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2015 and are expected to permanently close in early 2017. CN handles most of the mine’s production through the port of Escanaba. As Empire resumed production CN shifted a train of 265 former DM&IR ore cars from Minnesota to Escanaba on November 12 as CN Train U75881-11 with GTW SD40-3s 5948 and 5954 as power. With United Taconite in Minnesota
shut down through the end of 2015, CN has adjusted its Duluth ore dock workforce by furloughing 40 employees. Currently there are no ore trains operating to Duluth, with all Minntac and Minorca production being routed through the port of Two Harbors located on Lake Superior 26 miles northeast of Duluth. A few ships continue to load ore at Duluth, drawing down the existing stockpile, and inbound limestone is still being shipped to mines.
LS&I GEs Stored With no pellets being moved to
Essar’s Algoma Steel mill at Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., due to a contract dispute, Lake Superior & Ishpeming’s former Burlington Northern General Electric locomotives have been stored. LS&I had been using a pair of C30-7s and a pair of U30Cs to supplement its eight leased CEFX AC4400CWs.
REGIONALS/SHORTLINES WEST GARLAND MCKEE
Siskyou Line Reopened For the first time since 2008, trains
have returned to the 95-mile Siskiyou
Truck Swap for Classic Geeps
Greenville & Western Railway EMD GP9 No. 3752 (ex-B&O 6554) is suspended by two cranes while the truck assemblies are being swapped out for new ones at Republic Locomotive in Greenville, S.C., on November 23, 2015. After No. 3752 was lowered back onto its trucks, GRLW’s other GP9 no. 3751 (ex-B&O 6513) would be next in line for the same procedure. Formed in 2006, GLWR is a subsidiary of Western Carolina Railway Service Corporation, and operates 13 miles of former CSX trackage between Belton and Pelzer, S.C.
PHOTO BY ALLEN GIBBS
Line between Ashland, Ore., and Weed, Calif., reopening the entire 296-mile Siskiyou Line. In addition to reopening the line, the $13.3 million Siskiyou Sum- mit Railroad Revitalization project has helped upgrade the line to handle the newer, heavier 286,000 lb. cars that are now standard. The project was started in 2012 with
funds from a $7 million Transportation Investment Generating Economic Re- covery (TIGER) grant. Local counties added funds, and Central Oregon & Pa- cific chipped in 25 percent of the cost to rebuild 65 miles of the railroad. Service resumed in early November, with the railroad running one train in each direc- tion five days a week between Weed and Medford.
Saves Apache Railway A last-minute buyer for the 98-year-
Last-Minute Deal
old Apache Railway was announced on December 1, 2015. The railroad had been in danger since the 2012 closure of the Catalyst paper mill, its primary customer. The Snowflake Community Foundation was formed to purchase the railroad from the new owners, but ran into difficulty obtaining the necessary funding. The courts had set a deadline of November 30 to either purchase the rail- road or begin liquidation of the property. Thanks to a combination of efforts on
the state and local level, funding was provided in part by a $2.5 million joint loan from the Arizona Commerce Au- thority’s Arizona Innovation Accelerator Fund program and Arizona MultiBank. A bankruptcy judge approved the $4.7
million purchase by a group led by Aztec Land and Cattle Company, Ltd., a sig- nificant landowner based in Snowflake, Ariz.
A Short Shortline: Cicero Central
Watco has a new railroad. Cicero Central Railroad (CCR) will lease from Canadian National’s Illinois Central a part of the old Chicago & Illinois Western line located between the western edge of Cicero Avenue and the eastern edge of the Central Avenue overpass in Stickney, Ill. The line is 5,675 feet long and service was expected to begin on November 18, 2015.
Schedule Changes for Iowa Interstate
On November 1, operations across
the IAIS were changed to allow earlier departures. Eastbound CBBI (Council Bluffs, Iowa-Blue Island, Ill.) now de- parts Council Bluffs in the morning, around 7:00 to 8:00 a.m. Arrival at New- ton is around 5:00 p.m. daily. The 6:00 p.m. NTSW crew re-crews CBBI, and de- parts at 8:15 p.m. Arrival at South Ama- na, Iowa, is at 11:00 p.m. CBBI then de- parts South Amana at 5:00 a.m. on Day 2. The South Amana crew will flip back from Silvis on BICB. A Silvis crew will continue to be called in the afternoon to take the train to Chicago. Westbound BICB continues to depart
Blue Island at 7:45 p.m. daily. Arrival at Silvis is in the morning, with a 10:00 a.m. departure for South Amana. The power and train are worked and the
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