Western Railroad Discussion > Ellis and Eastern, Dakota and Iowa and Ringneck Western

On Monday the 20th was a long day for us. Before driving straight to MRL we focused our day on 2 shortlines and caught a 3rd on the way out. Our morning started very eary at 6am in Sioux Falls with the Ellis and Eastern. They had their switch job already out working with a solo GP10. About 10 minutes behind was the loaded hopper train to Corson with a pair of SD40-2Ws. Both trains would follow each other into town and to their joint yard on the east side of town. The switch job would grab SW1200 #7 and work the industries there while the hopper continued over BNSF. After this we found the extra DAIR ballast train coming from Dell Rapids. After that we headed to Haywarden to find the other 2 DAIR trains. The northbound from Sioux City was a few miles south of Haywarden when we found it. The train was long and had 5 engines. The southbound came into town shortly after with 3 units. After some switching and swapping crews the southbound continued. We followed it to Akron. After that we ate lunch and started the journey to Montana. When we were about 10 miles west of Chamberlain we saw a train heading east on the Ringneck Western(Ex Dakota Southern). We quickly turned around and went just west of Chamberlain and waited. We also caught it over the massive bridge going over the Missouri River. Enjoy!

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Both units are Ex CN and were also owned by Minnesota Western

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Coming into Sioux Falls

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GP10 and SW1200 duo in 2022

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DAIR ballast coming into north side of Sioux Falls

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Northbound DAIR with 3 SD40-2s and 2 GP39-2

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2 more of the northbound

Southbound entering Haywarden

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Southbound to Sioux City

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a few more of the SB

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Ringneck and Western

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I have had some great trips, but, your recent forays have been phenomenal!
JB

Great Batch !  Love that DAIR scheme. They sure keep their motive power clean.

Definitely agree with this comment. There are several Class One railroads you could have focused your time on heading to Montana and back, but I think you came away with something much more interesting.

3rdswitch Wrote:
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> I have had some great trips, but, your recent
> forays have been phenomenal!
> JB

An Excelllent and interesting series! Very enjoyable!

Larry

YA done well. Love me some DAIR. Hope to get back there this year again. 

MILW86A

DAIR and E&E stuff both very cool. Missed E&E when I went after the DAIR in 2009, and those GP40-2Ls look sharp.

What's the ancestry of DAIR's SD40-2 and GP39-2s? When I was there, their big engines were ex-SP SD39s and ex-somebody GP50s, along with a few Geeps still active.

Also, *Hawarden.

Dave, the GP50's were ex-CNW, I believe.  The wide nose locomotives, however, are SD40-2's, which would be ex-CN.  I had not heard CN was disposing of these engines so this was interesting and informative information.  Nice series, thanks for posting.  

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/29/22 18:42 by ntharalson.

ntharalson Wrote:
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> The wide nose locomotives, howere, are SD40-2's, which
> would be ex-CN. 

I didn't pay close enough attention - didn't notice they were SD's rather than GP's, also ex-CN and widely dispersed among short lines now.

Sioux Falls, SD is short line railroading heaven.  E&E, DAIR, and even the BNSF operates like a small time out station.  The power has gotten a little larger over the years,   but still great small flavor RRing all around town.

Did the E&E ever restore the tracks easward into MN, or they just running over BNSF  to the north/east to get to minnesota?

Those old CN widecabs look good-nice shots!