Join us for the "Lighting the Anderson” on November 10th during our regular hours from 10am to 3 pm. During this event we will light the newly arrived scale model of the Arthur Anderson ore ship, run several ore trains on our layouts and dim the room lights to give a preview of Night Trains.
After Nov. 10 the Anderson will be lit for all future Night Trains. The Anderson should be an impressive addition to Night Trains as it has 274 LED lights on board.
Why November 10th ? It is the 50th anniversary of the infamous storm that took the Fitzgerald and 29 souls. November 10, 1975 was one of the largest storms if not the largest in great lakes history. A Coast Guard Station located in Upper Michigan recorded the lowest barometric reading ever in US history that night. The Arthur M. Anderson and Edmond Fitzgerald found themselves in the middle of Lake Superior when 3 storms came together at one time. Under direction of Captain Jesse Cooper the Anderson was running about 15 miles behind the Fitzgerald when it disappeared from radar and could not be reached on the radio.
The Anderson was the last to have contact with the Edmond Fitzgerald, (also the last to have visual and radar sightings) and
was the first of 2 ships to search for the lost crew. The William Clay Ford also joined in the search.
The real ship: Arthur M Anderson when built in1952 for US Steel by American Ship Building Company Lorain Ohio was 647’ long, draft 36’, beam 70’ capacity, 20,000 tons and powered by a
7,700 hp Westinghouse steam turbine. The Anderson has a top speed 13 knots, equal to about 15 miles per hour, and a crew of 34. The Anderson last operated in January of this year and is
due for its 5 year inspection.
The scale model: Was built off site over a 5 year period and arrived October 2, 2025. The hull is mostly wood, about 10 and a half feet long, and weighs about 80 pounds. The upper structure
is wood, brass, and Plexiglas. Detail work will continue over the next year.
The display: This is all part of our addition of Two Harbors to our museum O Scale "2-rail" layout. Our goal is to capture the mining and shipping history of Minnesota in a way to make it interesting and historical.
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