Mike Gets to Play with Trains

My wife and I spent a few a few days in Duluth this past weekend and in my blog on Wednesday I mentioned that we took a short trip on the North Shore Scenic Railroad’s Pumpkin Patch Express. When the train arrived back at the Duluth Depot we went inside and visited the Lake Superior Railroad Museum, which is home to several steam, diesel and electric locomotives, passenger cars, freight cars, dining cars and specialty equipment used by logging and mining industries.

They even have a couple of snow removal cars, including the Northern Pacific Steam Powered Rotary Snow Plow No. 2 that was more or less a giant snowblower pushed by three to four locomotives and used to clear huge drifts up to 15 feet high from the tracks. The other snow removal piece they had on display was the more conventional shaped Northern Pacific Wedge Snow Plow No. 19 and was used to clear small to moderate drifts as it was being pushed by two to three locomotives.

One of the other work-related pieces in their collection that caught my eye was the Northern Pacific Steam Powered Wrecker No. 38, which was used by the railroad to clean up wrecks. In the early days of railroad transportation, train wrecks and derailments were much more common. Of course their extensive train engine and railroad car collection was also very interesting, just take a look through some of the pictures I took.