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Union Pacific Iron Ore Trains

This page was last updated on September 20, 2024.

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Iron Ore Trains

- ACUW/E Atlantic City, Wyoming to Geneva, Utah (US Steel) routed (USS-Winton Jct)-UP;
- MNQA/W Comstock, Utah to Minnequa (Pueblo), Colorado (CF&I) routed UP-Denver-DRGW;
- SUE/W Comstock, Utah to Geneva, Utah routed UP direct;
- CUE/W Cima, California to Los Angeles (export) routed UP direct;
- MIGW/MIGE Minntac, Minnesota, to Geneva, Utah

The Comstock iron mine is in southwestern Utah, in the Iron Mountain Mining District.

(Read more about Iron Mountain)

[MNQA/MNQW] The Minnequa ore trains ran as MNQA eastbound empties from Minnequa (Pueblo) to Comstock, and MNQW westbound loads, from Comstock to Minnequa. The trains usually used a wide variety of motive power, usually the older locomotives that UP owned, as well as a variety of cars, which were usualy a mix of ore cars, bottom-dump gons, ballast hoppers, 3-bay UP hoppers, and even D&RGW hoppers.

The MNQA trains ran UP to Provo, the either UP via Wyoming to Denver, then D&RGW to Minnequa, or UP-Provo-D&RGW-Minnequa

[MIGE/MIGW] MIGE and MIGW (Minnesota Iron Geneva East/West) to replace Atlantic City ore train. Routing was CNW/UP-Omaha. US Steel was shipping iron ore from their Mountain Iron (Minnesota) facilities to Geneva Works in Utah, via CNW/UP, in three 100, 100-ton car trains per week. Power pool uses CNW, ex CR SD45s.

The Minntac trains started in the summer or fall of 1981.

Comments

Iron ore was also obtained from mines at Iron Mountain, Utah, near Cedar City. This moved both UP-C&S via Denver, or UP-D&RGW via Denver. At various times it also moved UP-D&RGW via Grand Junction. An interchange track called "the Minnequa" was built at Provo; it's now used as a long lead (it's over by Ironton). I've seen photographs of unit iron ore trains on Sherman Hill in the 1960s, and on Tennessee Pass in the 1940s. (Mark Hemphill, email dated February 10, 2005)

Back in 1969-1970, they were running an MNQA Minnequa iron ore train from Cedar City to Pueblo, by way of Wyoming to Denver, then by D&RGW to Pueblo. The power was UP SD45s, and the cars were a mix of UP 70- and 90-ton open top hoppers. It was run once or twice a week, and the empties were returned by way of regular merchandise trains.

Cars are a mix of UP HM ore hoppers, GT ore gons, HK ballast hoppers and HT triple hoppers. Other photos show UP's shorter HK ballast hoppers, which the Grande used to haul Eilers slag ballast west on the backhaul.

CF&I Minnequa (Pueblo) Colorado: a significant amount of their ore came from mines in Southern Utah. Ore came from either the Duncan, Blowout or Comstock mines from the early 1940s through the early '80s. Those trains were routed either UP-Provo-DRGW or UP-Denver-DRGW.

Mark Hemphill's UP Salt Lake Route book says that Utah mines were supplying around 500,000 tons of ore per year to CF&I at Minnequa. Some of that ore ran via UP-Provo-DRGW (Tennessee Pass) in the late-1940s. Starting in the 1950s it appears that most, if not all, was routed via Wyoming, passing through Rawlins and Speer. Freight schedules from more recent years (1970s) show that those trains originated at the Comstock Mine, which was in southwest Utah near Cedar City.

CF&I / Minnequa trains didn't typically use sets of the specifically ore cars. The photos and train lists show they used mainly older conventional hoppers.

S. Kip Farrington's "Railroads Of The Hour" discussing UP's iron ore movements for 1957.

June 1960
According to an article in New York Times in June 1960, construction on U. S. Steel's Atlantic City iron mine started in mid 1960. UP's Wyoming Division track profiles show 1963 as the date the line between Winton Junction and Atlantic City was completed, having been constructed by UPRR for the benefit of U. S. Steel. Production from the iron mines at Utah's Iron Mountain fell by 2/3 when the Atlantic City mine opened in 1963, and it was the movement of ore to CF&I in Pueblo, by way of Wyoming, that saved the Utah mines.

Rock Springs to Winton Junction (9.3 miles) was the South Pass Branch. Rock Springs to Stansbury (MP 7.68) completed in 1911; Stansbury to Winton Junction (MP 9.3) completed in 1917.

Winton Junction to Atlantic City (76.68 miles) was the Atlantic City Spur, completed in 1963 by UP for U. S. Steel.

The Atlantic City trains were ACUW (Atlantic City Unit West - loads) and ACUE (Atlantic City Unit East - empties).

The ACUW and ACUE used SD45s as motive power from late 1968 through 1971, when the trains received sets of four SD24s and and four SD24Bs as motive power. The SD24s were replaced in 1974 by UP's unique SD40X former demonstrator units. The SD40X units were assigned to North Platte as hump switchers in late 1975, and replaced in ACUW and ACUE service by new GE U30C units in the 2900 series. In 1977 the U30Cs were replaced by new C30-7s, numbered as UP 2960-2974, renumbered to UP 2400-2414 in 1978.

Cima

December 1971
Union Pacific began bringing in iron ore from the Standard Slag Company's mine at Beck, California. The ore was mostly magnetite with some hematite and will be sold to the Tonan Trading Company of Tokyo who are the agents for different Japanese steel mills. The 15-hour, 280-mile rail haul originates at Cima, California, where the ore is loaded into the train known as the "CUW" (Cima Unit West). The current schedule includes 8 hours for loading, 24 hours for unloading and four hours for servicing at Union Pacific's East Los Angeles Yard. Currently gondolas are in used with 55 new ore cars on special order for the service at a cost of about $900,000. Consist of the train on November 9th was SD24s and SD24Bs 421, 418B, 425B, 440B and GP9 322. There are a planned 100 5000-ton shipments per year, to be unloaded at Berth 49 in San Pedro.

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