Tag Archives: Iron Range

On this day 22 Years Ago—Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range at Fairlane, Minnesota.

Guitarist Jimmy Page, best known for his work with Led Zeppelin and the Yard Birds, produces a daily web page (http://www.jimmypage.com) that chronicles his work over more than five decades.

On This Day picks an event (or two) and gives Jimmy’s viewers a bit of background, often describing the roles of his fellow musicians. On occasion he drops in a railway photo or a clip from an old movie. Jimmy often carried a Nikon SLR on his tours.

Today, I’ll borrow Jimmy’s format: on this day 22 years ago (23 September 1994) I was traveling with Tom and Mike Danneman in the Minnesota Iron Range.

At the time I was working with Tom at Pentrex Publishing in Waukesha, Wisconsin where we produced Pacific RailNews and Passenger Train Journal. Mike worked across town at Kalmbach’s Trains Magazine.

I learned a lot from our Midwestern excursions in the mid-1990s. Both of these brothers remain among the most talented railway photographers and artists in North America. Tom now works at Kalmbach, while Mike is a freelance artist based in Colorado.

Among our destinations on 23 September 1994 was Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range’s Fairlane facility, where in a thick fog we photographed this pair of SDM diesels with an iron ore train.

I exposed this classic Kodachrome 25 view at Fairlane, Minnesota using a Nikon F3T with an f1.8 105mm lens. My aperture was nearly wide open and as a result the headlights burned out a bit. I've always liked the way the loading equipment looms ominously in the fog. The leaning signal is a bit of distraction though.
I exposed this classic Kodachrome 25 view at Fairlane, Minnesota using a Nikon F3T with an f1.8 105mm lens. My aperture was nearly wide open and as a result the headlights burned out a bit. I’ve always liked the way the loading equipment looms ominously in the fog. The leaning signal is a bit of distraction though.

Later in the day we visited Hibbing, Minnesota, which is probably best known as the boyhood home of Robert Zimmerman (aka Bob Dylan).

Tracking the Light Looks Back!

EMD F-units in the Minnesota Iron Range

Twenty Years Ago Today.

An A-B-B-A set of General Motors Electro-Motive Division F9 diesels leads a set of empty iron ore jennies at the Kramer Tunnel on September 24, 1994.

Exposed on September 24, 1994 with a Nikormatt FT3 with a Nikkon 28mm lens on Fujichrome Provia 100 slide film.
Exposed on September 24, 1994 with a Nikormatt FT3 with a Nikkon 28mm lens on Fujichrome Provia 100 slide film.

I’d traveled to the Iron Range with Mike and Tom Danneman. We spent three intensive days making photographs. It was early autumn and the trees were tinged with color. The Dannemans led the way, as it was my first visit to the Range.

We spent just one day photographing LTV Mining, which was one of the last operations in the United States to still routinely assigned four-unit sets of Fs to heavy freight.

A cropped version of this image appears on page 50 of my American Diesel Locomotive, published by MBI in 2000.

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Tomorrow: Special Post!