CSS&SB GE 1013 at Michigan City, Indiana on October 23, 1965, Kodachrome by Chuck Zeiler. Previous orders for South Shore freight locomotives had been placed with Baldwin, with electrical gear supplied by Westinghouse (road #'s 1001-1010). By 1929, GE took note of this sudden spike in the competitor's business and entered the bidding on the next batch when the South Shore asked for proposals. Whether any profit was earned is a good question, but nonetheless General Electric was awarded the contract for CSS&SB #'s 1011-1013, and they were erected and equipped by GE at Erie, Pennsylvania. As delivered, these locomotives also had a trolley pole (the reason for the offset pantograph) and third rail collection devices, and were designed to operate on South Shore's 1500 VDC or Samuel Insull's other two Chicago railroads (CNS&M and CA&E) 600 VDC, although there is no evidence that these locomotives ever left CSS&SB rails. Lookalikes (GE engineers drew up their own blueprints, the GE's had four front windows instead of Baldwin's three) for the Baldwin-Westinghouse Class E motors, #'s 1011-1013 were set up to run in multiple with them as well. They were shipped by GE between December 1929 and November 1930, all were retired in January 1967 and scrapped by Precision Engineering. |