South Shore Freight’s GP38-2s are the backbone of one of America’s premier short lines by Kevin P. Keefe DIESELS UNDER WIRE DIESELS UNDER WIRE Bearing the South Shore standard in traction orange and maroon, GP38-2s 2000 and 2004 roll a heavy westbound under energized catenary in Gary, Ind., on Nov. 13, 2015. Greg McDonnell Street running interurban style, GP38-2s Nos. 2009 and 2000 pull a westbound freight through the S-curve on 11th Street in Michigan City, Ind. “For a moment, this neighborhood belongs to a railroad called South Shore Freight.” ven after 35 years, the scene still steel mills to heavy manufacturing. With its making facility at Burns Harbor, formerly gets your attention. You’re in the strategic 90-mile mainline arc tracing the Bethlehem Steel. old industrial town of Michigan southern rim of Lake Michigan from South There’s also that matter of South Shore’s City, Ind., standing along 11th Bend to Chicago, the South Shore inter- traction heritage. Nearly every move those Street, a quiet thoroughfare that sects nearly every major railroad in the U.S. diesels make must somehow accommodate cuts east-west through neighbor- the railroad’s original reason for being: the hoods of old frame houses and Heavy traffic 14,000-plus riders who every day rely on churches. Like an apparition from That location, and its correspondingly the South Shore Line commuter trains of the 1920s, a pair of rails gleams in heavy traffic, is what attracted Chicago- the Northern Indiana Commuter Transpor- the middle of the pavement, slung based, privately held Anacostia Rail Hold- tation District, with whom South Shore under a single strand of catenary wire. Any ings Co. (formerly Anacostia & Pacific) to shares most of its track. With 38 scheduled moment you might expect to see an arch- pay $27 million for the South Shore freight weekday passenger trains operating under Ewindowed interurban car go trundling past. operation in December 1989. The previous the South Shore Line brand, NICTD opera- Then you hear the almost stealthy ap- freight operator, Venango River Corp., was tions loom over everything, and the freight proach of a train. But what appears around mired in bankruptcy, and the trustee even- carrier is obligated to perform a daily dance the gentle S-curve is hardly a trolley. Head- tually found Anacostia to be an ideal suc- with its partner over matters ranging from light ablaze, a pair of bright-orange hood cessor. With acquisition of the South Shore, train operations to maintenance of way to units eases into the turns, trailing a long Anacostia transitioned from highly suc- spotting the diesels at the shop. skein of freight cars, sending vibrations up cessful consulting firm to major railroad The commuter agency owns most of the through the surrounding streetlights and operator. It has since fleshed out its hold- main line: 69 miles from South Bend to front porches. The diesels, two GP38-2s, are ings with companies such as New York & State Line. South Shore Freight ownership only doing 20 mph, but there’s no mistaking Atlantic, Pacific Harbor Line, and Louis- of track extends west from there to Kens- the authoritative rumble of their combined ville & Indiana. Altogether the Anacostia ington, 7 miles, along with Burnham Yard 4,000 hp as they pull through the turns. For lines haul more than 2 million carloads an- at Hegewisch, Lincoln Yard in Michigan a moment, this neighborhood belongs to a nually, over nearly 800 miles of track. City, numerous spurs and sidings, and the railroad called South Shore Freight. Those South Shore GP38-2s lug a sig- 21-mile former Nickel Plate Kingsbury The two diesels are more than just sim- nificant part of the holding company’s branch from Michigan City to Dillon, Ind., ple, run-of-the-mill Geeps. They are sym- overall business, especially in light of the south of La Porte, where local authorities bolic of one of the most durable fleets of lo- four major customers undergirding the are developing an industrial park. comotives in all of shortline railroading. railroad’s traffic base: coal for Northern In- For all these overlapping interests to Since they were built in 1981, the 10 diana Public Service Corp.’s generating work smoothly, the partnership with the GP38-2s of South Shore Freight have sol- plants at Bailly and Michigan City, and raw transportation district has to be good. And diered on for the same railroad, providing materials and finished products in and out from all accounts, it is. As South Shore reliable service to a heavy-duty roster of of U.S.S. Midwest Steel at Portage and the CEO Andrew Fox puts it, “We have an ex- customers, ranging from electric utilities to big Arcelor Mittal fully integrated steel- cellent working