DMIR @ Soo

Wisconsin Central 598 and Duluth, Missabe, & Iron Range 170 at Sault Ste. Marie, June, 1992. 170 is a perfectly typical Missabe SD-9, acquired by the railroad in 1959 and sold off-line in 1998.

Fallen flag, falling flag. This photo was taken a few hundred yards from the Soo Locks and was the next I took after the Kinsman series; this is at Wisconsin Central's staging yard for building trains to cross the Saint Mary's River on the long railroad bridge. The DMIR's a physically compact system at the distant end of Lake Superior; this loco was a long way from Minnesota's Arrowhead region. At the time, WC was a new railway, and hadn't completed repainting the equipment it had inherited from the Soo Line--thus the box car in the background.

A decade later, the Canadian National Railway has absorbed the Wisconsin Central, and is in the process of absorbing the Missabe. A sad time for Missabe's fans--a group which includes me. Sadder still for Missabe's employees in Duluth and Proctor....