Departing Mankato, RCPE's Mankato to Aurora train heads west past the riverfront. The old Mankato depot once hosted CNW passenger trains, nowadays several local businesses call it home.

RCPE'S Mankato turn heads west through the southern Minnesota Flatlands on this beautiful fall evening.

The Mankato turn heads west past the old elevator at Essig.

A pair of RCPE's finest head over the trestle on the Cottonwood River in New Ulm.

A pair of SD40-2s take the Mankato turn west out of town, back to home base in Aurora, SD. Folks were out enjoying the Halloween festivities occurring downtown, while us railfans were getting our ... (more)

Halloween orange in double takes the form of a pair of pumpkins on the porch steps of the house across from the grain elevator to a handsome pair of SD40-2's leading a 67 car Mankato-Aurora train ... (more)

I grew up consuming a steady diet of telephoto smashes of SD40-2s in my favorite books and magazines, so I never pass up the chance to make another one. In this case, it was four of them blasting ... (more)

A westbound Rapid City, Pierre & Eastern train passes by the power at the Harvest Land Cooperative elevator near Springfield, MN. The Harvest Land engine started life as a Detroit, Toledo & Ironto... (more)

Just emerging from an intrusive cloud shadow, seven SD40-2s throttle up as they accelerate out of Tracy with a westbound train back in May 2020. During this phase of the early pandemic, with traff... (more)

A chunk of granite that was deposited by the same glacier that formed these hills thousands of years ago keeps watch over the passage of an eastbound RCPE freight train near Lake Benton, MN.

Four SD40-2s disturb the peace and quiet of the small town Saturday evening in Sanborn, Minnesota as they hustle westbound with a Rapid City, Pierre & Eastern train.

In a couple of previous posts, I showed a couple of eastbound trains coming through downtown Springfield, MN, illustrating the view before a... (more)

Four SD40-2's roll a westbound quickly through the curves of the slight line relocation west of Cobden, MN that was the result of an overpass replacement project back in Dakota, Minnesota & Easter... (more)

A low angle view of an SD40-2 as a Rapid City, Pierre & Eastern train sits, tied down and waiting for a new crew on the east side of Tracy, MN.

An eastbound Rapid City, Pierre & Eastern train briefly disrupts life in the quiet small town of Springfield, MN on a nice July morning.