relationship. We’re co-de- 40 LOCOMOTIVE© 2017 Kalmbach | 2016 Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. www.TrainsMag.com Approaching the ramp to the NICTD passenger station and the 1956 line relocation that diverted CSS&SB tracks from the streets of East Chicago, Geeps work a westbound freight through Gary. pendents. It has to work that way.” The re- sult is a usually crisp operation in which commuter trains comfortably rub shoul- ders with South Shore’s freights. An interurban heritage With its roots in electric traction, the South Shore has a motive-power legacy that is distinct among contemporary short lines. In the steam era, the railroad went about its freight business with a classic lineup of electric motors. In an earlier iter- ation as the Chicago, Lake Shore & South Bend, a typical Midwestern interurban, the The overhead trolley wire glistens in the headlight glow as traction orange railroad relied on small Baldwin-Westing- South Shore Geeps 2001 and 2008 trudge through the snow on 10th Street with house 53- and 72-ton steeple-cabs to carry a westbound local on Jan. 5, 2010. Three photos, Greg McDonnell a modest less than carload trade. Everything changed in 1925 when Chi- Milwaukee and the Chicago, Aurora & El- which had dieselized Chicago terminal op- cago utilities magnate Samuel Insull ac- gin, all of which became standard bearers erations. They were the largest steeple-cabs quired the railroad and rechristened it the of the interurban era. ever built by Baldwin-Westinghouse. Chicago South Shore & South Bend The Insull empire sank into insolvency With a surge in postwar freight traffic, (pointedly with no comma after “Chica- by 1932, but not before investing millions of South Shore needed ever-larger motors, go”). A former associate of Thomas Edi- dollars in its railroads. It was Insull who and in 1949 came a breakthrough: acquisi- son, the British-born Insull was the prime transformed CSS&SB from sleepy interur- tion of a trio of 273-ton, double-ended, mover behind Chicago’s gigantic Com- ban to heavy-duty electric railroad, and streamlined 2-D+D-2 electrics. These were monwealth Edison electric utility, as well traffic grew in response throughout the the famed 800-class “Little Joes,” so nick- as Northern Indiana Public Service Co. 1920s and into the 1940s. To meet the de- named because they became available across the state line. Around the utilities, mand, South Shore traded up to increasing- when General Electric’s sale of 20 of the Insull consolidated a number of railroad ly larger electric motors, culminating in units to the Stalin-era Soviet Union was properties, which in addition to the South 1941 with a quartet of 97-ton electrics pur- nixed by the State Department. Purchased Shore included Chicago, North Shore & chased secondhand from Illinois Central, at a bargain price, the intrepid forces in the www.TrainsMag.com | LOCOMOTIVE 41 Having worked an empty coal train from Michigan City to the East Chicago interchange with B&OCT, Nos. 706 and 707 stop to switch at Burnham Yard on their return east on a pleasant day in November 1975. Lou Gerard Michigan City shops modified the units for use on South Shore’s 1,500-volt D.C. system Millenium Station and the Little Joes were off and running. CHICAGO Twelve more Little Joes created a separate WHERE EMDs WORK legend on Milwaukee Road’s Montana and McCormick Place Idaho electrification, five went to Brazil. CN (CSS) UNDER WIRE – AND BEYOND With a continuous horsepower rating of 5,120 and a continuous tractive effort of 77,000 pounds, the Little Joes were able to Hyde Park (57th St.) easily handle the South Shore’s growing fast- Clearing Yard MICHIGAN freight business. But by the mid-1950s, even BRC (CSS) L more power was required. Reinforcements A NS K NIPSCO Michigan City came in the form of 10 ex-New York Cen- E CN (CSS) Generating Station Carroll Ave. tral R-2 electrics rendered surplus by the BRC (CSS) Commercial AMTK (CSS&SB offices and shops) M CSS UP Avenue I elimination of electrification at Cleveland Hudson Lake C NIPSCO Bailly CSS South Bend Union Terminal. Built by Alco and GE in H Michigan I Generating Station City Airport 1931, the 140-ton ex-NYC units offered G CSS A South 3,000 hp and 66,600 pounds of tractive ef- Arcelor Bend CN NS (CSS) N IHB Kensington Mittel mill Bendix Beverly Shores NS fort; seven of the motors were extensively Hegewisch CSS NS CSS Midwest rebuilt at Michigan City. In multiple-unit CN CSS Chicago South Shore & South Bend Steel mill Dune Park CSS electrified lines Hammond INDIANA use, the big-windowed R-2s partnered with CSS trackage rights the 800s to help spur dramatic growth in CSX Burns La Porte Other lines (CSS) East Chicago South Shore freight revenues.