CN, BNSF & UP: Free Ranging In The Northland

Even on a planned trip or expedition, it is seemingly inevitable that a few kinks are going to be thrown in along the line. In the case of a railfan, these can be both a blessing and a curse. A little something extra and great to shoot, but a distraction from the primary goal. For myself and those who ventured on our "Empress Expedition" to follow CP 2816 across the Upper Midwest, these are those moments. Aka; "Free Ranging"!
Day 1 of our chase of the Empress, and we left Alexandria Minnesota headed west for Valley City ND. Just outside Fargo, a flash of blue made us whip off the freeway and up along the BNSF Mainline; a Montana Rail Link SD70ACe, trailing behind an H2 GEVO of course, and on a coal drag, but still! With MRL's re-folding back into BNSF earlier this year, the road's SD70ACe fleet has been released to serve system-wide, though they've primarily hung around near home territory, and on coal trains no less. Sure enough, further west we spotted another dark blue flash, and backtracked all the way to Buffalo ND. Another MRL ACe, this one with the old-school multi-mark logo. Bonus!
Once 2816 arrived in the Twin Cities for her rest and display days, we split off northbound, destined for the Twin Ports, and inevitably, the Iron Range. The evening of our arrival, we made a hasty break down to Canal Park just in time to catch the "Algoma Discovery" arriving, bound for the CN Dock to load up on iron ore. The next day, our single full day we spent along the "Route Of Iron", we saw just about everything one could see; the Proctor Local returning home after a night's work with it's duo of SD60s. Duluth and Two Harbor loads with the usual trios of SD40-2s and C40-8s. Empty and loaded "T-Birds", their own duo's of Dash-8s back on the job after being displaced months earlier. Even an "All-Rail" train made an appearance, threading it's way down into "Minntac" for another long-haul of Taconite destined for somewhere south. To cap it off, we witnessed two trains tackle Spirit Mountain; a set of empties which we had seen earlier the same day on it's way to the dock, and that night a loaded Limestone Train strained it's way up the grade with every ounce of the 9,000 horsepower it's EMD trio could put out, ex-Illinois Central 6252 in command.
Bad weather the second day pushed us back to the Twin Cities early, but we were not disappointed; Union Pacific's local/transfer departed it's yard to work southbound with two "Snoot Nose" 40-2s in the consist, a BNSF Fakebonnet made an appearance at Dayton's Bluff, and last but not least, the "BNCP" Transfer threaded it's way backwards into CP's Pigseye Yard with two B40-8Ws doing the honors, the leader of which still had full but faded Santa Fe Warbonnet markings. She had fallen a long way from her days of screaming across the western U.S. with hotshot intermodal trains, but she was certainly not out, even in local service.
Enjoy Everybody! There is plenty more to come!