Locomotive Engine 1218
The Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway was said to be the largest iron ore handling railroad in North America, with 212 miles of track. Its mission was to move ore from Minnesota’s Mesabi Range taconite plants to the DM&IR dock facilities at Duluth and Two Harbors, or to connecting railroads at Superior, Wisconsin. It took a large engine to do the work: Locomotive Engine 1218.
Locomotive Engine 1218 as one of 12, received from the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1910, used by the Duluth, and Iron Range Railway (as number 218) and later by the Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway (as number 1218) to haul rich iron ore from the Soudan Mine to Lake Superior ports. This engine could haul 48 loaded 50-ton cars or 2700 tons.
Specs on the Engine:
Locomotive 1218: type 2-8-0, standard gauge, 56 cylinders 22”x28”, total engine weight 198,850 lbs. Weight on driver 175,050 lbs, boiler pressure 200 psi, driver diameter 54”, tractive effort 42,553 lbs., Construction # 34745, Super Heater type A 25 Units, Dome Throttle, Fuel: soft coal, MB type standard stoker, engine loc on locomotive, #8 fire box door. 2 each #10 Nathan Simplex Injectors with side checks. 25-51/2 flues 166 2” tubes. DV-3 mechanized lubricator, 4 each. Wilson Blowdown valves two feeding blowdown separator on top of boiler, 6 E.T. airbrake equip. with a Westinghouse 150 cc air compressor. Barco low water alarm, Walschvert Valvegear, Elco power reverse, Okadee, air operated cylinder cocks, 2 gallon Superior soot blowers, Nathan 3 feed hydrostatic lubricator for stoker and air pump, 2 water glasses and one water column with dry cocks.
In time, this locomotive was replaced by heavier and more powerful locomotives. However, it still pulled trains, albeit lighter loads. A fun story from Leo Pullar from Hoyt Lakes who reported this story in July, 2016 about Engine 1218:
“In 1952 I was working as a Fireman for the DM&IR and living in Virginia, Minnesota with my new wife. Because I couldn’t afford a honeymoon and didn’t want to be away from my new bride, I requested work closer to home. I was assigned to Engine 1218 which, at the time, was carrying mail and passengers from Virginia, to Iron and Eveleth and back to Virginia daily.”
In 1962, Engine 1218 was donated by the DM&IR to the City of Tower for display and historical purposes where it has become a focal point of the Tower Train Depot Museum.
Engine 1218 is presently the largest, grandest and most impressive attraction of the Tower Train Depot Museum. Looking at this mammoth piece of machinery, one is in awe of the extraordinary power it represents as the force that carried millions of tons of iron ore for decades. It rests now in Tower as an impressive reminder of the past.
