Amfleets at Michigan Central Station, Detroit, MI, July 1982 (Beyer Patton) C&S E5A 9952A "Silver Pilot" at Union, IL, July 1982 (Beyer Patton)
Ohhhh that's pretty! Nice and shiny after all those years. One sees a train pulled by an A-B set of E5s, with matching cars behind it, zipping by, glinting in the sun, makes one think, gee, I'd like to be on that train! The thing sells itself.
I felt the same way every time I saw the B&M Minute Man (#6000) go by on its way to Boston. Then in October, 1952 I was sitting in the B Car heading east.
Frisco 2-10-0 1630, Union, IL, July 1982 (Beyer Patton) J. Neils Lumber Shay 5, Union, IL, July 1982 (Beyer Patton)
N&W 2050 and UP M-35, Union, IL, July 1982 (Beyer Patton) The arrival of ex-North Shore Electroliner 801-802, July 1982 (Beyer Patton)
South Shore "Little Joe" 803, Union, IL, July 1982 (Beyer Patton) GTW 4-8-4 6323, Union, IL, July 1982 (Beyer Patton)
Just for fun here- On the MILW they were called "Little Joes". But the South Shore referred to their motors simply as 800's. There were some external spotting features, and internally they were a bit different as well.
These were ordered from GE by the Russian Tsarist government. Unfortunately, when they were ready for delivery the Tsar's government had been toppled. The Bolshevik government refused them and later so did the Communist government. However, the Little Joe nickname was given to them more out of disgust for Stalin than anything else. Another interesting fact, their design became the basis for the GG-1. In computer lingo, GE used them as the GG-1's Beta Test vehicles.
You're thinking of the Decapod steamers. Nicholas II was deposed in 1917. In the 1950s we canceled deals with Joe Stalin over things like A and H bombs.
Yeah, I was going to post this quote but you beat me to the punch. Well, here it is anyway. However they failed to make any distinction to the nicknames given by each railroad.
Thank you all. My apologies. Wish I could remember where I read that many years ago. Obviously, in my case, the second thing to go is my memory. Darned if I remember the first.
If you work the way I do, you read about the Decapods, and filed that in your memory under "locomotives for Russia that never left America". Then you read about the GE cancellation, and put that in the same file. By the time you reopened that file drawer... Happens all the time.
You are correct. That is the way I store memories, by association. Obviously, this time it was by "Russia", not time or content. Speaking of Russian Decapods, Strasburg #90 (ex-C&NW) pulled me in October, 2019 when I visited to see N&W 611 in steam. 90's a sweet li'l teakettle. Hope I look, and perform, that good at 100+/-.
???????? The last Czar/Tsar was toppled in 1917. They were ordered by the USSR, after WWII. This was long after (1934) the GG-1 was first designed and built. They were not refused. They got caught up in the intensifying Cold War and GE could not export them. There were twenty of them built. After sitting for a while, eventually all were sold off for bargain basement prices. Three to CSS&SB, twelve to the MILW, five to the Paulista RR in Brazil.