Initial operations consisted of 150-car, 19,000 ton ore trains pulled by five diesel locomotives.
The startup fleet of locomotives consisted of nine General Motors Diesel Division GP9 locomotives and eight Montreal Locomotive Works RS-18 locomotives. A fleet of 500 ore cars was constructed by Canadian Car and Foundry.
The first full year saw 8,130,000 tons of concentrate shipped with three trainsets cycling between Lac Jeannine and Port-Cartier. Winter operations would see trains' length dropped down to as few as 90 cars with more trainsets added to keep up with production.
The railway would move an average of eight to nine million tons for the next ten years.
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One of the biggest problems faced by the Cartier Railway during the winter months was keeping the concentrate from freezing to the sides of the ore cars, which could make dumping the concentrate a very slow process. The solution to this problem was to line the insides of the ore cars with styrofoam sheets which were then covered with plywood. Steam was injected into the plywood/styrofoam liner at the mine and it would keep the ore insulated until it reached the unloader at Port-Cartier.
In 1972, as the original Lac Jeannine deposit was starting to run out, the railway was extended an additional 86 miles (138 km) to a new ore deposit located near Mont Wright. Morrison-Knudsen was the construction company that built the extension. The new line departed the original line at Milepost 174, just north of Love Siding. This location was named South Junction by the railway. The terrain was much milder on the new extension and only five bridges needed to be constructed.
Six additional 6,600 ft (2,012 m) sidings were constructed and continued the alphabetical naming. These sidings are named Mike, Nan, Oboe, Pat, Queen, and Rob. Production at the Mont Wright mine was planned at 19 million tons per year, requiring additional railway equipment to handle the additional volume.
Six M636 locomotives were purchased from Montreal Locomotive Works, while Marine Industries of Sorel, Québec built 130 additional ore cars.
One of the new M636 locomotives would have an extremely short career. On May 31, 1972, M636 #72, along with GP9's 52 and 58 and RS-18 61, ran away and derailed along with 134 ore cars on the grade, Milepost 62.4 between the sidings of Dog and Eva. Both crew members and an unauthorized passenger were killed and all units, including #72, just on its second trip, were written off and scrapped on the spot. The accident was believed to be caused by crew fatigue.
The railway suddenly found itself short of equipment again and fellow U.S. Steel railway Bessemer & Lake Erie sent four of its ALCO RSD-15 locomotives to the Cartier Railway in June 1972. Two more RSD-15's headed north in 1973. The Cartier Railway also acquired from Morrison-Knudsen three ALCO C636 demonstrators, which were used during construction of the Mont Wright extension.
Finally in 1973, the Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range sent three ALCO C630 locomotives to the Cartier Railway, with 7 more arriving in 1976. These units were oddballs on the DM&IR because the rest of their fleet was all Electro-Motive Division units, but they fit in very well on the Cartier Railway. Several more M636s were purchased new from MLW during 1976, as well as several acquired used from the Canadian National.
By 2002, the old ALCO and MLW locomotives were being replaced by newer General Electric AC4400CWs.
