Snowy Southwest Minnesota

So last week, I had to make a trip to the Tyler and New Ulm areas. I was hopeful about catching a little DME or Marshall Sub action, but came away with little to show from a railfanning perspective, although I was suitably impressed with the massive snowdrifts that were everywhere. They have much more snow on the ground than central MN, with the amount increasing as you travel south and west.

I followed the Marshall Sub from Willmar all the way to the DME crossing near Highway 14, but a section crew replacing a rail near Raymond kind of dashed any hopes of BNSF trains for the day. This was a disappointment as the section south of Marshall is one of my favorite sections of railroad in the state. Then, to add insult to injury, the DME ran a train through Tyler just as the meeting I was there for started. After that appointment was complete, I headed for New Ulm. The blue and yellow railroad doesn't really parallel the highway for a lot of the way. I swung into Tracy to see if I could repeat Jer's catch of the pride of the DME but had no luck. However, when I passed through Springfield, I was greeted by the sight of a BNSF shuttle train sitting at the massive elevator there. I grabbed a shot in the fog. This is a massive elevator that loads many trains, and I've heard they have the ability to store 10 million bushels of corn. I know they can load trains fast, as I was lucky enough to stumble across one loading three years ago. Today everything was quiet, as I think the train was waiting for a crew to take it west to the BNSF connection at Florence.


On my way to the office in New Ulm the next morning a swing by the yard caught a set of GP40's sitting in front of the depot. It's always neat to shoot some trains out the car window.


When I finished up in New Ulm, I had to run back to Tyler for another meeting. The train in Springfield was gone, but now there was a different power set sitting at Lamberton. I'm not sure what the purpose was, as there was what looked like a complete grain train and a complete ethanol train sitting near the Highwater Ethanol plant just west of that burg. Again, no action at the elevator. The neat thing, that I didn't even notice until I uploaded the pictures, was the ES44C4 on the head end of this power set. First one I've seen in a while.


The only trains I saw the next day were at Perry's Hobbies in Morgan, where I managed to convince myself to invest in an Exact Rail MDW boxcar, an Intermountain covered hopper, and a set of Walthers Bethgons for the stunningly low price of $59 plus change. And, no shipping fee!

A stop in Bird Island revealed no TCW action, nor was the CP doing anything when I went through Belgrade. So trainwise, it was a quiet week. That's all!

To Noyes...

...by way of Hawley, Ulen, Fertile, Crookston, and Warren. Should be a great railfanning opportunity, given the cooperation of the National Weather Service, the BNSF, MNN, and NPR.

None of them were very cooperative. Still, it wasn't a total washout.

My periodic trip to extreme NW Minnesota took a bit of a different turn on Tuesday, in that I had to stop in Hawley on the way up. This eliminated fanning that part of CP's DL sub between Detroit Lakes and Erskine, but to make up for it I got to parallel BNSF's branch that runs from Manitoba Junction up to Ulen. Trains are not very frequent, as the only customer I am aware of is the elevator in Ulen where they load shuttle trains.

But today was a lucky day, as a train was in town. Just like the last time I caught a train in Ulen, the power was parked just north of the derail on the south side of town. And just like the last time, there's not a whole lot to work with from the photography side of things, but here's an effort:


I can say that, even though the lead unit is in the shade, at least the sun was out. That's a distinct advantage over much of the time I spent on this trip, whether working or chasing a train after work.

For example, the sound of a train blowing for a crossing had me leaving my motel room at the fabulous Caribou Inn in Hallock like a fireman leaving the station at the report of a 3 alarm blaze. I figured there was a need for speed. In reality, I had no problem beating this train to the Two Rivers bridge just north of Hawley as he must have been running the jointed rail at restricted speed. An example of the kind of lighting I was enjoying.


It was tempting to throw in the towel due to the cloud cover, but a sliver of blue to the northwest was enough to keep me chasing this train. I decided to cut west on a gravel road in the hopes of getting a panoramic image of the train on the flatlands, but the road condition scared me enough that I gave up in the first location. What passes for gravel in Kittson County is not fit to build an all weather road. Instead, I found a paved county road and shot the train again as he passed.


Smoke from the GE said the slow order might have ended, and sure enough the train sped up. I chased with all my might and managed to get on the sunny side with a minute to spare. Too bad that minute only contained 55 seconds of sunlight. With a heavy heart I watched the approaching train run into the shadow of a huge cloud bank that had moved in. I managed one shot just before he reached that shadow.


I figured we had to be getting close to the border, and the train began slowing. I pressed ahead with the mission of seeing what a "Noyes" looks like. A right turn at the border and a short upgrade offered a view of-not much. For some reason, a lonely CN EMD was resting at some kind of a structure that does things I have no concept of.


And then, just as evidence that I have, in fact, been to Noyes, a tele shot of the depot that should have been wide angle shot.


And so, my bucket list is one item shorter, now that I've seen Noyes. I've spent the majority of my adult life living within blocks of the Canadian border, and enjoyed those places greatly, but I can safely say that while Noyes is a nice place to visit, based on my first impression I wouldn't want to live there.

Jim

Tilting at Windmills (Part 3)

An earlier post covered my fotography fiasco in southwest Minnesota. Today I'll share some shots that are more presentable, although none of them are anything to brag about.

The first three photos are all of the same train, which I heard getting a warrant to head south on the Marshall Sub fairly early in the morning. I moved to intercept, and located a likely spot at the S-curve shown in the first offering.


