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Caption: It amazes this photographer how American Class 1 railways still have small operations toiling away on isolated rails far from their own mainlines. The BNSF has one such example, and it exists within the confines of Manitoba's capital. Now known as Burlington Northern Santa Fe (Manitoba), more commonly referred to as the BNML (Burlington Northern Manitoba Ltd. -given to it after the merger between Burlington Northern and Great Northern Railroads in 1971).
I know little of the operation, but they own little trackage and serve only a few customers, with their traffic being forward by CN to BNSF in Noyes, Minnesota. This day the crew in BNSF GP39-3 2694 hauls a long transfer (50ish? cars) around the curve at Portage Jct. and into CN's Fort Rouge yard. After setting off their drag, they would couple onto a dozen cars for the short return trip to home rails. I would like to hear some comments from anyone more knowledgeable about the operation.
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A single unit with 50 cars? I’m guessing because the terrain is flat.
I know that they interchange cars with CN at Fort Rouge Yard, and CP at Westview Yard. Often they will start operations at around 10:00 AM each weekday. (Usually not weekends) On a good day, they will usually run north to CP and industries, bring cars to CN, bring cars back to CP and industries, then back to their shed and stop, maybe switch ADM too.
Oh, and right now they have 2 locomotives. Almost always they only have 1.
Nice work Dave. Like the CSX in Ontario… really neat operation. I have two words on why BNML continues to exist… inter-switching… BNSF gets to option a crapload of traffic in and surrounding Winnipeg from many customers.. and these customers get to route via BNSF even if they aren’t located on BNML directly.
Same with Sarnia.. customers on CN can route CSX if they so choose due to interswitching rights.. coded in Canadian law.