The Honorable James L. Oberstar Makes An Appearance

I was actually hoping to catch her at Port Huron, but I misestimated the time she would arrive there.  So I was going to try to catch her at Marysville but I missed her by 5 minutes or so.  I headed down to St. Clair and I wasn't going to miss her there.

 With the Herbert C. Jackson getting her steam engine removed and getting it replaced with a diesel, I think the Honorable James L. Oberstar is going to pick up the slack.

 She loaded taconite in order to deliver it to the steel mill in Dearborn.  It's actually kind of amazing since so many other steel mills are cutting back production.  I think this is a fairly regular run.

 The Oberstar has been equipped with an emission scrubber of some sort which makes it almost look like a steam ship.

 I think it's kind of cool really and I hope that other ships are equipped with this system.

 But  I think the EPA is tightening down on diesel emissions and this will become a requirement for ships.

 A shot of her pilothouse.

 The almost beam shot.

 I like the way that the steam stands out against the sky.

 And she continues down the river.

 After I caught the Griffon in Marysville, I decided that I wanted to get a couple more shots of the Oberstar.  I wasn't able to catch up with her again until she got to Algonac.  At that point, the snow was picking up a little more and made it look foggy.

 But I like slightly obscured shots like this.

 As she got closer, the snow wasn't too bad.

 Another shot of her pilothouse.

 And her deckhouse.

 A closer shot of her pilothouse.  I'm not sure how many more runs will be made this season but I'm pretty sure it's winding down.

I think the scrubber are in the tubes on top of the stack.