Had the day off on Monday and caught the Commercial in White Bear. B23-7 1983 was doing the work. Pulled an empty box and put in two loads at St. Croix hardwood. Pulled an empty centerbeam and replaced it with a load at the lumber yard. Pulled half a dozen empty plastics hoppers from the team track at Buerkle Road and replaced them with loads. Headed up to Hugo with a loaded centerbeam and an empty gondola. Returned with an empty centerbeam and two gondolas loaded with scrap metal. The empty gon was spotted on the team track in Hugo next to an unmarked loader. Lots of metal scrap on the ground. This is the first time I have seen a scrap operation here. I have no idea where it comes from. Three tanks in the lube oil facility with two more on the siding. All in all a lot of activity for this little line. When they headed west out of town they still had three loaded centerbeams to drop at the lumber facility in Little Canada. In the past this line has been worked on Tuesday and Thursday. Maybe things are changing.

man it's been a long time since I've been on here, but

the scrap metal comes from all over, that yard buys scrap from Scrappers all over the place, my cousin makes regular drops there. I wonder where those gons wind up, maybe North Star Steel on the Red Rock Spur in Newport?

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Taylor P.
Lake Elmo, MN
Route of the "400"

my train pictures.

The scrap operation in Hugo seems to load three or four gons a week. So far this week there has been activity on Monday and Wednesday. I suspect the scrap is not going too far since the three or four red 52 foot gons from MNNR are frequent visitors. At first I saw ICE 65 foot mill gons but they have not been up to Hugo in a couple of weeks. Two or three boxes go to St. Croix Hardwooods in WBL every week and the lumber yard probably sees 7 or 8 cars every week, mostly centerbeams but some boxes. The transload behind Buerkle Honda get three or four cars a week and on any given day there will be 7 to 10 on the track. Power is pretty much any of the GE units. I have seen 48, 2002, 1983, and 1982 recently. Used to see my favorite unit, 42 quite a bit but not lately.