Only Time Will Tell. NRG’s Will County Generating Station in Romeoville, IL owned 2 former ICG EMD SD20 locomotive’s, WCCH 1801 and 1802. The 1801 was built in 1959 as SOU SD24 2505, while the 1802 was built as UP SD24B 427B. For decades these two SD20's were used to haul coal trains in and out of the plant from the staging yard along Material Road where Union Pacific delivered their coal trains to them via CN trackage on the Romeoville Lead, also known as the “Bug Line”. The days of coal at Midwestern Energy’s Will County Generating Station have since came to an end in June of 2022, as the rumors of NRG retiring the coal-fired plant were true.
It’s been almost three years now since the plant’s closure, and the fate of one of the two SD20’s is still up in the air with many rumor’s floating around. As seen from this drone image taken on 2/3/25, the 1802 sits stored inside the dormant and pretty much abandoned retired power plant in Romeoville with an unknown future… while the 1801 was donated to the Romeoville Fire Academy for locomotive fire training, where it is stored at Hanson Material Service’s facility in Lockport.
Seeing these classic SD20’s pull coal trains was always a nice treat to see 5 minutes from home before the power plant ceased operations. But unfortunately, all things come to end at some point or another. It’s now been three years since the coal-fired plant was retired, and time will tell what’s next for the 1802. But for now, it rests stored deep inside of the retired power plant.
Photographs where trains and people mix, weather it's street running, plant switching or carrying a unit grain train out of an elevator, it will be put here.
