http://www.ebay.com/itm/Little-Joe-Loco ... TQ:US:1123

hehe, albeit sad to see this, 801 had been used for parts for the other 2 in the late years.

but a record when this engine met its fate.

.......................................................





The Death of a Legend

South Shore Railroad's “Little Joe” GE Locomotive # 801 Meets Its Demise

You may find photos of these iconic "Little Joe" electric locomotives online but you aren't going to find any like these! What I'm offering here is a one-of-a-kind set of four 6" X 4" color prints of four photos I personally took of South Shore # 801 (“800 Unit”) being dismantled in my old scrap yard on the south side of Chicago back in the early 1980’s. It was the only one of South Shore’s three units to be dismantled and I was the only guy there at the time with a camera. South Shore Unit #802 is preserved and on public display at the Lake Shore Railway Historical Museum in North East, Pennsylvania and South Shore Unit #803 is preserved at the Illinois Railway Museum (IRM) so again, I know as fact that this was the only one of South Shore’s three units to ever be dismantled

Had I fully realized the historic nature of this event at the time, I swear I would have taken MORE pictures! I'm certain I still have the negatives around here somewhere. Nonetheless, I have yet to find any other photos anywhere of another “Little Joe” being dismantled making these, indeed, extremely rare and unique.

Die Hard, Little Joe, Die Hard
This locomotive did not go down without a fight. It truly did die hard. It was by far the largest piece of rolling stock that ever came through our scrap yard gate. In a normal situation, whenever a South Shore Railroad freight crew would deliver another decommissioned diesel locomotive through our rear gate, in what was a routine operation, we’d couple up to that locomotive with one of our five locomotive cranes and in a few minutes we’d have it staged and ready on the far end of the huge yard in the dismantling area near our massive liquid oxygen banks. The specialized crew of locomotive Torchmen (or Burners) waited with cutting torches with over-sized tips fed by seventy-five-foot-plus hose sets at the ready. Easy peasy, right? Just roll 'em in and torch 'em down! Well, easy perhaps with any diesel locomotives but not quite so freakin' easy with THIS bohemoth. Oh no, this was about as far from routine as things could get! Due to its unwieldy weight (272 tons!), its massive drive wheels but especially due to its fever dream length, (a whopping 88 feet, 10 inches!) more than once it derailed itself, going happily aground and bringing the entire operation to a screeching halt. While we attempted to push it with a struggling locomotive crane through the yard to the spot where it eventually came to its demise at the business end of those multiple Burner’s torches, Little Joe laid the rails of the sweeping track turns of our yard onto their sides. Multiple times. And it just sat there, silently mocking each and every last one of us. Due to the constant derails, (each one of which required a full track repair crew, new rails, multiple laborers, a second 100 ton locomotive crane with operator & groundman and a full compliment of VERY pissed-off supervisors before any more forward progress could continue) it took us a good part of a week just to make that same five minute trip to the dismantling area. The thing quite literally disrupted the entire yard. In short, on his way to meet his maker, this Little Joe kicked our butts!
A bit of "Little Joe" history.
The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (Milwaukee Road) classes EF-4 and EP-4 comprised 12 electric locomotives built by General Electric as part of a larger 20-unit order for export to the Soviet Union (USSR) in 1946. GE built 20 locomotives of this type, but they were prohibited from delivering them to the Soviet Railways (SZhD) due to relations between the US and USSR deteriorating into what became known as the Cold War. Fourteen were built to the Russian gauge (broad gauge) of5 ft (1,524 mm) and the final six were built to 4 ft 8.5 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge.The locomotives had twelve axles, eight of them powered, in a 2-D+D-2 arrangement. They were originally designed to operate on Soviet Railways (SZhD) 3,300 volt DC overhead line system. The Milwaukee Road had offered to buy all twenty, plus the spare parts inventory, for $1 million, little more than scrap value—an offer which GE accepted. However, the Milwaukee's Board of Directors would not release the money. Oops.
After the start of the Korean War, the Milwaukee needed more locomotives on their electrified mainline, and was also beset by a coal strike which necessitated sending most diesels back East (Milwaukee Lines East steam engines still burned coal, unlike Lines West steamers which were oil-burning). The Board of Directors returned to GE only to discover that eight locomotives and all the spare parts had already been sold, and that the price for the remaining twelve locomotives ALONE was now $1 million. Ouch! It was The Milwaukee's operating employees who first referred to the units as Little Joe Stalin's locomotives, which was eventually shortened to simply Little Joe. Of the eight sold, three had gone to the Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad (the South Shore Line), and five to the Companhia Paulista de Estradas de Ferro of Brazil.
In service on the South Shore, the “Little Joe” name was not generally used; the locomotives were referred to simply as “800s”.The South Shore, while primarily a commuter railroad between Chicago, Illinois, and northwestern Indiana, used them in freight service. They had to be modified to operate on 1500V DC catenary, and were delivered with roller bearings on all axles as on the Milwaukee EP-4s. Two of the three lasted until 1983, making them the last electrics in regular mainline freight service on a US common-carrier railroad. Today, freight trains are pulled by diesel-electric locomotives

Several MLW little Joes were scrapped in Chehalis, WA. While the MLW did run right through there, it was way far away from where they'd served and I never understood why they were towed that far when there must have been plenty of scrapping places near where they'd been stored once the overhead came down...

To be historically correct the South Shore called them the "800s". The Milwaukee Road called them "Little Joes". This was mentioned briefly in dinwitty's write-up. Here is a picture of 801 in her better days in the Chicago neighborhood of Hegwisch on January 27, 1964.

It's sad to see her go. The 800s were certainly uniquely special.

Marty Bernard

As a frequent reader of the IRM blogs I remember that the Little Joe operated either in the summer of '12 or 13'. Wish I could have been there, but there was a youtube video of it.

Alan

IRM brought theirs out late last year on some test runs, they dropped pans at the switches.

Perhaps we might see more action this year?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HidclV_Y9Sg

note the dropping of the pantograph to coast through the switches at about 4:20

IRM brought out 803 for some operation during Labor Day weekend of 2013. Someone from the IRM diesel department will have to comment on the chances of it running this year.

The Little Joes were scrapped at Chehalis because the Purdy Company paid more for them than anybody else. Purdy also scrapped a lot of the box cabs and the three steeple cab switchers. The rest of the Milwaukee electrics were scrapped at Seattle Iron & Metal in Seattle, WA.