My memory is the catenary on the CSS&SB and Metra Electric is (was?) higher then that typical for tne NE Corridor. Am I correct? Can double-stacks fit under the South Shore or IC_Suburban catenary?
Definitely not in all places. There are several places along the IC mainline such as Grand Crossing (under PRR/NYC), 93rd St (under BRC) and others where clearances are tight and the existing bi-levels barely fit. The catenary on South Shore’s Calumet River Bridge is also a little lower than elsewhere and there are one or two tight spots on the East Chicago bypass.
Something else to keep in mind: although the Little Joes had a pretty good short-time rating, the electrical system could not keep up with the power drawn when moving coal and NIPSCO did not allow catenary to be strung at its newer plants. When South Shore first started hauling unit coal trains, they had to be taken in two cuts between Burnham and Bailly for the reasons stated above.
All of the IC/CN freight and the Amtrak trains, including the Superliner equipped City of New Orleans have to go under the wire at Kensington where the South Shore diverts off the IC (Metra) Electric. I don’t know the clearance requirements of the Superliners or double stacks, but I guess the double stacks are OK at that point. However, I would agree with CSS that the clearances on the Metra tracks under Grand Crossing and the Belt are probably too low.
Jay
But there were locations on the South Shore where the Little Joes could use their full power. It was a matter of which substation was supplying the power at a particular location and what its capacity was. You may correct me if I am wrong. I am tryiing to remember what I was told while riding a Little Joe on a CERA fantrip the summer of 1952. I was a junior engineer at EMD and Bob Konsbrook, who was my supervisor on some projects, got me on the locomotive.
And the reason two pans were often used, was not that one pan could not handle the high current, but rather that conditions are not always ideal, and we have all seen sparks and flashes from imperfect contact. With high current the damage to both pantograph and wire is much greater. The use of two pans at the same time cuts the possibilities for flashes greatly, since the possiblitiy of the problem arising twice at thhe precise distance required for simultaneous loss of firm contact is much reduced over a single incident.
The East Chicago bypass went into service in 1956 and has a pretty good grade at the west end between Calumet and Columbia Avenues where it connects with the original routing. Fortunately, there is a substation right at Columbia Avenue but lifting a trainload of coal up that grade would require a pretty good current draw. There are also some grades at the Pennsylvania overhead (also gantlet track) where the South Shore crosses over the former PRR Fort Wayne line.