South Shore Line “800s”: CSS&SB 801–803 Freight Electrics, Specs & Roster

Published: August 31, 2026

The Chicago, South Shore & South Bend never called them Little Joes. Crews called them the 800s. They were three double-ended GE freight motors, numbered 801–803, 88 feet 10 inches long and a shade under 273 tons, bought in 1949 from a cancelled Soviet order. Mechanically they were the same 2-D+D-2 design the Milwaukee Road later ran as class EF-4 / EP-4. Electrically they were not. Milwaukee’s Pacific Extension was 3,000-volt DC. The South Shore, after Samuel Insull converted it in 1926 to match the Illinois Central, was 1,500-volt DC. GE and Michigan City Shops wired the trio for that plant. They ran freight, never varnish, from November 1949 until 803’s last trip on January 31, 1981—the last regular electric freight on a U.S. common-carrier railroad. Two survive: 802 at the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, Pennsylvania, and 803 under wire at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois. 801 was cut up at Hegewisch in the spring of 1981.

South Shore Line 800 class 801 freight East Chicago Indiana September 22 1956

South Shore Line “800” #801 has a short freight on the new main line near East Chicago, Indiana, September 22, 1956. American-Rails.com collection.

On this page: At a glance · The Soviet order · Why the South Shore bought three · 1,500 volts, not 3,000 · Freight service · Last electric freight · 801–803 roster · Specifications · 800s vs. Little Joes · What survived

At a Glance

Item	Detail
Railroad	Chicago, South Shore & South Bend (CSS&SB)
Road numbers	801, 802, 803 (800 class)
Crew name	“800s.” Milwaukee called the same GE design Little Joes; South Shore did not
Builder / plant	General Electric, Erie, Pa.
GE model	2-D+D-2 406/546 8-GE 750-3300V
Wheel arrangement	2-D+D-2 (AAR); (2′D)+(D2′) UIC; 4-8-0+0-8-4 OE Whyte
Original customer	Soviet Railways (SZhD), A-series Amerikanskiy elektrovoz, 3,300 V DC. Not delivered
Quantity in the GE order	20 (serials 29913–29932). South Shore 3, Milwaukee 12, Paulista (Brazil) 5
South Shore wire	1,500 V DC overhead (Insull conversion, 1926, to match Illinois Central)
In service	803 Nov. 1, 1949; 801 Dec. 31, 1949; 802 Aug. 1, 1950
Work	Freight only. Never passenger on the South Shore
Last revenue trip	803, January 31, 1981. Last regular electric freight on a U.S. common carrier
Survivors	802 Lake Shore Railway Museum, North East, Pa. (static). 803 Illinois Railway Museum, Union, Ill. (operational). 801 scrapped Hegewisch, spring 1981

Twenty locomotives for Stalin, none for the Soviet Union

After the war the Soviet Ministry of Railways wanted heavy 3,300-volt DC motors for the South Urals electrification around Kropachyovo–Zlatoust–Chelyabinsk as the country's domestic plants were still recovering. As a result, the Russian looked elsewhere and ultimately placed an order to General Electric at Erie, Pennsylvania: twenty locomotives, factory class 2-D+D-2 406/546 8-GE 750-3300V, serials 29913–29932. In Soviet service they would have been the A-series—Amerikanskiy elektrovoz, American electric locomotive—first numbered 1591–1610, later restated as 2301–2320. Fourteen were laid down to 5-foot gauge. The last six were built standard gauge. Interestingly, Soviet engineers even supervised the work at Erie. The first test, unit A1598, ran September 7, 1948, on a New York Central test track.

