Great Northern Ore Wagon 317-A at Superior, Wisconsin in May 1970
The obvious part of the story on this image is that the subject is a three-unit set of Great Northern Ore Wagons, GN 317-A, BN 633, and GN 311-A. It's May 1970 and new railroad Burlington Northern is just beginning to renumber locomotives so the two A-units shown still have their GN numbers. They will become BN 656 and BN 634 respectively while the already renumbered B-unit is ex-GN 311-B.
The not-so-obvious part is why 317-A has its front number board and side porthole rims painted silver. This wasn't done on a painter's personal whim. There was purpose behind this paint job modification.
When the Great Northern set into motion the construction of its Allouez taconite storage and loading facilities on November 23, 1965 it also created one of the closest links this company ever had to the pair of mining interests that created the Butler and National pellet plants on the western Mesabi Range. The cash out lay was enormous. GN alone shelled out well in excess of $6,000,000 just to get the project going. The modifications made to ore dock Number 1, the changes made to the track layout at Allouez yard, the building of the unloading, storage and reclaiming facilities, and the modifications to raise capacity of 400 50-ton ore cars to handle 70-tons of pellets each are about equal to the amount of work being done on the Range to build and test the two new taconite plants, create the new loop loading tracks and their associated conveyors and tipples.
The mining companies, GN, and the Western Weighing and Inspection Bureau all had serious interests in having clean cars to begin with so that each could be weighed and reweighed at each company's track scales to make certain that each car had the correct tare weight on it so that loads coming from the mines, being unloaded at Allouez, and being put into Dock Number 1 were all identical. This took well over two years to perfect on account of changes being made to the car fleet, multiple loading and unloading points for the pellets, and frankly, problems with the loading, unloading, and reclaiming equipment, conveyor systems, surge bins, and sampling stations. This all turned into an expensive nightmare for officials and contractors to resolve on account of this new commodity, pelletized iron ore, had to be handled with speed, efficiency, and accounting accuracy like never before.
Initially, it took about 6 hours to automatically load a 200-car train at the mine and about 6 hours to unload that same train at Allouez. The idea was to keep the taconite plants in suitable production so that the trains always had pellets to load when they arrived. With the round trip to the Range taking about 10-12 hours it was imperative that it be kept moving, especially during the 6-hour loading and unloading cycles. So to make things easier on everyone losing sleep over these issues, two sets of diesel-electric locomotives were equipped with electric Creep Control systems to move these trains slowly and continuously through the loading and unloading cycles. The first two sets of engines were GN 314ABC and GN 317ABC. More than one company official asked if there was some way to mark or identify these engines as being special to the Allouez unit train project so that they didn't get sent elsewhere in 1966 when testing was going on. So the number board and porthole rims were painted silver to make these creep control A-units more obvious to trainmen and maintenance personnel.
If you look at any of the GN's publicity photos from this time period you'll usually find GN 317-A or C on the point of the train, that eventually became BN 656 and 658. When the project started they were all painted in the orange and green paint job but the Sky Blue era swept in rather quickly during 1967 so GN 314-ABC (BN 644-645-646) were usually the locomotives you'll see leading taconite trains from that early taconite period in the Sky Blue paint.
Great Northern Ore Wagon 317-A at Superior, Wisconsin in May 1970
The obvious part of the story on this image is that the subject is a three-unit set of Great Northern Ore Wagons, GN 317-A, BN 633, and GN 311-A. It's May 1970 and new railroad Burlington Northern is just beginning to renumber locomotives so the two A-units shown still have their GN numbers. They will become BN 656 and BN 634 respectively while the already renumbered B-unit is ex-GN 311-B.
The not-so-obvious part is why 317-A has its front number board and side porthole rims painted silver. This wasn't done on a painter's personal whim. There was purpose behind this paint job modification.
When the Great Northern set into motion the construction of its Allouez taconite storage and loading facilities on November 23, 1965 it also created one of the closest links this company ever had to the pair of mining interests that created the Butler and National pellet plants on the western Mesabi Range. The cash out lay was enormous. GN alone shelled out well in excess of $6,000,000 just to get the project going. The modifications made to ore dock Number 1, the changes made to the track layout at Allouez yard, the building of the unloading, storage and reclaiming facilities, and the modifications to raise capacity of 400 50-ton ore cars to handle 70-tons of pellets each are about equal to the amount of work being done on the Range to build and test the two new taconite plants, create the new loop loading tracks and their associated conveyors and tipples.
The mining companies, GN, and the Western Weighing and Inspection Bureau all had serious interests in having clean cars to begin with so that each could be weighed and reweighed at each company's track scales to make certain that each car had the correct tare weight on it so that loads coming from the mines, being unloaded at Allouez, and being put into Dock Number 1 were all identical. This took well over two years to perfect on account of changes being made to the car fleet, multiple loading and unloading points for the pellets, and frankly, problems with the loading, unloading, and reclaiming equipment, conveyor systems, surge bins, and sampling stations. This all turned into an expensive nightmare for officials and contractors to resolve on account of this new commodity, pelletized iron ore, had to be handled with speed, efficiency, and accounting accuracy like never before.
Initially, it took about 6 hours to automatically load a 200-car train at the mine and about 6 hours to unload that same train at Allouez. The idea was to keep the taconite plants in suitable production so that the trains always had pellets to load when they arrived. With the round trip to the Range taking about 10-12 hours it was imperative that it be kept moving, especially during the 6-hour loading and unloading cycles. So to make things easier on everyone losing sleep over these issues, two sets of diesel-electric locomotives were equipped with electric Creep Control systems to move these trains slowly and continuously through the loading and unloading cycles. The first two sets of engines were GN 314ABC and GN 317ABC. More than one company official asked if there was some way to mark or identify these engines as being special to the Allouez unit train project so that they didn't get sent elsewhere in 1966 when testing was going on. So the number board and porthole rims were painted silver to make these creep control A-units more obvious to trainmen and maintenance personnel.
If you look at any of the GN's publicity photos from this time period you'll usually find GN 317-A or C on the point of the train, that eventually became BN 656 and 658. When the project started they were all painted in the orange and green paint job but the Sky Blue era swept in rather quickly during 1967 so GN 314-ABC (BN 644-645-646) were usually the locomotives you'll see leading taconite trains from that early taconite period in the Sky Blue paint.