U.P. (Mich.) & N. Minnesota RR Sites

Here is the website of the Quincy Mine in Hancock, MI, on the Keweenaw Peninsula in the UP. There is a lot of copper mining and railroad history there:http://www.quincymine.com/

The Houghton County Museum (and its railroad) is another good place to visit:http://www.houghtonhistory.org/index.html

Thanks!! Jay jay...I have forwarded on those two sites.  And suggested they raid the

AAA, and bookstores for Frommer's guides for the U.P. and Minnesota.  Since there

are railroad books on about every rust spot were they laid two parallel ties, I am

guessing there are books on logging and  mining RR's in the area, too.

If you travel to Duluth, I suggest you go to the Lake Superior Railroad Museum, which is located in downtown Duluth.  One of the items on display is a DM&IR Yellowstone mallet.  The North Shore Scenic Railroad operates out of the same facility and offers train rides up to Two Harbors.

About 90 miles north of Duluth, is the Soudan Mine located in Soudan.  This is an underground iron ore mine, and it is now a Minnesota State Park. Tours are offered daily.  The tour part of the mine is about 2,500 feet below the surface.

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/sta...ound_mine/index.html

You could also travel to Hibbing and Virginia, where there are mine viewing sites from the iron ore mining days.  None of the operating mines in the area have railroads associated with the mining operations.

Thanks, Kirk....I was in Duluth a couple of times quite few years ago, and raided a

local hobby shop for a few AMT cars they had, but had no knowledge of a RR museum

there.  I am forwarding your comments on.

I just got back from the UP.  This area is a wealth of railroading and mining history.  I try to get there as often as I can.

Kirk. Are you saying that the DM&IR is no longer hauling iron ore from the iron range?

If anyone makes it to Virginia, Mn., a trip to Mt. Iron, or what's left of it, should give you a good view of the Minntac plant.

Bruce

The DMIR is now owned by CN.  Yes they are still hauling ore.

In Michigan there are still 2 active iron mines near Marquette being serviced by the LS&I and CN.  Also near Marquette, Kennecott is developing a project called Eagle Mine which will extract Nickel and Copper among other minerals.

Is it actual "Iron ore" or Taconite?

CN/DMIR dock operations in Duluth (and Two Harbors) are now part of CN Worldwide-North America, Bulk Material Services group. The Duluth intermodal facility transloads iron ore, taconite and limestone from railcar to vessel and vice versa. DMIR Dock 6 was built in 1918 as a gravity-feed dock. In 1965, an adjacent pellet storage area was built: Lakehead Storage Facility now covers nearly 45 acres. A 1981 renovation added a conveyor loading system; a receiving hopper was added in the early '90s to handle inbound bulk material vessel cargoes. Iron ore (taconite) pellets are loaded at the dock at up to 10,000 tons per hour.

Back 30 to 50 years ago, several of the iron ore mines operated railroads within their mining pits.  One of the last mining operations that utilized rail operations within the pit was US Steel's Minntac pit located in Mountain Iron.  They converted to truck operation some 25 to 30 years ago.

To my knowledge, there are no active iron ore mines in Minnesota today.  Everything mined today is taconite.  Taconite is a low grade iron ore that is mined.  It is then upgraded to a higher iron content and made into a taconite pellet about the size and shape of a marble.  There are about 6 or 7 active taconite plants operating in Northern Minnesota today.  None of the active taconite mines utilize rail operations within the mines themselves.  Everything is hauled out of the mine utilizing trucks.

After the taconite pellets are produced, they are loaded into rail cars and transported to Lake Superior ports and loaded into vessels.  There are two class I rail operations active today.  CN (previously DM&IR) and the BNSF.  CN has two ports - Duluth and Two Harbors, and BNSF has its only port in Superior, Wisconsin.

Thanks Kirk, I didn't think that iron ore was mined any longer.

Kirk,  Isn't Magnetation up in Keewatin recovering some high grade ore?

