No. That would be very false information. Of which there is far, far too much out there concerning MILW's western extension. As I noted before, passenger service ended May of 1961, west of Deer Lodge. This event, and the last run was well documented and published. Then in 1963, service to Deer Lodge ended as well. It was all diesel out here, by the late 1950's. Tons of evidence exists. Photos, timetables... No later than mid-September of 1960, the E20 and 21 were already reclassified as EF4 and assigned to the freight pool. Office of the Superintendent of Motive Power documentation. The top photo shows one of the converted express cars, to a heater car. The bottom photo shows the early, experimental simplified freight scheme on the second Joe. Note how low the black is, as seen on the nose? At first they painted them that low, to align with the smaller, GP9 units black banding. That did not look good on the Joes, so they raised it to above their number boards. Photographic evidence shows that at least two, if not three were painted that way before they stopped and changed it. My notes on which units are stashed somewhere.
Didn't even notice the lower black band on the trailing Joe, and I definitely do agree, it looks awful on it. I came across a few more decent photos of the heater cars, and since I recently got access to a 3d printer, I might have to try making a mock-up of it when I get the time. Always interested to learn more about the Joe's and other equipment the Milwaukee Road operated, this discussion definitely showed me a lot that I didn't know before.
As I noted earlier there is a lot of misinformation out there. About the MILW as a whole, and Lines West even more so. Just a month or two back, there was yet another editorial in a RR magazine, by an author who simply regurgitated the same old garbage. Proof they did not even bother to do any research. Apparently baseless opinion is good enough for them to publish. The answers are out there, quite available. One good place to look is here: https://www.milwaukeeroadarchives.com/ This site is that of a former company attorney, still in practice. Who took part in a lot of late 1960's, early 70's activities, including the BN merger work. Has done EXTENSIVE research in archives of several States, DC, St. Louis, etc. This person is also educated as a historian. Has copies of internal company documents nobody has ever seen. Including financials which easily disprove the usual blather. He is probably the most studied man alive about MILW company history. Many folks are hoping he will publish his findings in a book, including myself.
Yes & no - the pans did have to be raised but only the EPs had a box in the beginning. The EFs got their pans boxed in ~56/57. Here's an EF pre 1955 (still has the gold "THE MILWAUKEE ROAD" writing in the maroon band) no pan box, just heightened mounts: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ee/2b/63/ee2b63e2f9ebc15b8e73d1a4fdc0e465.jpg All Joes had stripes up until the mid-60s. This is a problem with Milwaukee Road electrics - the Boxcabs are way worse than the Joes in this regard. Units were constantly being modified so they did look different from year to year. Having done much research on these units I've discovered the sheer ingenuity of the MILW shop guys. But, the best you can do here is settle on the features appropriate for the general era. For example if you're modelling the 50's, go with their 1950-1956 configuration. Physically they didn't change, just the paint scheme was modified in 1954 where the road name was removed from the maroon band and placards were installed under the cab windows. There's one more difference I forgot to point out between the early EPs and EFs... the EPs only had one MU tower in the rear. The EFs actually had MU towers on both ends up through 1958. Cheers -Mike
Found this photo on davesnewrailpix, do any of you know what this scheme was called/how long it was used for?
That was the GE demo paint while the Joes were being evaluated. The MILW Joes were getting their Hiawatha schemes by 1950 so this was short lived.
I thought it may have been something temporary, but I saw a picture of the GE demonstrator just being painted in plain white/grey when trialing on the MILW. Was it unit specific?
Yes. That unit would probably be the GE 750, which was used in testing all across the electrification.
Saw this on Streamstyle Graphics' site, does anyone have info on Heaters #70-71? From what it shows on his site they were Milw 50ft Express cars, but I haven't seen a photo of the boxcars after conversion.
I know it's not exactly relevant to the topic, but I wanted to post a photo I took of a MILW tender adapted to plow service, as taken at Rondout, IL about 1975. In view of the plow's weight, it looks like they removed the springs in the lead truck.
Very cool, I love seeing homebuilt stuff like that. I think they made a few like that, thanks for sharing!
Back to the original post, which was about steam tenders.......Heat Tender | N Scale Train Parts & Design
Looks like a Shapeways print? (the pic of the fully painted tender is the brass model) - Cool find! First time I've seen an n scale one. I found the pics of the one I've got in progress. I had two diff wheel sizes on the trucks when I took these pics, trying to figure out which ones worked better. Some day I'll get that thing done. I need to figure out the coupler mounts for it. Cheers -Mike
Looks great! I tried my hand at making one shortly after the start of this thread, and because I don't have very good Fusion 360 skills, I predictably didn't get very far.
Not from Shapeways, but it is 3D printed.......the guy does some Milwaukee road related items and sells them on his own web site. I have some spark arrestors from him. I'm trying to convince myself I need a steam tender.
Finally got my hands on Vol 1 and 2 of Milwaukee Road Color Guide to Freight and Passenger equipment, looking for some other books that are helpful with "classes" of passenger cars, rebuilds to them and such. Trying to get a pretty comprehensive guide of all the cars they used, how many were built, their numbers, what they ran on and such. What would other Milwaukee modelers suggest?
I haven't found any books with the info you want. I have a four book set from Four Lines West called Milwaukee Road Passenger Trains. They give you a history of most of the trains. Lots of pictures, but very limited car info. They DO include the consists for most of the trains, and frequently several for each train covering different eras, but not much data on specific cars. I have several other books on Milwaukee Road Passenger trains but they are mostly pictures.
