RailRoadFan.com

Good news indeed.

Doktor No wrote:In my daily Railway Age newsbrief they have reported that the STB has given provisional approval for the takeover of 12.06 miles of LS&I and rebuilding of 1.9 miles of railbanked right of way into Republic by the Mineral Range Railroad. It is subject to final approval in September if there are no objections.
Good news for the locals up there I would think. I have no idea what the shape of the exisiting LS&I is in nor the railbanked section.

The 1.9 mile section has to be rebuilt the rail is gone. The other 12.06 miles should be ok it's used by CN for running the L'Anse sub, so I would imagine it's been maintained.

Doktor No wrote:In my daily Railway Age newsbrief they have reported that the STB has given provisional approval for the takeover of 12.06 miles of LS&I and rebuilding of 1.9 miles of railbanked right of way into Republic by the Mineral Range Railroad. It is subject to final approval in September if there are no objections.
Good news for the locals up there I would think. I have no idea what the shape of the exisiting LS&I is in nor the railbanked section.

The last time I was out that way, in July, the LS&I was in pretty good shape. CN has trackage rights over some of this trackage. The rail banked section is just a grade. All of the rail/ties etc. were lifted some years ago. I cannot recall just when that was.

Just out of curiosity, does anybody know roughly how much it will cost the Mineral Range to lay the 2 miles of railroad? I thought that I heard at one point that it cost roughly a million a mile to build a new line, but then again the roadbed is already in place.

From what I know they were quoted under 1 million a mile. I do not want to say the numbers until the project is started incase there is still a bidding war. Myself and CERY drove the grade back in 2010 it's all still heavily ballasted and the brush has not taken it over yet. I want to say the line to Republic was pulled up in 2005 or 2006.

They will also have to build a new crossing across a major highway correct?

Two crossing would have to be re-installed at US-41 and M-95, both two lane, 55mph roads. Nothing major. LS&I owns that rail to Humboldt JCT, then it begins CN to L'Anse. Biggest thing is going to be that Kennecott is Cliff's competition would be why I could see you would see any fuss brought forth with the STB. My opinion would be to let MR have track rights and interchange with the CN and do a paper-barrier so LS&I get so much for every car. CN and LS&I are slow right now with the Empire shut-down for maintenance. Looks like couple weeks production will be back to normal : Empire Mine News

So the ore will be trucked from the mine site to the mill, then shipped over the CN? how many carloads are expected? unit trains? If someone could give me a general overview of the operation it would be much appreciated.

JANGAJONGA wrote:So the ore will be trucked from the mine site to the mill, then shipped over the CN? how many carloads are expected? unit trains? If someone could give me a general overview of the operation it would be much appreciated.

Its all top secret....

http://riotintoeagle.com/operations/humboldt-mill/

I read, a few years ago, what the expected car loading rate was. I cannot recall if the document was public or not. Most of the public data is on the linked website.

The mines expected production of 550 million pounds over the expected 8 year life of the mine averages 68.75 MM pounds per year. That gives 34,375 tons per year or about 350- 100 ton carloads. 6-7 per week