Trucks and Trains at Pipestone

The former NP/BN route over Homestake Pass was cut as a through route in 1983, though a bit of the eastern climb is still used by MRL/BNSF to serve a ballast pit at Pipestone. The former main is used as the loading track, with trains shoving up the 2.2% grade to get under the ballast loader.

 

The loader for the ballast pit is at the right; it dumps ballast from up on the hill down into waiting railcars below. However, on this day it broke during the middle of loading the train in the background. As a result, the pit foreman decided to use the dump truck to bring ballast down to track level here, then use a front loader to manually shovel ballast into the hopper cars.

 

While the train waits clear of the crossing, the big dump truck brings down another load of ballast to the ever-increasing pile just out of frame below the image. When the pile is large enough to fill the rest of the train, the front loader will come down and the train will pull forward to be loaded.

 

MRL Ballast Train

MRL SD70ACe #4307

MRL SD70ACe #4407

 

Pipestone, MT

May 1st, 2022

Done