On November 25, 1994, an empty Wisconsin Central unit coal/taconite ore train, operated in conjunction with Southern Pacific, curves over a trestle between Amherst Junction and Custer, and will soon be arriving at the crew change of Stevens Point. These trains frequently utilized SP (Rio Grande was part of SP since 1988) locomotives on the WC.
In February 1994, Southern Pacific and Wisconsin Central scored a major coup when the received the ore contract from Utah’s Geneva Steel. The railroads began operating taconite ore trains from Minntac to Utah, and instead of sending the empty cars back to Minnesota for reloading, they back-hauled Utah and Colorado coal eastward to midwest customers, making both moves much more cost-effective.
