Joel Dinda's photos with the keyword: jennies

This photo was doubtless intended to be of that crane. It really didn't turn out too well, even after I cropped out a couple distractions. But it gives some sense of the scale of the yard, and that set of railfans facing every-which-way illustrates something about the outing. Our day at Two Harbors yard was an activity of the Missabe Railroad Historical Society . There were about fifty of us, and I got some terrific photographs. Railfans all carry cameras, and we're all accustomed to sharing photographic opportunities. As a group, we're far more aware of other photographers than your average tourist, and make conscious efforts to stay out of other shooters' lines of fire. With such a large group in a relatively small area, that makes for an interesting dynamic.... August, 1990; Minolta Freedom 100.

Two Harbors, Minnesota; August 1990. Another broad view of the Missabe Road's Two Harbors yard. DMIR's ore jennies were (are?--most likely) lashed together in sets of four (called "mini-quads"), which makes it easier to manage them operationally; effectively, what looks like a four-car set is actually one car with sixteen trucks (& four hoppers for carrying ore). Yellow stripes make the divisions obvious. That pile of "dirt" is actually a pile of taconite pellets. The railroad likes to have a stockpile on hand at all times; one reason is that winter's weather makes the railroading and mining difficult long before the shippers quit running ore carriers on the Lakes. Odd, but true; not so true that either completely stops, though. In the distance, the ore docks (One, Two, and the remains of Six) extend far into Lake Superior. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100

Escanaba's old iron ore dock was "the largest wooden structure in the world." It was replaced with an elaborate conveyor dock which doesn't rise far above the waterline. Much of the mechanism which moves ore from the yard to the ship shows in this photograph. 1990, at Escanaba, Michigan; taken with my Minolta Freedom camera.