{"id":5295,"date":"2022-07-28T15:43:19","date_gmt":"2022-07-28T19:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/wordpress\/?p=5295"},"modified":"2022-08-13T10:32:29","modified_gmt":"2022-08-13T14:32:29","slug":"riding-the-rails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/wordpress\/riding-the-rails\/","title":{"rendered":"Riding The Rails"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 70 Mile Journey in Minnesota<\/h2>\n

I grew up the the New York City area and would regularly take 45-minute long ride on the passenger train from New Rochelle to Grand Central Station. Did this qualify me as a rider of the rails? Let’s see.<\/p>\n

Some 20 years ago I was involved developing software for personal computers. One of our projects was to make simulations for trains. We found an interesting and unique train route that delivered raw materials from a mining area in Minnesota to the awaiting freighters along Lake Superior – known as the Erie Mining Corp route.<\/p>\n

My task was to research the terrain and surroundings along the route so that we could reproduce the journey in a simulation. After arranging the “special” trip with the LTV Corporation (which owned the EMC route), I drove to Hoyt Lakes to meet with two members of the staff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
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\nWhen I arrived, I was escorted to the rail head where we climbed aboard a vehicle that was outfitted to travel on the rails. I was seated in the front with a video camera where I would record all 3-1\/2 hours of trip through the hills, mountains and flatlands to Taconite Harbor on north shore of Lake Superior.

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This modified Ford pickup truck was specially fitted to ride and self-propel on the standard tracks.

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On the right is one of the diesel freight locomotives that pulled the taconite pellets from Hoyt Lakes to Lake Superior.<\/p>\n

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It was an interesting ride – the tracks took us through forests, into narrow canyons, along open and hilly fields, passing rocky mountains, traversing bridges, through a tunnel and over rural road crossings.<\/p>\n

For me the highlight of the trip was the 30 seconds or so that are illustrated below.<\/p>\n

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Erie Mining Corporation Route<\/b>
Here we slowed down as we came upon a local resident as we were riding the tracks from Hoyt Lake to Taconite Harbor, MN<\/center><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Towards the end of the route we arrived at Taconite Harbor. Below is the large unloading area where the taconite pellets are unloaded onto large lake freighters.<\/p>\n\n\n

Approaching Taconite Harbor<\/b>
Quadruple speed arrival into Taconite Harbor<\/center><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

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This journey in 2001 was the only time where I actually felt that I was riding the rails. An interesting and memorable ride.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This 70 mile private rail carries taconite pellets from Hoyt Lakes to Taconite Harbor in Minnesota. I had a chance to travel full 70 miles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[171,413,93,2,116,206,92,135],"tags":[439,57,440,473,443,456,445,441,442,454,446,457,377,444,455,141],"class_list":["post-5295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-informational","category-movie","category-nature","category-personal","category-photograph","category-presentation","category-travel","category-video","tag-emc","tag-environment","tag-erie-mining-corp","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-hoyt-lakes","tag-iron-ore","tag-lake-superior","tag-ltv","tag-minnesota","tag-moose","tag-railroad","tag-simulation","tag-software","tag-taconite-harbor","tag-trains","tag-video"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/P9160182.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5295"}],"version-history":[{"count":51,"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5920,"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5295\/revisions\/5920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}