With the rising Cold War the State Department barred strategic goods for the Soviet Union and the Russian engineers returned home. Two locomotives were damaged in a plant collision (serials 29923 and 29924). GE finished the order anyway and sat on twenty unsold 2-D+D-2s. Milwaukee Electrification Department head Laurence Wylie tried to take all twenty plus spares for about scrap value—$1 million. Operating vice president J.P. Kiley, a diesel man, blocked it. By the time Korean War traffic forced Milwaukee back to Erie, eight locomotives and every spare part were gone. Three had already gone to the South Shore. Five had gone to Companhia Paulista de Estradas de Ferro in Brazil, later FEPASA Russas 6451–6455. Milwaukee took the remaining twelve in 1950, still for $1 million, and named them Little Joes after Joseph Stalin. That Milwaukee story is on the EF-4 / EP-4 page. This page is the three that left Erie first.

Chicago South Shore and South Bend 2-D+D-2 802 Gary, Indiana Marty Bernard

Chicago, South Shore & South Bend 2-D+D-2 #802 leads a string of boxcars at Gary, Indiana on November 26, 1976. Marty Bernard photo.

Why an interurban bought mountain motors

By the late 1940s the South Shore was no longer a typical Midwestern traction line. Insull’s 1925–26 rebuild—100-pound rail, Pullman steel cars, Illinois Central trackage rights into Randolph Street, and the 1,500-volt DC conversion—had made it a heavy commuter-and-freight railroad through the mills of northwestern Indiana. Carload freight, almost an afterthought when the Chicago, Lake Shore & South Bend opened in 1908, was worth $3.5 million a year by 1950. Baldwin-Westinghouse steeple-cabs in the 1000s could switch and handle modest trains. They could not keep up with mill and interchange tonnage on a railroad that still had to thread city streets.

The orphaned GE 2-D+D-2s were the largest things Erie had on the floor. The South Shore took three, numbered them into a new 800 class, and put them in freight. William D. Middleton’s South Shore: The Last Interurban and W. Donald Allison’s May 1953 Trains piece both treat them as the road’s answer to growing carload business, not as passenger power. Allison wrote that they could take whatever tonnage the dispatcher gave them and cruise at 45 mph. That was the job: Hammond and Burnham yards, Gary, the mills, Michigan City, South Bend, and the IC connection west. They did not go downtown under the IC catenary as passenger motors. The orange MU cars still did that work.

South Shore Line 800 class 801 freight East Chicago Indiana January 1964

South Shore Line #801 is again at East Chicago with an eastbound freight in January, 1964. Roger Puta photo.

The difference that mattered: 1,500 volts

Your eye says Little Joe. The wire said otherwise. The GE design assumed 3,000–3,300 volts DC at the pantograph. Milwaukee’s Rocky Mountain Division was already 3,000-volt DC, so the twelve Joes could use the rating GE published: about 5,530 horsepower for one hour and 5,110 continuous, eight GE 750 motors, two pans. The South Shore had rebuilt for 1,500 volts DC in 1926 so its trains could run through to Illinois Central’s suburban electrification. Eight substations—Hammond, Gary, Michigan City, New Carlisle, Ogden Dunes, South Bend, Tee Lake, and Tremont—fed interurban cars and, later, freight motors. They were not Milwaukee mountain substations.

The 800s were modified for that plant before delivery. Series DC traction motors will run at half voltage; they will not make the catalog 3-kilovolt horsepower while they do it. South Shore mechanical forces and GE reworked control and motor connections for 1,500 volts. The house electric roster on the South Shore history page quotes 5,120 horsepower for the class—close to GE’s 3-kilovolt continuous figure, and the number this site has used for years. Treat the 5,530 / 5,110 pair as the design rating on 3,000–3,300 volts. Treat 5,120 as the South Shore roster figure. On 1,500-volt wire the 800s worked at reduced output relative to a Milwaukee Joe on 3,000 volts. That is the operational difference, not the carbody.

