How on earth can one link the economic
downturn, trainspotting and my birthday? If you are paying attention
I'll explain. Due to the recession Wisconsin State Power has found
itself with an excess of coal cars for bringing coal from the Powder
river basin to Superior. By arrangement with the North Shore Scenic
Railroad some of these surplus cars are being stored on the NSSR near
Two Harbors. One storage movement of these cars was to take place on
March 20th - my birthday.
Friday morning arrived and we left hme about 10:30. A
little later than I wanted but not to worry we'd still be in Duluth by
12:30. As we arrived in Duluth I looked around for a string of 60 coal
cars there were none to be seen. The train had left! I had so wanted to
grab a shot like this one.
We grabbed a bite of lunch at Grandma's and
decided to head up the North Shore scenic highway to see if there was
anything to be seen. We drove on and on and then just as we got to
Larsmont there it was ex-DMIR 194 and SOO 700 pushing the cut of 60
cars. We sped past it and I jumped out at the first available level
crossing* to get a picture.
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The chase
was on! The train wasn't going too fast so we quickly hauled it in.
There was a reason it wasn't travelling too fast, it was stopping. For
we quickly arrived at the rest of the stored cars. We turned around and
came back to the train to get some more pictures |
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Aa you can see the
snow was really starting to come down now...
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After the
crew had secured the train they headed for home and we decided to chase
it. We caught it at Knife River,
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Crossing a bridge
just south of
Old Toms Logging camp
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and another one just
south of Palmers siding
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After Palmers the
line runs away
from the road so I decided to head back into Duluth and grab some shots
at the Duluth Steam plant. We easily beat the locos back and even had
time to fill the car up with petrol before settling into the car park
by the steam plant. A few minutes later with the snow really coming
down
the two locos arrived and I got a couple of last shots as they arrived
and pulled away
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All in all
it was a lot of fun
and a great way to spend a Birthday even if the weather wasn't great.
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*
grade crossing
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