There also is an isolated rail line serving a large limestone quarry in the eastern UP.  They use air dump cars to bring the rock down to the crusher and harbor, where it is loaded into lake freighters.  An interesting operation, it's located near Cedarville, MI. There is a viewing area by the highway where you can watch the unloading of the train and loading of the ships.

Another one of these operations is located near Gullivar, MI  (Pt Inland)  but you can't get close.

There are several mine tours in the Central UP and Keweenaw peninsula, plus a National Historic Park at Calumet, MI which focuses on the copper mining industry.

About 10 years ago, when I was working on the ore boats, we picked up a load of brown iron ore in Minnesota. It seems to be a rare thing though these days.  Taconite is a LOT easier to load/unload. 

John

Not quite accurate.  CN also has an active taconite ore dock in Escanaba, MI....on Lake Michigan (former WC nee C&NW) and the Lake Superior & Ishpeming has an active ore dock in Marquette, MI....on Lake Superior.  They both ship from the Marquette Range.

John

Oh yes, a bunch of books.  Check Amazon.com too.

BTW, just south of the UP border - in Laona, Wisconsin, there is a logging museum with an operating steam locomotive.  Also - in Alberta, MI there is a preserved Ford Motor Co lumber camp and mill.

It's beautiful country up there, especially in the Keweenaw, and well worth a trip.

John

Thank you for the updates about the iron range. I grew up in Mt. Iron and my father was an engineer for the DM&IR. But I left the range 30 years ago, and am out of touch.

Bruce

I appreciate all the info, for at my less than handy Barnes and Noble I found only

one travel book on the U.P. (it was informative) and none on Mich. or Minn. in general.

It looks like, due to mosquitos, black flies, and deer ticks (Lyme disease) mid summer is not the time to go.  For  a ghost town fan, there sound to be quite a few abandoned copper and iron mine towns.  This is apparently a large area and a weekend would not touch it and the trip might plan for UP first and Minn. later.  Not much railroad history was addressed in this book...so more homework is needed on

vestiges of past RR history in the area.

There is a lot of scenery and history, old forts, different food (Cornish pasties), etc.

to make it an interesting area to those not train nuts, and might even lift your wife's head from her Nook reading. 

Cheapy motel chains do not seem to cross the bridge, so things may be more Mom and Pop, and costly, and...this can be a plus or a minus.  To really spend big bucks, stay in the Grand Hotel on Mackinack Island (or make a down payment on a new car

for the trip, or save that money to hit northern Minn. later)

For those who are interested in Minnesota's early logging railroads, Frank King published a book in 1981 entitled "Minnesota's Logging Railroads".  Most of the book deals with logging railroads in Northeastern Minnesota, as that is the part of the state where most of the logging was done.  Frank also wrote a book entitled "The Missabe Road" in 1971, which deals with the history of the DM&IR Railroad.  Frank was a personal friend of mine, and he was an avid HO collector and operator.  He passed away several years ago.

The St. Louis County Heritage and Arts Center located in downtown Duluth has a fairly extensive collection of early logging memorabilia.  It also houses the Lake Superior Railroad Museum and the North Shore Scenic Railroad.  The building used to be Duluth's Union Depot for the Northern Pacific and Great Northern Railroads.

There is an Americainn in Calumet, Days Inn in Marquette and many other chains, but the Mom & Pops actually are pretty cheap and most are nice places.

John

The Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm MN (formerly called "Iron World") is a must-see for anyone interested in the Iron Range and mining history.

Just to clarify the discussion about there being no "iron ore railroads"now ...the mainline railroads like the Missabe, Great Northern etc. didn't run trains down into the ore pits. The iron mining companies often operated their own rail operations. They used steam or electric engines early on, and later diesels, to bring ore cars down into the pits to be loaded. These would then be brought to a yard to in effect interchange with the mainline railroad. In time, as trucks got bigger and more powerful, it became more efficient to load the trucks in the ore pit and have them bring the ore out to be loaded into the mainline railroad ore cars.