Little Joe

Little Joe, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

Originally built for Soviet Railways, the GE EF-4 became an icon of American railroading, following it's use on the Milwaukee Road's electrified western lines. Of the twenty built, twelve were used by the Milwaukee, five went to Brazil's Companhia Paulista de Estradas de Ferro (who used Joes until 1999), and three were used for freight use by the South Shore. Several survive, and this one, the South Shore's 803, is still in operable condition at the Illinois Railway Museum.

I took this on a rare outing for the 803, and processed it to give it that "Oldachrome-found-in-a-shoebox" look.

X-18

X-18, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

The Illinois Raiway Museum's General Electric 8500 GTEL, a gas-turbine powered electric locomotive. Designed for long haul use, the first turbines were delivered in 1951. X-18 is a third-generation version of the GTEL, delivered in the late 50's, and remained ins service until 1969. One of two survivors, #18 usually sits on the line and is kind of hard to shoot, but this weekend it was moved to this nice curved bit of track for display.

The Big Z

Zephyr, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

The Illinois Railway Museum doesn't often run it's historic, rare, and damned handsome Nebraska Zephyr train set. So I always try and get out to the museum when it's out, just to shoot more photos of it.

This one was shot in front of the Museum's station, with a bonus of some classic L trains from Chicago over there on the left.