Last night (Monday, May 7, 2012), one of the three large pieces discharged from the Clipper Gemini was slowly moved into place to become part of the train being built to leave for Alberta later today. All three pieces, each on three separate cars, will be connected to make the train.
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The world’s largest rail car is the Schnabel car, or as Bill Bingman, the Schnabelmeister, calls it, the CEBX800. It has spent a large part of its life in Duluth waiting for the few jobs that call for the world’s largest rail car. Engineers are not dumb and they don’t build things that can’t be delivered to the customer, so they don’t build anything bigger than the world’s largest railcar if they will need to transport anything by rail. When they build it for the Schnabel car, it is brought to Duluth by ship and discharged at the Port Terminal directly onto the Schnabel car, where Bill and his crew take over.
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When the Schnabel car is loaded, as she is just above while coming over the Grassy Point Bridge from Duluth to Superior on December 1st, 2005 on her way to Alberta, the cargo actually becomes a part of the car as it is carried between two holding sections. Click either picture for larger version. |
There may be some changes coming. Several weeks ago, Bill came into town to take the car to Georgia for some heavy lift work. It is not clear if it will ever be back here, although probably, it has never been very clear where it will go or be used since it was built in 1980 in Germany.
When Bill told me he had to take the car to New Castle, Pennsylvania (just outside Pittsburgh) for some maintenance work, I was overjoyed. Having grown up in the Pittsburgh area, I naturally have a Duluth Shipping News office there. Until now, my staff there has not had much to do. I called to alert them to their first task in over 16 years, greet Bill and his car, get some pictures of them with Bill and the car and send them to me.
The car made good time on the way to Chicago but a train wreck in Indiana delayed things for a week. By the time he made it to New Castle, Bill had no time left to visit as he had to leave very quickly for Georgia. He found someone in the yard to take this picture and told me he might be back in the Spring.
Sadly, I have had to lay off my Pittsburgh staff there again, at least until the spring.
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According to the Duluth News Tribune, these two cars are 2 of 17 cars that derailed on Thursday morning, February 3, 2011, close by the CN Docks in West Duluth. The cars were empty and no one was injured. The picture above was taken Friday morning; they have not yet been moved although equipment to do so is on the scene, just out of the picture to the left.
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The ocean going heavy lift ship Tracer arrived in Duluth on Friday, November 5th, 2010. She brought equipment that was discharged at Lake Superior Warehousing Company at the Port Terminal directly onto railcars for the trip to the final destination in Lethbridge, Alberta. Included were two very heavy transformers that were discharged onto special railcars. The first to be pulled out of the ship’s cargo hold is seen above.
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