Train on Rochelle Sub

[Freight Train]

Was over at Train.com and was watching the Rochelle Sub webcam. Pretty foggy there but saw an interesting BNSF unit train I'd like to get some info on. It was a gondola unit train, all BNSF cars and easily 100 cars or more. the cars all had yellow horizontal striping at the bottom with one single yellow stripe at one end of the car, The train was headed to Savanna, Illinois and appeared to be empty? Or at lease appeared that way as I couldn't see inside the cars. Does anyone know what this train is and what it hauls??
                                                                                      Freight Train

[pedro]

That's a unit train that runs between Minnesota and Indiana hauling iron ore mine tailings for further refinement, as I understand it. The loaded ore looks like reddish dirt. They are interchanged at Western Ave. in Chicago.  Maybe someone else has more detailed info on the symbols and actual destinations.

[Freight Train]

Thanks Pedro....that's a start and gives me an idea. Are the cars designed to be rotary tipped?? They all faced the same direction with the vertical yellow stripe on the same side of each car.
                                                                                 Freight Train

[pedro]

Hey FT- just a quick follow up with some more info; those trains are indeed rotary dumped. They cycle between a loadout in Grand Rapids, Minnesota on BNSF and a facility in Reynolds, Indiana on CSX (ex-Monon) The low-grade ore tailings are concentrated at several plants in Minnesota, trucked to the load out, then processed into Taconite pellets in Indiana. The company doing this is Magnetation, Inc. The Taconite goes to AK Steel plants in Ohio and Kentucky.


Their web site is pretty comprehensive, with pics of the facilities, videos etc: http://www.magnetation.com