This shot gives an indication of something I have noticed in prior trips to the area-there are a lot of AC locomotives on not only coal trains, but also grain trains and manifest trains that operate through the area. This next shot gives a good view of not only the SD70MAC leader, but also a somewhat uncommon BNSF AC4400CW. This GE model was certainly outnumbered by the MAC's that came to dominate many BNSF coal trains.


My last shot of this train was once again near the "summit" of the Marshall Sub's passage across Buffalo Ridge. This is where the windmills are thick. I do love this spot, and hope some day to take a decent train photo here.


This post also has a bonus prize. I happened upon a shuttle train being loaded in Holland, and this CF7 had the honors. Nice paint, and one of the few I have ever seen in person. I think the only others were TCW units that I have stumbled across while travelling central MN.


Next up in this series, the final post. This one will feature blue and yellow paint instead of orange, along with my first railfan photo in South Dakota.

Jim

Springfield Short

Thursday August 27 found me making my way through southwest Minnesota farm country. I zig-zagged my way through back country due to detours along Highway 60 in the area and finally reached the DME near the Harvestland elevator at Springfield.

Harvestland was loading a shuttle train, and I grabbed a shot from the road crossing east of the elevator.


This is the same location that I visited last year, when I was invited up into the cab and got a mini-tour of the loading facilities. Luckily, the engineer this day was again George, and I got a chance to visit with him while he waited for the scale to be checked under the car loader.

After a short visit, I had to move on, but just as I left, the New Ulm switch engine showed up headed back to New Ulm. It was a GP40 running long hood forward, bringing empty fertilizer cars back to New Ulm for pickup.


Not a busy day train-wise but a chance to see what to me was unusual action, and to renew an old acquaintance.

Jim

Southern Swing

I was off to New Ulm this morning bright and early, with visions of some DM&E action dancing in my head. When I arrived I noticed a shuttle train was loading at the elevator. So, after I was done with my meeting, I swung by the New Ulm yard for a look at the power for this shuttle.


I have heard in the past that these trains run with 4 units (including an ACe, a pair of Dash 9's, and an ES44DC in this case) in order to make the grade leaving New Ulm headed west. Rumor has it they have stalled in the past with three units climbing out of the Minnesota River Valley.

As you can see in that shot, there were many clouds about. That affected my next photo negatively. When I made it to Mankato, a train was headed south out of town. I'm not very familiar with the trackage, and I didn't see the power but I made a u-turn and chased the slow moving train down. As the UP line winds out of the valley it passes through some scenic territory. This shot doesn't do it justice but you can get an idea of what the stretch of track is like before they make it up to the plains again.


Very pretty area, I really like the rock retaining wall the train is passing by, and I got a friendly wave from the engineer (you can see him waving if you look close). You can tell how the designers of this line wound it around to help the trains beat the grade out of town. Still, these AC units were really working hard lifting the train up the hill.

As my final destination was on the north side of the cities, a swing by Northtown Yard seemed in order. I made it about 4:45 and got a couple of shots of the deadline south of the St. Anthony Boulevard bridge. There were 19 GEVO's lined up with their stacks capped. I suspect that these units require turbocharger inspection prior to being operated again. Makes the lines of SD75's a little shorter than I have seen in the past. It was good to see the Green Giants again-I sure hope they get back on the road soon.


That was it for today. Not a lot, but way better than nothing. Maybe I will have a little time to get out tomorrow evening, if the weather holds and I don't end up with too much work to do after tomorrow.

Jim

Manitoba Junction

Friday morning found me bound for Hawley, with at least a half-day's work to complete before I could think about coming home. Turned out I worked in Hawley until almost 2:00 and it was a lucky thing I did.

When I was leaving town I noticed a worm train headed east across the Highway 10 overpass in Hawley. The sun was high but I though I might watch him traverse the scenic country between Hawley and Lake Park, my next stop. But, by the time I found him again, he was stopped at Manitoba Junction. It was a shuttle train for Ulen.

Having never seen this move before, I was flying blind looking for photo locations. My first shot of him was across an empty field as the power started climbing away from the Buffalo River. This was also the only angle that was lit in a way that was at all acceptable.


Trains entering this spur from the west have to make a very sharp, very extensive turn to get going north. After seeing this curve I have nicknamed it "Northwest Minnesota's Horseshoe Curve". It's the reason I posted the next shot, which was poorly lit but shows the power on the train travelling northwest and climbing the hill while the tail end of the train (just visible in the right side of the frame) is still heading east on the Staples Sub. It's a very drastic change of direction and grade, at least for this part of the country. I would love to get a train here in decent light, whenever that would be.


Since the train was picking his way along, I had time to run up a little further and grab a wedgie towards the top of the grade. Again, this one is is tough light, but I kind of like the effect with the grade, and something else you don't see on the Staples Sub, jointed rail. I have one other shot of a train on jointed rail (not BNSF, either) that I hope to post soon.


Finished up in Lake Park around 3:00, and headed for home. I knew traffic had been light all day and there was a tie crew at work west of Wadena. I saw eastbound empty ballast cars waiting at Richards Spur, but didn't see the power and didn't stop. I was surprised by a full tie crew heading into Perham from the west, and wondered how they had made it so far. Turns out there must be two crews working, as the Wadena crew was tied down when I got back to town. No wonder they are making such great progress. I think they are done to around CR143 near Bluffton, with the west crew having completed some work near Perham.

That's all from Friday, and I expect posting to be light over the weekend. I've started hoping for good weather for the OMR get-together on the 20th in Verndale. Hope some of you can make it to that event. Til next time, keep looking for trains.

Jim