Other hardware followed the South Shore, not Milwaukee passenger practice:

Both cabs kept. Milwaukee’s two EP-4 passenger Joes lost the “B” cab to a steam generator. The South Shore had no steam heat to supply and a short railroad that wanted to run either way without turning. IRM still lists 803 as double-end.
Roller bearings on all axles as delivered, the same treatment Milwaukee gave the EP-4s. Milwaukee’s freight EF-4s left Erie with rollers only on the unpowered guiding trucks; motorized axles were plain-bearing until shops substituted rollers after hotboxes and wrecks.
Standard gauge. Fourteen of the twenty had been 5-foot. The South Shore trio ran 4 feet 8½ inches from delivery.
Freight gearing and freight paint. Orange and maroon South Shore dress, not Milwaukee orange or Olympian Hiawatha two-tone. No steam generator. No MU into trailing EMD passenger units.

The 2-D+D-2 frame, eight GE 750s, two pans, 8-EL air brakes, and 88-foot-10-inch carbody were the same family. The plant they hung on was not.

South Shore 800 803 Clark Road Gary Indiana December 1963 Marty Bernard

South Shore 800 #803 is seen here in freight service at Clark Road in Gary, Indiana on December 26, 1963. Marty Bernard photo.

What they pulled

For thirty years the 800s were the South Shore’s road freight power. They handled mill products, interchange cuts, and whatever Michigan City dispatched. In the late 1950s the railroad added six second-hand New York Central class R-2 C-C boxcabs, rebuilt at Michigan City as 701–707, 140 tons and 3,000 horsepower each. The 700s let the last Baldwin-Westinghouse steeple-cabs go. The 800s remained the heavy motors. (The R-2 family is on the R-motor page.)

Chesapeake & Ohio bought the South Shore on January 3, 1967, for the freight. Chessie did not buy it for the orange cars. From about 1966 the railroad also moved coal in unit trains to Northern Indiana Public Service plants. That traffic is why the 800s did not finish the job alone. The 1,500-volt plant could not feed 10,000 tons of coal as one train. South Shore had to split those consists between Burnham and Bailly or Michigan City. C&O first sent TR3 cow-calf sets and then GP7s; the 1,500-volt motors simply did not have the substations behind them. The Diesel Shop notes the cow-calf 4,000 horsepower was not enough, then 4,500 with a fourth Geep was not enough either. The 700-class electrics came off April 19, 1976. 801 was already a parts source by the late 1970s—last photographed running in August 1976, then parked at Michigan City missing a coupler and later driving wheels. 802 and 803 kept the remaining electric freight, often the Gary switcher, until the new GP38-2s arrived.

South Shore Line 800s at the Michigan City Shops 1962 Marty Bernard

South Shore Line MU 106 along with '800' motors #802, #801, and #803 layover at the Michigan City Shops on December 26, 1962. Marty Bernard photo.

January 31, 1981

EMD GP38-2s 2000–2009, order 79633, went into service in January 1981. Freight electrification ended when 803 made its last run on January 31, 1981. That is the date on this site’s South Shore history page, the date Charles W. McDonald and George H. Drury published in Kalmbach’s 1982 diesel roster (the electrics were already gone), and the retirement year Illinois Railway Museum uses for 803. Some secondary write-ups, including older Wikipedia South Shore copy and a few photo captions, say 1983. 1983 is not the date to lock. 801 was already stripped. 802 and 803 were the last two electric freight locomotives in regular main-line service on a U.S. common carrier. Milwaukee had dropped its wire in June 1974. Virginian and New Haven rectifier freight was long gone. When 803 tied up, American railroad freight under trolley was finished.

Passenger service stayed electric. NICTD still runs 1,500-volt MUs into Millennium Station. Freight on the same railroad is diesel, today under Chicago SouthShore & South Bend (Anacostia). The 800s did not get a second career as passenger motors.

South Shore Line 800 803 Michigan City Shops Marty Bernard

South Shore Line '800' #803 lays over at the shops in Michigan City, Indiana on December 26, 1963. Marty Bernard photo.

