The Splitrock Mining Company is a dedicated  ore hauling line from the Tower Soudan area of the Vermillion Iron Range in northern Minnesota to the docks at Agate Bay, just south of the Splitrock Lighthouse on the  north shore of Lake Superior.

It is set in the years 1968 to 1972. All motive power is Alco, for now. There will be one non ore train a day to service the few industries and mine supply spurs. The Vermillion Range Freight, or VRF. One interchange with he DMIR and maybe the DWP, will be the connection to the outside world.

Operations are driven by what ore boats are in dock, and up to six grades of iron ore can be loaded per boat. Colored pins in the ore loads denote the type of ore in each car. 
The pins are then stuck in the disposable ore boat silhouettes and when filled, the boat sails for the steel mills down lake and a new boat is ready to dock. A boat has holds for sixty ore cars. An operating session will try to load two ore boats. Ore boat silhouettes are placed above the ore dock on a cork board and has name of boat, shipping company, dock pockets where it is docked and other information of interest. Some boats are actually lakers, and most others are named for family and friends.

The harbor yardmaster in Agate Bay fills out order slips after determining what grades of ore and how many of each are needed. He sends these to the yardmaster at the mines, Gunflint Yard, and he builds trains accordingly. Orders are for an entire train at a time. 

There are two active mines which produce three grades of ore each. Mainline trains are eighteen cars, mine runs are twelve cars and dock shoves are ten cars. Since it is in the early 1970's, all trains except dock shoves have a caboose. 

All mainline tracks are in, and only the interchange with the Missabe and a spur or two are left to be put in. The third phase will be the Tower-Soudan industrial park, where most of the general freight will be spotted. The first two phases were the upper and lower levels. 

A small engine and caboose facility is at the harbor yard, which is located in Agate Bay. 
Mainline operations are governed by the yard master at Gunflint Yard. That person controls access to the mainline between Agate Bay and Gunflint Yard. Southbound trains may not enter Agate Bay yard without permission from the yardmaster there.

The layout can be run with one to five operators. Two yard masters and a road turn, which also runs the way freight and does odd jobs, or add a dock job and a mine run operator to ease the pressure off the footboard yardmasters. 

The layout is all DCC with Digitrax control and radio and IR plugs. It is blocked into four sections to help with electrical shorts and booster control. Track is fifty-fifty hand laid with fast track turnouts and the lower level has flex track for now, to be replaced with hand laid turnouts as time permits. 

Since I work on call everyday, the joys of being a railroader, I designed this layout to run with minimal set up between operating sessions and to be able to run with just one person. If I stop a session with only half a boat loaded, I can just pick up where I left off next time. No staging tracks, just move ore loads to mines and replace the colored pins.

The mainline is basically a two turn helix with scenery. It will include a small tunnel, track defect detector, bridges and lakes and forrest detail.  This smaller layout will allow me to detail not only the minimal rolling stock and engines, but also the operations. Adding in more realism and events to make a session on a small layout meaningful.

I hope to keep posting photos and tales of the Splitrock Mining Company as I progress from infrastructure to operations. 

 

Pictures are of Gunflint Yard near the mines, painting ties and ballasting are on the to-do list. 

 

Thomas G.