SOUTH SHORE LINE LITTLE JOE The Wreck of Unit 801 Print suitable for framing!

Description

These are the only photos you'll ever see of this.
The Death of a Legend
The Wreck of South Shore Line Unit 801
One of a kind print on 8-1/2" X 11" Heavyweight Glossy Photo Paper - Made for framing.
WITH BONUS PAGE *
South Shore Railroad's “Little Joe” GE Locomotive # 801 Meets Its Demise
Here's your chance to own a beautiful art display piece ready for matting and framing. This is a custom print of the death of an iconic piece of South Shore Railroad history and of American railroading in general.
Each high DPI, quality print comes on heavyweight 8-1/2" X 11"
glossy
photo paper. Each print comes on 225 gsm and 96 bright photo stock and is printed from high resolution master scans of the original photos which were then digitally enhanced as needed for highest quality imaging. The labeling at the bottom reads, "The Death of a Legend" and, "The Wreck of South Shore Line Unit 801" and is all printed in South Shore colors upon their iconic South Shore banner. Each print will be dated and signed upon the reverse. Again, I took these photos personally and I have the only negatives.
This is copyrighted material not meant for duplication so all rights are reserved. Thanks!
You may find photos of those iconic "Little Joe" electric locomotives online but trust me,  you aren't going to find any pictures like THESE! What I'm offering here is a one-of-a-kind print consisting of four photos I personally took of South Shore # 801 ("Little Joe" or “800 Unit”) being dismantled in a 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 ever to be dismantled and I was the only guy there at the time with a 35mm 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 and more actual pieces of it which I had at one time but have lost to time. Believe it or not, years ago I actually gave the number boards to a friend. I had the number boards! (I know, right?) Nonetheless, I have yet to find any other photos
anywhere
of another “Little Joe” being dismantled making this, indeed, extremely rare and unique.
*Also included will be a museum quality print of the copyrighted text between the red lines for matting and displaying alongside your South Shore print. It will come on 24 LB SOUTHWORTH Ivory Fine Parchment Paper that really compliments your print. "SOUTHWORTH Fine Parchment Paper conveys Old World distinctiveness and ceremony for special documents and occasions. SOUTHWORTH has been making the finest business papers since 1839."
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Die Hard, Little Joe, Die Hard
This locomotive
was by far the largest piece of rolling stock ever to come through the Azcon scrap yard rear gate.
In what was normally a routine operation, a South Shore Railroad freight crew would deliver a decommissioned diesel locomotive onto a short intake siding. They seldom brought us one of their own. Shortly thereafter, any available one of the five locomotive cranes would then couple up to that locomotive. A few minutes later, that locomotive would be staged in the dismantling area near the massive liquid oxygen banks on the far south end of the yard. There
awaited a specialized, 2-3 man crew of locomotive Torchmen (or Burners) with extended length
cutting torches at the ready, each armed with over-sized tips fed by seventy-five-foot-plus hose-sets. Cutting an entire locomotive into two-foot by two-foot sections, while never an easy task, was a routine occurrence. Routine with any run-of-the-mill diesel locomotive perhaps but not so with this behemoth. This was about as far from routine as things could possibly get. Due to its unwieldy 272 ton weight, its massive drive wheels but
especially
due to its fever-dream length of a whopping 88 feet, 10 inches, it derailed multiple times,
laying the rails of the gently sweeping track curves onto their sides. We on the yard crew had never experienced this problem before.
Each time it went aground, Little Joe shook the earth and there it sat,
silently mocking the crew and blocking the main line each time it brought
the entire operation to a halt.
Each of the constant derails required valuable time along with new rails, a full track repair crew, multiple laborers, a second 100 ton locomotive crane with crew and a full compliment of angry foremen shouting conflicting orders before any more forward progress could be made.
Once the long curve was eventually conquered,
with its screaming diesel billowing a column of black smoke, the most powerful American Hoist Diesel Electric locomotive crane in the yard struggled to push it the rest of the way to the spot where it would eventually come to its demise. To accomplish the normally ten-minute trip from back gate to dismantling area had taken the better part of a week and countless man-hours to accomplish, literally disrupting the entire yard. On his way to meet his maker, Little Joe did not go down without a fight.
Some "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) of
5 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
million, little more than scrap value—an offer which GE accepted. However, the Milwaukee's Board of Directors would not release the money.
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 million. 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.
(The above text is a revised version from 7-25-19. It was re-written for clarity and flow and this is the final version that will appear on your actual parchment page. While it differs from the text seen in the photos, the print format and paper type will remain the same.
Truth be told, I just didn't feel like shooting and uploading all new photos.)
________________________________________
Shipping via USPS First Class Mail with a Tracking Number you will be emailed immediately after shipment. Each print will be placed into a protective plastic sleeve and shipped well protected sandwiched between two cardboard inserts placed into a manila envelope with all edges taped. If you need it faster or just prefer alternative shipping, simply message me and I'm sure we'll work something out.
Sorry, and I don't mean to break anybody's heart here, but if it’s in any of the photos, as usual, my dinosaur ruler is NOT included!
Contact me
before
bidding
if you have any questions.
Item comes from a non-smoking environment.
I check my emails constantly and can address any questions or concerns quickly.
I look forward to trading positive feedback with the winning bidder!
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"That which does not kill you makes you want to stop and get something to eat on the way home.:
- Uncle Nick