Empire Mine Operations Ending - CN Winding down Ore Trains

[Saturnalia]

Hello all, new here. Longtime Trains subscriber, however. 

I just read the story today about Magnetation shutting down their iron ore plants in Minnesota. So, I figured I'd give this forum an update on another major iron ore shutdown impacting railroads: the Empire Mine in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. 

For those unfamiliar, the Empire Mine is located just south of Marquette, Mich on the LS&I, but was primarily served by the CNW, later WC and now the CN. Opened in the 50s, much of the ore was transported south to Escanaba for loading onto ships for Chicagoland and elsewhere. 

Up until last week, CN operated U741 and U743 daily, 120 car ore jennie trains on a round trip circut up the Marquette Range Sub to Partridge, where they entered the LS&I mainline at Empire Junction for a couple mile jump to the Empire Mine. 

When the processing plant and mine formally ceased operations in early August, the trians were first cut from 120 to 100 cars, as loading was transferrered to front-end loaders, instead of the flood loader. This so that one crew could continue to make the entire turn between Escanaba and Empire. 

As they worked through the stockpile, it was decided that they'd leave about 150,000 tons there until 2017. 

Last Tuesday, the final train for 2016 operated, an afternoon U743. 

Since, the CN has lost four of the eight moves on the Marquette Range Sub between Marquette and Escanaba - a serious hit on their operations, as one can imagine. These trains will return for awhile in 2017, but then Empire Mine will be completely dead, leaving the nearby Tilden Mine as the last operating iron ore mine in the State of Michigan. 

As for the future and the LS&I, the LS&I is largely unaffected by this shutdown, as they hauled primarily Tilden Ore. The CN will continue to run their U745 all-rail ore train between Sault Ste. Marie and the LS&I for loading at Tilden. Additionally, the CN will continue to get some Tilden traffic in the winter months, when the LS&I dock at Marquette is shutdown due to the annual winter shutdown of the locks at the SOO. The CN may start bidding on more Tilden ore contracts, but that is, as with anything in this business, far from certain. 

[MidlandMike]

Does the ore train to Sault Ste. Marie go to Algoma Steel, or continue futher on into Canada?

[BOB WITHORN]

Welcome, Great info, thanks. Bob

[kgbw49]

I wonder how long it will be before CN spins off some of those Northeastern Wisconsin and Upper Peninsula lines?

They have been gradually mothballing and paring back prior to this.

There are a few paper mills left up there, but that seems to be about it.

The original Soo Line has been severed as a through route in several places for several decades now.

One has to wonder how things will shake out north of Green Bay.

[Saturnalia]

MidlandMike

Does the ore train to Sault Ste. Marie go to Algoma Steel, or continue futher on into Canada?

 

Yes, the all-rail goes to Algoma Steel on the Canadian Side of the St. Mary's. The traffic is carried on U745 from Marquette to Escanaba, and then is added onto the mixed freight to the Sault. 

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As far as CN spinning lines off, I doubt they'll leave the Upper Peninsula anytime soon. They're still running plenty of trains in the core, and seem to be sucessful with the traffic base overall. The branch to Munising seems the most endangered by how little traffic it sees, and the same story tends to be true with the branch to L'Anse. Otherwise, the core Manistique and Marquette Range Subdivisions are doing well. The Sault trains are usually in excess of 100 cars, given the 45-car block of all-rail ore, and are run with a DPU cut in between the ore and mixed freight. 

 

Alternately, I've considered to some degree the odds of the CN purchasing the LS&I, particularly if iron ore prices remain depressed, and if the CN can siphon off a significant portion of the ~9 million tons of ore from Tilden each year. If the CN captured say 40-50% of the traffic from the LS&I, then perhaps the LS&I wouldn't make as much sense to Cliffs anymore. 

 

Thereby given the stress of Cliffs (who owns Tilden, much of Empire and all of the LS&I) to keep a decent cash supply, they could offload the railroad to the CN. But at the same time, the LS&I is a nice tool in the bag for Cliffs, as any profits or losses from the railroad go straight to Cliffs anyways. Hence, having CN move the ore would likely result in higher transport prices. This is all from the outside looking in, mind you. 

 

In summary, I don't think enough has changed to force the UP into another shift in railroad service *yet*, but if a few more pieces were to fall, such as a change in Tilden contracts, continued depression in railroad traffic and rates, etc, then major shifts would be more likely. Hence I'm more generally considering what smaller things may move, and ultimately force a change closer to the top of the system. 

[MidlandMike]

Is there too little ore traveling between Tilden Mine and Algoma Steel to warrent an ore boat?

[Saturnalia]

Frankly, I'm not sure on why exactly the All-rail train runs in addition to the numerous boats in between Marquette and the Sault. Both types are Tilden Ore. 

An educated guess is that the boats and trian are carrying different ore specifications. Tilden can produce both Magnetite and Hemitite Ore, though not at the same time. My hunch is that the train is transporting a little bit of one type while the boat handles the other, since they cannot be mixed. 

[beaulieu]

The train may be carrying broken pellets and fines. The boats don't like to handle that unless its a complete load.