MGPX No. 201, part of the first batch of Magnetation iron ore cars built by FreightCar America, arrives in Superior, Wis., in June 2014.
David C. Schauer
Q I live along the BNSF Railway main line west of Chicago, and I have seen black gondola unit trains with MGPX reporting marks. Even from my second-story deck I cannot see what they carry. What does this train haul, and where does it originate and terminate? – Fred Cramer, La Grange, Ill.
A The trains you see carry iron ore concentrate from Minnesota to Indiana. A total of 780 rotary-dump gondolas, starting at No. 101, were ordered from FreightCar America by mining company Magnetation Pellet LLC, with the first cars placed in service in June 2014. Magnetation uses a special process to extract iron ore from tailings that were discarded by prior mining operations on Minnesota’s Mesabi iron range.
The concentrate is moved by BNSF from Magnetation’s Jessie Loadout near Coleraine, Minn., to Chicago. There, the 120-car trains are turned over to CSX Transportation for delivery to a pelletizing plant at Reynolds, located in northwest Indiana on the railroad’s former Monon main line.
After the ore is rolled into pellets resembling small marbles, CSX moves the finished product to blast furnaces operated by AK Steel. Due to the weight of the concentrate, only a portion of each car is filled, making it difficult to determine if the cars are loaded or empty. – David C. Schauer
