Every year I take campers from my church to Camp House, near Brimson, MN. It's a former Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range camp that was created for the families of railroad employees. It eventually was sold to the YMCA and then Green Lake Lutheran Ministries purchased it about 20 years ago. It's a great getaway in the Minnesota north woods near Lake Superior. Of course, as a railfan, the fact that its only several miles from the still active Iron Range Subdivision is a bonus. In my first few years of staying at the camp, even though none of the locomotives I saw were still maroon and gold, the sound of quartets of EMDs hauling taconite to Lake Superior and empties back to the Range was like being transported back in time to when 645 prime movers provided the soundtrack to my formative railfanning years. Now, GEs have taken over these duties for the most part. It's still nice to see trains rolling through the forests of northern Minnesota, but a little of the mystique is disappearing. On the morning of June 12, 2019, however, I heard that unmistakable EMD sound as I awoke in my cabin next to the shore of Lake George, so I hustled to the tracks. To my delight, I found this shorter train of raw ore getting a crew change at Brimson. Fortunately, I didn't have to wait long for them to be on the move again, the clouds opened up, and once again I was treated to that sweet 645 symphony in the woods as two SD40s accelerated toward Two Harbors. You can bet I had a big smile on my face as I went back to camp after getting this shot of them approaching the crossing at Rollins.
