members of the Missabe Railroad Historical Society . Mountain Iron threw a nice party. I'm glad I went.

At the Cliffs-Erie complex, Hoyt Lakes, Minnesota, during last month's convention of the Missabe Railroad Historical Society.

This is the crusher building at LTV's large open pit mine near Hoyt Lakes, Minnesota--the place goes by a variety of (historical) names, the most recent of which is Cliffs-Erie (Cliffs being the mine's manager; Erie being the mine's name). The Hoyt Lakes plant is the oldest taconite processing plant in existence, dating from the mid-1950s. The processing plant's been optioned to Polymet; the rest of the complex is available.... This photo really doesn't give a proper perspective; that building would be huge in any setting. Taken during a tour with the Missabe Railroad Historical Society.

One last Two Harbors photograph, for now. I have many more from this visit, and will post them at a later date. This is the usual view of the harbor at Two Harbors, Minnesota. The Duluth, Missabe, and Iron Range docks dominate the view. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100. 1990.

One last look at Duluth, Missabe, and Iron Range locomotive 314 at Two Harbors, Minnesota, in 1990. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100

Duluth, Missabe, and Iron Range locomotive 314 at Two Harbors, Minnesota, in August of 1990. Taken on a yard visit with the Missabe Railroad Historical Society. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100

Detail view of the front truck on DMIR 314. Two Harbors, Minnesota, August 1990. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100

Aother view of Missabe SD-M 314 , at Two Harbors, Minnesota. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100. 1990.

This photo was doubtless intended to be of that crane. It really didn't turn out too well, even after I cropped out a couple distractions. But it gives some sense of the scale of the yard, and that set of railfans facing every-which-way illustrates something about the outing. Our day at Two Harbors yard was an activity of the Missabe Railroad Historical Society . There were about fifty of us, and I got some terrific photographs. Railfans all carry cameras, and we're all accustomed to sharing photographic opportunities. As a group, we're far more aware of other photographers than your average tourist, and make conscious efforts to stay out of other shooters' lines of fire. With such a large group in a relatively small area, that makes for an interesting dynamic.... August, 1990; Minolta Freedom 100.

DMIR SD-Ms 314 & 312, & SD-38AC 215, and a bunch of their siblings, all ready to work at Two Harbors Yard, in Minnesota's Arrowhead. 1990; taken with my Minolta Freedom 100. I was planning to model 314, and took several detail photos of her. We'll look at those next. Perhaps I'll build that model yet.

Two Harbors, Minnesota; August 1990. Another broad view of the Missabe Road's Two Harbors yard. DMIR's ore jennies were (are?--most likely) lashed together in sets of four (called "mini-quads"), which makes it easier to manage them operationally; effectively, what looks like a four-car set is actually one car with sixteen trucks (& four hoppers for carrying ore). Yellow stripes make the divisions obvious. That pile of "dirt" is actually a pile of taconite pellets. The railroad likes to have a stockpile on hand at all times; one reason is that winter's weather makes the railroading and mining difficult long before the shippers quit running ore carriers on the Lakes. Odd, but true; not so true that either completely stops, though. In the distance, the ore docks (One, Two, and the remains of Six) extend far into Lake Superior. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100

Duluth, Missabe, and Iron Range locomotive 215, an EMD SD-38-2 acquired from sister road Bessemer and Lake Erie in 1980. Apparently this locomotive ran around in the Bessemer's orange paint scheme for quite a while, since it was nicknamed "The Pumpkin." By 1990, when this photo was taken, it was in Missabe's standard livery. I just love that paint job. It takes a hefty locomotive to control a train of iron ore moving down the hill to Duluth or Two Harbors, so the DMIR employed EMD SDs. The details changed over time, though the SD-9s and SD-18s lasted pretty much forever. The six-wheel power trucks were an important part of the road's identity, back before they became common on modern motive power. That's our friend 312 on the left.

That's what Missabe did. Folks call the dirt "ore," but it's dirt all the same. Still what they haul, actually, but now they're a division of CN. Locomotive 312 , again; up close and personal. Shot with m' Freedom 100; 1990 at Two Harbors, Minnesota.

Best LARGE! DMIR 307, ready to push around a string of ore jennies at Two Harbors yard in August of 1990. She attracted a bunch of folks with cameras; I see seven, not counting m'self and anyone else who was up on the hill with me. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100

312 was originally DMIR 181, an SD-18 built by GM's Electromotive Division in 1960; she was rebuilt in 1989 into what the Missabe Road called an SD-M and renumbered at that time. The most obvious mark of an SD-M conversion was the low nose; all SD-9s & SD-18s arrived online as high nose locomotives. The other identifiable locomotives in this photo are 314--a similar backstory, and you'll see more of her--and 203, an SD38AC. The 312 was scrapped in 2002. Yeah, I know this set of notes jargon-infested. It's that railfan thing . --------------------- I plan to show a couple more photos of this loco before we do some more exploring around Two Harbors Yard.... Shot with my Minolta Freedom 100 in 1990; outing with the Missabe Railroad Historical Society.