The LT&L brought a handful of MLW S-2’s to the roster in 1962; they were durable units, but time (and the two horsemen of increasingly large freight cars & the slow march of electrification) eventually winnowed all of them from the fleet; the last 3 departing in the summer of 2002 after an order of more powerful eco-414s took their places.

Several of the retired units continue to operate in industrial and agricultural switching service, while the last 3 were donated to railroad museums and tourist shortlines.

However, even after the retirement of the last original S-2’s on the roster, more of them (and their sibling S-1, S-3s, and S-4s) kept trickling into the system, either as ILW trade-ins or as hulks that came with merged railroads. Neither ILW or the railroad divisions of the Parsons Vale Trust had much use for them, but instead of scrapping them ILW gutted them, fit them with Cummins QSK38s, and resold them.

(Eventually, some shortlines and and industrial railroads that still had these on their rosters had ILW remanufacture them instead of going out and buying new power as they slowly wore out. Some of these actually found their way onto the roster as well.)