801–803 roster

GE serials 29930–29932 for the South Shore trio are the numbers used by the Diesel Shop and Railroad Picture Archives. This site’s Milwaukee Little Joe roster assigns serial 29930 to Milwaukee E73. The Milwaukee table already carries a caveat that Soviet numbers and GE serials for the twenty-unit order are not 100 percent certain. Do not treat either assignment as a settled builder card until a GE shipping record is in hand. Soviet running numbers for the CSS units are commonly listed as A1608–A1610 in the original 1591–1610 block; Railroad Picture Archives captions 801 as USSR A2318, which matches the later 2301–2320 restatement. In-service dates below are the Diesel Shop set.

Road no.	GE serial	In service	Disposition
801	29930	December 31, 1949	Parts source by the late 1970s (last running photographs August 1976). Moved to Hyman-Michaels, Avenue O and Brainerd Avenue, Hegewisch; cut up about May 1981. Not preserved
802	29931	August 1, 1950	Retired with the 1981 dieselization. Preserved, static, Lake Shore Railway Historical Society, North East, Pa.—about ten miles from the GE Erie plant that built the class
803	29932	November 1, 1949 (first of the three in service)	Last revenue trip January 31, 1981. To Illinois Railway Museum, Union, Ill., that year, in operating condition. Still the largest operating electric locomotive in North America when IRM has it under wire

Builder dates in photo archives cluster in 1949 (801 and 802 are often listed May 1949). IRM lists 803 as built 1949. GE production of the twenty-unit order ran from 1948 into 1949; the 1946 date that appears on some museum cards is the order era, not the South Shore in-service year.

Specifications

Figures are the GE 2-D+D-2 as built for the Soviet 3,300-volt design, with South Shore notes where the 1,500-volt installation or house roster differs. Mechanical dimensions match Milwaukee EF-4 / EP-4 practice except as listed in the comparison table below. Weight 545,600 pounds is 272.8 short tons; the South Shore locomotive table on this site has long called them 273-ton motors.

Specification	Value
Builder	General Electric, Erie, Pa.
Years built (order)	1948–49 (South Shore units completed 1949)
Factory model	2-D+D-2 406/546 8-GE 750-3300V
Quantity, this railroad	3 (of 20 in the GE order)
Wheel arrangement	2-D+D-2 (AAR); (2′D)+(D2′) UIC; 4-8-0+0-8-4 OE Whyte. Two four-axle motorized groups, unpowered two-axle guiding truck at each end
Powered axles / motors	8 / eight GE 750
Ends / cabs	Double-end, both cabs retained (South Shore). Control: P electro-pneumatic (IRM)
Current collection	Two pantographs
Electrical system as designed	3,000–3,300 V DC
Electrical system as used	1,500 V DC overhead (South Shore / Illinois Central plant)
Horsepower (design, 3 kV)	5,530 (1-hour); 5,110 continuous
Horsepower (South Shore roster)	5,120 (house CSS&SB table). 1,500 V operation was at reduced output versus a Milwaukee Joe on 3,000 V
Starting tractive effort	110,000 lbf (Holley, Milwaukee Electrics); some sheets 75,700 lbf. At 25% adhesion, Milwaukee data 110,750 lbf
Continuous tractive effort	77,000 lbf (Holley / Milwaukee EF-4 sheet)
1-hour tractive effort	85,500 lbf (Milwaukee EF-4 sheet; same mechanical locomotive)
Maximum / safe speed	GE design 68 mph safe (some Milwaukee sheets list 84 mph maximum). South Shore freight typically about 45 mph (Allison, 1953)
Gear ratio	21:80 (Milwaukee sheet; no evidence South Shore changed it)
Driver diameter	47¼ inches
Length over ends	88 ft 10 in
Width	10 ft 7 in
Height	14 ft 5 in (GE / Wikipedia). IRM lists 15 ft for 803
Total wheelbase	77 ft 10 in
Rigid wheelbase	20 ft 7 in
Locomotive weight	545,600 lb (IRM; Wikipedia). House CSS&SB table: 273 tons
Adhesive weight	406,000 lb
Bearings (South Shore as delivered)	Roller bearings, all axles
Trucks	General Steel Castings (IRM)
Brakes	Air, 8-EL
Compressors	Two CP-39 (IRM)
Gauge as delivered to CSS&SB	4 ft 8½ in standard

How they differed from Milwaukee’s Little Joes

Same GE order. Same carbody. Not the same railroad, voltage, or nickname.

