Nittany & Bald Eagle Lime Time on
A Nittany & Bald Eagle crew spots limestone hoppers at
the Graymont
Lime plant nestled in a small valley near Bellefonte, Pa., on January 19, 2016. The ancient plant, originally owned by Bellefonte Lime, was served by the Central Railroad of Pennsylvania (CNJ) and the Pennsylvania Railroad. Today, it is served by North Shore’s Nittany & Bald Eagle Railroad, and the lime plant is devoid of its kilns, with the facility used primarily for lime storage. North Shore Railroad System operates six shortline railroads in central Pennsylvania.
PHOTO BY MIKE ZOLLITSCH
CANADIAN SHORTLINES GLENN COURTNEY
Hudson Bay Railway Omnitrax, which owns Hudson Bay Railway and the Port
Sale Pending for of Churchill
(Man.), indicated recently that the feasi- bility of both would need to be evaluated if the $9 per ton shipping subsidy on the line is not renewed in 2017. Subsequent- ly, Omnitrax announced that its Manito- ba assets were for sale. Grain shipments over the 650-mile railway to the Port of Churchill totaled 186,000 tons in 2015, well below the average annual total of 550,000 tons.
In mid-December, Omnitrax an- nounced that a group of Manitoba First Nations had signed a letter of intent to buy its Manitoba assets. The agreement included a 45-day due diligence period after which the sale could be closed.
IRON ORE ROADS DAVE SCHAUER
New BNSF Car Order Complete
As noted in the last ordered 200 new
FreightCar America as ore
issue, BNSF cars
from replacements
for older cars that have been damaged or are at the end of their service life. The cars, constructed at FCA’s plant in Roanoke, Va., were delivered to BNSF at Birmingham, Ala. The final 100 cars of the order arrived at BNSF’s Allouez ore facility in Superior, Wis., in late December and by early January were in service hauling taconite pellets from
12 MARCH 2016 •
RAILFAN.COM
Hibbing Taconite. These cars are in the 601400-601599 number block and are 35 feet in length versus longer 42-foot cars purchased over the past decade. While these new cars have been placed into service, hundreds of older ore cars are stored in sidings along the Lakes Subdivision in northern Minnesota and also at Rices Point yard in Duluth waiting for an upturn in ore demand.
2015 Ore Shipments Decline
Iron ore cargoes on the Great Lakes declined by 8.5 percent in 2015 compared with
2014 figures. Iron ore volume
shipped from Duluth’s CN dock suffered the largest decline, dropping 39 percent last year to 5.3 million net tons versus 8.7 million during 2014. This reduction was the result of the temporary closing of United Taconite near Forbes, Minn., in August. This plant remains closed as of January 2016. Tonnage from CN’s docks at Two Harbors was unchanged from the prior year while its Escanaba, Mich., dock saw a 6.9 percent decrease. The decrease at Escanaba is partly due to Empire mine being closed for a good portion of the year, but that production was offset somewhat by pellets from Minntac in Minnesota being routed through the Lake Michigan port, with 166,000 tons still waiting be loaded into ships as of January 1, 2016. Volume declined 19 percent from Northshore Mining at Silver Bay, Minn., while BNSF’s facility in Superior, Wis., experienced a 2 percent
increase.
Lake Superior & Ishpeming’s dock at Marquette, Mich.,
shipped 5,790,245 tons, a decline of 24 percent that was
attributed primarily to the cessation of pellet shipments to Essar Algoma at Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. Both Canadian iron ore shipping ports, Port Cartier and Sept-IIes in Quebec, saw increases in shipments over 2014.
Duluth Ore Movements
United Taconite’s temporary closing in August due to soft demand for iron ore resulted in CN’s Duluth ore dock and storage facility furloughing
40
employees. Activity at the dock since late fall has been limited to the loading of ships off existing pellet stockpiles. With those stockpiles greatly reduced, that has freed up substantial ground storage space. To take advantage of this space CN was expected to start routing two ore trains per day from Minntac to Duluth starting in mid-January with a planned 1.8 million tons being deposited there for winter
pellet production from U.S.
storage. Taconite Steel’s
large Minntac plant is generally routed through the port of Two Harbors located 26 miles northeast of Duluth.
REGIONALS/SHORTLINES WEST GARLAND MCKEE
County Purchases ex-Rock Island Track
The Rock Island Rail Corridor Author- ity of Jackson County, Mo., is purchasing 17.7 miles of ex-Rock Island track be- tween milepost 270.6, near Greenwood, and milepost 288.3, near Blue Valley, from Union Pacific. This greater Kansas City trackage is currently out of service
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