Mikado type (2-8-2) locomotive #765 was built by Baldwin for the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway in 1929.
The Joliet, Aurora & Northern was incorporated in 1884 to build from the Indiana state line west through Joliet and Aurora to the Mississippi River opposite Dubuque, IA, but by 1886, the company had only got as far as Aurora. In 1887, two separate companies, the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern of Illinois and the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern of Indiana, were incorporated to construct a line from Valparaiso, IN, west through Joliet, IL, and then north to connect with the Milwaukee Road near Elgin, IL. The EJ&E of Illinois took over the Joliet, Aurora & Northern in 1888 and the following year merged with the EJ&E of Indiana.
In 1898, the EJ&E and the Chicago, Lake Shore & Eastern came under the control of the newly created Federal Steel Company headed by Judge Elbert Gary, after whom the city of Gary was named. The EJ&E then expanded by purchasing several smaller lines, including the Waukegan & Southwestern Railway, the Gardner, Coal City & Northern, the Western Indiana and, eventually, the Chicago, Lake Shore & Eastern.
#765 spent its first nineteen years on the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern before being leased to the Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range Railway as #1330 in 1948. The lease ended in 1962, when the locomotive was donated to the city of Gary, IN. It has been on display in Gateway Park on E 4th Ave ever since.
Although the steps to the cab were rather rickety, the exterior of the locomotive was in a fair condition.
The EJ&E served industries in the Hammond-East Chicago-Whiting area, and there was also a short lived passenger service from 1889 until 1909, with passengers carried in the caboose of freight trains in the last two years.
In 1901, the EJ&E was bought by the United States Steel Corporation. In 2009, the majority of its operations were then taken over by Canadian National, leaving a small piece of infrastructure in Gary, IN, to serve US Steel plants there.
Above, the backhead has been pretty well stripped bare. We arrived just as a storm was passing through Gary, which explains the area of damp on the cab deck and the splashes of water on the stoker access panels and remains of the brake tower.
Left and below left, photos of the grate shaker levers and the automatic stoker feed pipe. Below, the grate from the underside showing the rods connecting to the grate shaker levers. #765 has a 57 sq ft grate and a 290 sq ft firebox.
The engine weighs 333,000 lbs, has 28" x 30" cylinders and 63" drivers. With a combined heating surface of 5,324 sq ft, including 1,091 sq ft superheating, 14 sq ft of arch tubes and 67 sq ft of thermic syphons, it operated at a boiler pressure
of 200 psi and delivered 58,707 lbs tractive effort. The tender weighs 172,600 lbs light and has a capacity of 8,500 gallons of water and 15 tons of coal.
Below, note the "Silent Watchman" on the flange of the front truck wheel. These were designed to identify if the truck wheels derailed.
Related Links:
Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railroad Archive
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Paul W. Jaenicke's Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway published by Arcadia in 2007 has many photos of the railroad and its equipment (click on the cover to search for this book on Bookfinder.com).
