When you get to Two Harbors

By Todd Lindahl

Editor’s Note: For passengers on the Two Harbors Turn, as the train pulls into the downtown station look to your left to see how this railroad town welcomes guests. There on display is a giant Yellowstone steam locomotive and the more diminutive “Three Spot” (#3) and two other pieces of vintage railroad rolling stock. This is their story as told by Todd Lindahl noted Two Harbor’s railroad historian.

By 1934 the Great Depression had hit the former Duluth & Iron Range Railroad very hard and they were taking drastic measures to save as much of the business as possible. The Duluth Missabe & Northern had leased the D&IR in 1930 in the second year of the depression. The venerable “Three Spot” locomotive had been saved from the scrap yard by the Veteran Employee Association and put on permanent display next to the Two Harbors depot in 1923. 1934 was an important year since it marked the Half-Century of Progress in the

Transportation of Iron Ore celebration.

The city of Two Harbors began to plan events honoring this milestone in Minnesota’s iron mining history. They approached railroad president C.E. Carlson requesting they build a replica wood- en 28-foot ore car and a four-wheel “bopper type” caboose to be added to the Three Spot display. The request was flatly turned down since the estimated $1,500 cost to build them new was seen as being too expensive. However, the railroad did agree to provide no more than

$500 and employees, on their own time, could use the company shops after hours to build the display pieces.

Car shop foreman L. A. Running pointed out that caboose #52 was about to be scrapped.

Two Harbors

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The 1893 caboose had been a four-wheeled bobber but had been stretched in 1909 to comply with the state’s double-track law. The car was shortened and all modern-at-thetime equipment like air brakes and automatic couplers were removed.

The ore car has an even more interesting history. It was one of 300 purchased in 1883 from a company in Stillwater, Minnesota. They were delivered to Two Harbors by barge from Duluth. Through some error in planning, they were the wrong length for the ore dock pockets that were on 24-foot centers. That meant tying up an engine and crew to reposition the train the entire time it was dumping. That mistake was never made again.

As new cars of proper length replaced the old wooden ones, several were rebuilt as gravel spreaders. One of these spreaders designated as spreader

#2 had been sold for scrap in 1934. It was immediately repurchased by the company and reconfigured to the #251 on display.

It is the only surviving wooden ore car left from either the D&IR or DM&N. Amazingly the restoration of these two cars was accom- plished for under the $500 limit.

The ore car and caboose have been on display now for 88 years. In another 12 years, in 2034, they may be celebrating 150 years of transporting iron ore as well as a 100-year-old restoration.