As a newly retired guy I have spent a lot of time watching the Commercial job in White Bear this year. Here is what has been happening recently.

The job(I believe it is job 19) is called for 6:00 or 6:30 at Raymond Avenue and generally arrives in White Bear Lake sometime between 8:15 AM and 9:00 AM. The job currently works Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Power in recent months has been MNNR 42 or newly painted MNNR 44. On occasion I have seen MNNR 40 or MNNR 68.

There are seven active customers in White Bear Lake/Hugo/Maplewood. In addition there is one additional customer in Roseville that regularly receives cars. Because that customer has a facing point switch, the job will bring all the cars for that customer into White Bear Lake and then switch them on the way back to Raymond Avenue.

Car count on this job ranges from one to fifteen each day. The job is a mix of loads (centerbeam flats, boxcars, covered hoppers, tanks) and empty gondolas.

The usual routine is to first centerbeam flats at Structural Wood Corporation at the western end of White Bear Parkway. Their spur contains tracks with manufactured dates as old as 1906. Aetna Plywood (just east of Otter Lake Road) is next. This industry receives boxcars of wood products at one or more of their three doors. They usually receive two or three cars each week. Next is Universal Forest Products. This is the large lumber yard built in the center of the wye. Their spur is located just east of the Aetna spur. They usually receive four to six cars per week, but some days they receive more than their four car spur can hold. Most of their loads arrive on centerbeam flats but on occasion a box car shows up.

Next the job usually works the spur(former Skally Line) that goes south to Maplewood. A plastics company transloads to trucks behind the Buerkle Honda facility. As many as ten covered hoppers can be spotted here. Because there is only one track, empties have to be dragged back to the wye and switched out. Switching this spur often requires an hour or more of work. Accross Buerkle Road MNNR is storing a string of empty gondolas.

Depending on the number of cars on any given day, the job may leave loads for the Roseville customer and empties from Aetna, Universal or the plastic pellet operation at M&D Junction in White Bear and then head to Hugo or they may take cars for Hugo and empties from White Bear and even loads for Roseville, all the way to Hugo. There is a siding just south of Hugo and the job often leaves non-Hugo cars there for pick-up on the return to White Bear.

Once in Hugo, tanks are switched in or out at LubeTech (formerly Loadmaster), centerbeam flats are left for unloading at Schweiters, and empty gondolas are spotted and loads picked up on the same track that Schweiters uses. Then the collected Hugo cars are pushed back to the siding, the engine runs around the train and pulls it back to White Bear. At M&D Junction The engine leaves the Hugo cars and runs to the south end of the wye; then heads to the west leg of the wye, then backs up and assembles his train whch is waiting at the east end of the wye. The they head west and back to Raymond Avenue after switching at the Roseville customer.

Track work has been going on in White Bear Lake for several months and hundreds of ties have been replaced. It looks like the Commercial wants to keep this area in good shape. I watch this job on most days. I hope those of you who are interested in operations drop by for this interesting slice of railroading.

pogopod, your description was spot on. It's not to often extra cars get lugged up to Hugo, most crews leave them at M&D. I caught 44 behind 42 on it's first day in service on the line. It got rushed into the paint shop and then into service so most problems were found by the crews. It broke down on it's second day and was out of service for a couple of days.

The 44 was working today and it was plastic pellet day so the team track got pulled. I saw one empty gon (MNNR 1803) bound for the scrap metal loadout at the Hugo team track.
Karl

Karl it kind of depends on who is running the job. Yesterday they had two tanks for Loadmaster and dragged them and an empty box, an empty centerbeam and four loaded centerbeams up to Hugo and back. They picked up one loaded gondola in Hugo. All four of the loaded centerbeams were headed back west to the customer off of Country Drive in Little Canada. MNNR 42 seems to be the preferred engine but 43 and 44 often make appearances. Loads into Universal Forest Products continue to be interesting. This week I saw a 73' opera window centerbeam and last week a hybrid centerbeam with one "opera window" at each end.

Good point, I talked to one of the MNNR engineers this summer, he pointed out that they rotate jobs almost on a daily basis. The crew that is on the Hugo turn today may be in Minneapolis tomorrow and in Bayport the day after. Each crew has their own approach to each of the jobs.

The Commercial made a rare Sunday trip to White Bear yesterday. 10 lumber loads went up, 5 came back down to Little Canada.

Today (Monday) I saw them bringing 11 loads of lumber south through Vadnais Heights, with a scrap metal load from Hugo in tow. I don't think the siding in Little Canada will hold that many cars, so I'm not sure where they are all going.

The Hugo Job was a little late today, passing North through Vadnais Heights at 1:00pm.
#44 on the point
4 gondolas (3 green ones I haven't seen before)
4 lumber loads
1 TTX HiCube
2 more lumber loads.

No tank cars, no plastics hoppers. If the lighting is good tomorrow I may run up to Hugo to get pics of the gons.

Changes for Job 19 (White Bear Lake Hugo). As of last week Job 19 is now running on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. I spoke with the conductor last Sunday. He said the schedule better serves their customer in Little Canada. The Tuesday and Thursday jobs are called for 6:30 AM and the Sunday job is called for 9:00 AM. It usually takes Job 19 a little over two hours to make it to WhiteBear Lake. Recent activety sees about 30 cars a week on this line. If you are interested in operations, this is an easy job to watch as it solves the puzzle of serving the eight customers on the line. One of the advantages of Sunday running is the job has used different power on the last two Sundays. Weekdays usually MNNR 42 or 43 or 44 show up. On Sunday I saw MNNR 48 and MNNR 54 the week before.

Sweet. All the years I lived close to the cities I never got a chance to shoot the MNNR. now I'm stuck out in Fargo

Keep us posted on their happenings.

_________________
A BNSF fan by default.

MNNR Job 19 continues to be fun to watch. Of the 14 days they have run this year, only once did I see the same power two times in a row. The four weeks of January saw 125 cars on the job including one day when they dragged 19 cars into White Bear.

Last year I was able to see 124 trains and they averaged over 8 cars per day.