End of the line!

The picture shows the remains of the old ore terminal at Michipicoten Harbor on Lake Superior. Here, the Algoma Central Railway trans-shipped iron ore onto lake boats from the mine at Wawa, a few miles to the east. However, the mine closed in 1998, and the Michipicoten branch was abandoned.

Looking in the other direction (below), we see the right-of-way, its rails now lifted. There's not much left now at Michipicoten -- just a few cottages and a gravel pit.

A few miles inland from Wawa is Hawk Junction -- where the branch met the ACR mainline. Obviously, Hawk is no longer a junction, but there is still a small yard, and the passenger train pauses here for a little while. The place looked empty the day we drove up, just a few strings of lumber cars parked in the yard:




















Also, one item of possible modelling interest: flat cars mounted with propane tanks. For what? Thawing switches in mid-winter, perhaps?

Catching up to the train at Schreiber

Yeesh -- five months since I've blogged here AND a whole new vacation come and gone, before I've even finished last year's railfan pictures! Without further ado, here's a dump of a bunch of stuff from the tail end of the September 2006 trip.

Camping at Rossport, overlooking Lake Superior, on a drizzly day we hiked up the hill to the CP line, in time to catch this freight coming through:


Then we drove into Schreiber and found the same train doing a little switching:







































The town seems to be putting together a small railway museum on the edge of the yard, with this retired S3 and other equipment:

























From the old to the new: these AC units came through hauling a westbound stack train, and paused at the depot.































Leaving Rossport and continuing east, we caught this train just off the Trans-Canada, near Terrace Bay (pity about the weather, but what can you do?):