In my videos I often say things in the descriptions like “The ship went to load at the CN6 ore dock” or “the ship departed Hallet 5”. But I’ve never given much context to that so maybe it’s time to change that! Featured here are the Joseph L Block, Michigan Trader/Dirk S VanEnkevort, and the two active Hallet stone docks. Both vessels came to Duluth with limestone. Block moves in the foreground first, docks, deploys her boom and starts unloading, while in the background at the same time across the harbor, Michigan Trader finishes unloading, starts engines and slowly makes her way out of the dock and into the harbor. Wish I could get closer but there are no closer public view points that I’m aware of, plus the hillside gives you a huge overview. So the skyline observation point will have to do unless I somehow get an invitation into the docks (which has happened before at Globe Pier, so you never know!) You can also see the CN ore docks and the SMET coal dock. Several trains are also visible, hauling stone out over the trestles from Hallet 5 and a massive grain train heading for the grain docks on Rice’s Point. The whole process took about 45 minutes, after which I left to catch the outbound ship at the lift bridge. Did catch her so that should be an upcoming video here soon, can even put it out tonight if anyone wants! If you want to see even closer behind the scenes views you can check out the Kelly Campy RU-vid Channel, as she works with the port itself and is very underrated.
Hallet 5, which the Block docked at, is Duluth’s primary limestone dock, and a common destination for many lakers in the 600-800ft size range. It’s also the main loading dock for blast furnace trim, a sometimes hazardous fine powered iron ore product used to help melt the larger Taconite pellets and other things. Loading this into a ship is a very slow and delicate process that can take several days, with a shipment departing about once a month on average, usually on the Joseph L Block. It was originally constructed as a coal receiving dock and was converted to its current configuration in the 1960s. It is currently owned by the CN Railroad.
Hallet 8, which Michigan Trader/ Dirk S VanEnkevort departed from, is one of Superior’s limestone docks, and while it sometimes takes shipments of that, its main use is for road salt and de-icer production. Salt is brought in, usually on Canadian lakers or Mark W Barker and combined with liquid calcium chlorate, which small tanker ATBs such as Spartan unload here, then is used to make the road salt that is spread across the Midwest in winter. On extremely rare occasion a ship will also load iron ore filings here, usually intended for overseas trade. Sometimes this is loaded onto a Canadian laker, which offloads it at Quebec City and then is reloaded onto an oceangoing vessel. Or a saltie will come and load directly from the dock (which I think has only happened once, ever, which was this May). It is currently the only liquid cargo capable dock in western Lake Superior. It is independently operated and serviced by the BNSF railroad.
Enjoy!
18 сен 2024
