Still Going Strong After All These Years

The locomotive pictured on the front of this post card is an Alco RSD12.

In this picture from 1982 it is at rest after being employed to lug heavy ore trains for the Lake Superior & Ishpeming Railroad (LSI). It is one of twelve Alco RSD12 units owned by the LSI. This one, and three others, are ex-Chesapeake & Ohio locomotives. In 1893 the Lake Superior & Ishpeming Railway was established for the purpose of hauling iron ore. Shortly thereafter the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Mining Company took over the project after a rate dispute. With strong financial support the railroad began construction in December of 1895. After less than a year a 21-mile route was completed from mines located near West Ishpeming to Marquette. It hauled over one million tonnes of ore in its first year. The Lake Superior & Ishpeming Railroad never grew much larger than 200 miles of trackage. It has shrunk down to running only two lines, one from Eagle Mills Yard in Negaunee to the Empire and Tilden mines in Palmer. The other line goes from Eagle Mills Yard to the dock in Marquette. LSI has trackage rights on the CN from Negaunee to the Republic area via Ishpeming. The ALCO RSD-12 was a C-C diesel-electric locomotive rated at 1,800 horsepower. 171 locomotives were produced. Eight different railroads purchased these locomotives. Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México purchased 73 of them. They were used in much the same manner as its four-axle counterpart, the ALCO RS11, although the six-motor design allowed for better tractive effort at lower speeds. These websites are the source of the mishmash of information above: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALCO_RSD-12 https://michiganrailroads.com/lake-superior-ishpeming-railroad https://www.american-rails.com/lsi.html

Here is the back of the post card. I know nothing about the publisher.