Our Iron Range routes run weekly up Highway 53 and across Highway 169 from Hibbing to Virginia, Eveleth, Mountain Iron, Chisholm, Buhl and Gilbert. Range fleets have a dirt nothing else does: taconite dust. It is fine, red, abrasive and it gets into everything, and a truck that has run past the pits for a week looks like it has been painted. Hot water and the two-step pre-soak take it off without scrubbing it into the paint.
Mine contractors and haulers
Contractors working in and around the mines run the heaviest equipment we wash: haul trucks, large loaders, dozers and the lowboys that move them. Those machines are washed in the yard or at a staging area, before service and before they move between sites. Heavy equipment washing.
Range winters
The Range gets colder and stays frozen longer than the lake shore, and Highway 169 and 53 are brined all winter. Our hot-water trucks work to well below zero; on the coldest nights we watch door seals and steps and adjust the rinse. Fleets that run the highways daily go weekly with undercarriage.
School and city fleets
Range districts and contractors run some of the largest bus fleets in the region, and the cities and St. Louis County run plow, utility and public works fleets out of yards from Hibbing to Virginia. Mid-day bus rotations and locked public yards are routine for us. School bus washing.
How far up the Range do you go?
Regularly to Virginia, Eveleth, Gilbert, Mountain Iron, Hibbing, Chisholm and Buhl. Tower, Ely, Cook and Aurora on request when a route can be built around them.