I had to download this picture off the internet because I missed the one going across the bridge into Minnesota.  Our next stop was Duluth which is a pretty amazing town, really.  We went on another old train ride up the shore of Lake Superior and then visited the museum in the train depot.  Once again Mark is living out his boyhood fantasies!  This is the operating system for the engine pictured above.  Can you even make sense of it? This is an old mail car when mail was sorted along the way and then delivered to towns along the train route.  In Duluth along the waterfront is a ship canal which leads from Lake Superior into the harbor area.  This light house is at the mouth of the canal.  Ships containing or loading iron ore, grain, wood products, etc. make their way into and out of the canal.  We watched as the Paul Tregurtha, the largest boat on the Great Lakes made it’s way through the Canal. It is 1013’6″ long with a beam of 107′.  It carries over 78,000 tons of ore in a load.  The infamous Edmund Fitzgerald was one of these boats and was only 800′ long.   eThis is the old flagship of US Steel.  We toured it and learned a bunch about this form of transport in the Great Lakes.  The Irwin became too small at 600′ and load capacity of 17,000 tons and was retired in 1975.

next up-North Dakota!!