	South Shore 800s (801–803)	Milwaukee EF-4 / EP-4 Little Joes
Quantity	3, bought first among U.S. buyers	12, bought last, $1 million, no spares
Nickname	800s	Little Joes (from “Little Joseph Stalin’s locomotives”)
Wire	1,500 V DC	3,000 V DC
Published horsepower	House roster 5,120 hp; reduced vs. 3 kV rating	5,530 hp 1-hour / 5,110 continuous at 3,000 V
Cabs	Both kept; double-end freight	EF-4 both cabs; EP-4 E20/E21 lost the B cab to a steam generator
Bearings as delivered	Rollers on all axles	EP-4: rollers all axles. EF-4: rollers on guiding trucks only until shops substituted
Service	Freight only, Chicago–South Bend corridor	Freight (and, until 1961, Olympian Hiawatha on the two EP-4s) Harlowton–Avery
Diesel MU	Not a South Shore practice on the 800s	In-house MU so Joes could lead trailing diesels in the 1960s–70s
Out of service	January 31, 1981 (803 last)	June 15, 1974 (electrification shutdown)
Survivors	802 North East, Pa.; 803 IRM (operational). 801 scrapped	E70 static, Deer Lodge, Mont. The other eleven scrapped

Paulista / FEPASA took the other five, converted them to 5 ft 3 in gauge, and ran them in São Paulo state until Brazilian electric freight ended in 1999. Two of those Russas are preserved in Brazil (6452 at Jundiaí; 6455 at Bauru). They were from the same GE order.

What survived

803 went to the Illinois Railway Museum at Union in 1981, still a complete locomotive. IRM calls it the largest operating electric in North America. It runs on museum days when the trolley is up. 802 sits outdoors at the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, Pennsylvania, a short drive from the Erie plant that built it.

Sources

William D. Middleton, South Shore: The Last Interurban (Indiana University Press, 1999 edition)
W. Donald Allison, “The Railroad With Orange Trains,” Trains, May 1953 (45 mph freight performance)
Noel T. Holley, Milwaukee Electrics (N J International, 1987): 3 kV ratings, starting/continuous tractive effort, Milwaukee purchase
American-Rails.com, Chicago, South Shore & South Bend history (/csssb.html): 273-ton / 5,120 hp roster line; 803 last run January 31, 1981; Insull 1,500 V conversion and substation list
American-Rails.com, Little Joes EF-4 / EP-4 (/joes.html): Milwaukee specifications and serial table (with the page’s own serial caveat)
The Diesel Shop, Chicago SouthShore roster: 801–803 serials 29930–29932; in-service dates; A1608–A1610; 700s retired April 19, 1976; GP38-2s 1981; coal-train horsepower notes
Railroad Picture Archives, CSS 801 / 802 / 803 locomotive records (serials 29930–29932)
Illinois Railway Museum, Chicago South Shore & South Bend 803: 88 ft 10 in, 10 ft 7 in, 15 ft, 545,600 lb, 8-EL, 8 GE 750, P electro-pneumatic, 2 CP-39, GSC trucks, arrived 1981, operational
Charles W. McDonald and George H. Drury, Diesel Locomotive Rosters – United States, Canada, Mexico (Kalmbach, 1982), p. 40 (electrics already off the CSS roster)
HawkinsRails, Lake Shore Railway Museum: 802 as 2-D+D-2 406/546, 1,500 V DC, 800s nickname
railroad.net thread “South Shore Little Joe 801” (skoswift): 801 last running August 1976; Hegewisch scrap about May 1981
Railway Preservation News, “end of a Little Joe”: Hyman-Michaels Hegewisch cutting of 801

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