Robert Clemons Collection - South Shore Line

This is a collection of photographic prints from the collection of Robert Clemons, all donated by Thomas Clemons to the Illinois Railway Museum. Many thanks to Thomas and the Clemons family for their generous donation. All images are copyright Illinois Railway Museum. Images may not be reproduced or distributed without authorization.

These photos are of Northwest Indiana subjects, mostly the South Shore Line.

South Shore SW1 601 and line car 1100, today preserved at IRM, at an unknown location on May 16, 1963

It's August 31, 1962, and South Shore 601 is pushing EJ&E 2-8-2 765 onto a siding in Gary for display.

Another shot of the switch move, complete with a South Shore interurban car over under the wire.

For a time, CA&E 434 was stored at the South Shore shops in Michigan City while it waited to be shipped to Maine. I don't recall the reason for the delay, but here it is on August 21, 1962.

This photo is dated October 30, 1963, and shows a project to realign track at Combs Street in Michigan City. We're looking east with the start of street running down 11th Street in the distance.

Another photo taken during the Combs Street realignment project. The photo is labeled Robert B. Hendrickson, EE; Robert Kruger, S[upervisor?]

I'm not certain, but I think this is looking west down 11th Street at Michigan Blvd in Michigan City.

A pair of South Shore 900-series steeplecabs is shown c1962, possibly out of service. These were built by Baldwin-Westinghouse in 1929 for the Illinois Central and resold to the South Shore in 1941.

This snowy view of the Michigan City shops is dated to January 1962.

This photo, and the ones after it, are labeled simply "Michigan St," but I suspect they show part of the same Michigan City track project pictured earlier. The above photo looks like it was taken at Vail Street.

My best guess is that these photos were all taken somewhere along Holliday Street, west of the shops.

This photo shows the interior of one of the modernized, air-conditioned South Shore cars. The lettering reads "positively no smoking in this compartment."

For a change of pace, why don't we go back in time to an earlier era in Gary. Gary Railways 3, a 1925 Kuhlman product, was built for service to Hobart but is shown here signed for Valparaiso. Service on this line was abandoned in 1938.

This busy photo shows the north end of the Broadway line at rush hour. At far left is an ex-Chicago Union Traction "Matchbox" identical to IRM's 1374; Gary Railways owned two, bought secondhand from Chicago and renumbered 25-26. Behind it is a 109-series McGuire-Cummings deck-roof car towing an arch-roof trailer, while to the right, another motor-trailer train rounds the loop in front of a 105-series McGuire-Cummings suburban car.

South Bend Sand & Gravel 0-4-0T 100 was built by Vulcan in 1923 and had formerly been owned by Studebaker, South Bend's hometown auto maker. It's shown here in October 1960.