phillyslasher Sure, electrification is expensive to set up, but once its built you don't have to worry about fuel and you save time. If you compare an old electric locomotive with a new diesel electric locomotive, the diesel electric will be more powerful, but if you compare it to a heavy modern day electric loco, the electric loco will be more powerful.
Still could be, the climate crisis will one day soon bring the feasability of electric locomotives back. Electricity generated from renewable sources as well as nuclear generation would lessen the railroads carbon emissions tremendously, the 2nd half of the 21st Century will demand it!
And what it can still be. The showdown is acting out in Canada with Turdeau and the evil RCMP the nasty Mounties!. The USA was a trailblazer but it's monopolists sunk it
I wish amtrak would have took over the milwaukee road when it failed, we could have had a "transcontinental electric passenger corridor" without giving problems to freight railroads
@@Isochest, it would be technically better to install 25 kV AC for the whole line. Because 3000 V DC was not a good investment in 1970s. Old DC sections could be easily converted to AC for temporary operation with just adding insulators to catenary. After full AC conversion, old sections could be slowly renovated without traffic interruption - thanks to modern rail/catenary maintenance equipment/machines.
I rode Milwaukee Road freight from St. Paul, MN, to Tacoma, WA in summer 1979, a month before all points west of Miles City, MT were abandoned. It was an epic journey. Once in a lifetime.
How much I wish that the Milwaukee Road was still around, in full! Oh well, never too late to become a fan of the railroad, well....more like obsessed, fanatic about it! Thanks for sharing, from a Swede in Scotland! 💓💞👋🏻
While I never got to see the electric side of things I did grow up on the Milwaukee's eastern end ( though the CNW was the hometown road) during the waning days of it's independent intercity passenger service. It was something to see where a trip to the Bensenville yard with it's engine house and yard literally right next to the road required a camera with you always as you never knew what was going to be there. Sad to see that yard these days
he I live at what was once the western end of the Milwaukee (though it's mostly old abandoned Great Northern trolley lines here in north Seattle) but there is an old Milwaukee SW1 on a short line down in Ballard and some old passenger cars at a museum
Absolutely Duece, no question indeed. I still like my Hot Wheels cars/trax, plus my H.O. scale train set, still a train fan @ 60. Dig those SW1500's/SW1200's/SW 7's & SW 9's to this day, a big plus to that were the double stax when run 8 was jamming down the ways with a full load. Cheerz !
This was fantastic. My Dad worked for Milwaukee for 40 years in Minnesota Iowa and Washington state. He would talk about the old, electrified trains that ran the trains thru the mountains. This was a real pleasure to watch. Thank You.
WOW! And Excellent VIDEO on the MILWAUKEE ROAD! Those LITTLE JOE'S were the backbone of electric FREIGHT and passenger service and not to mention the box cabs! It always fascinated me to see one of MILWAUKEE ROADS LITTLE JOE'S m.ud the SD40-2s and SD45s! And the sound of the whirring electric locomotive combined with the 2 cycle turbocharged V16 engine's of the SDs must've been quite an experience to see and hear!
Spot on and for the Milwaukee Road management they should have looked to West Germany Deutsche Bundesbahn for a suitable successor to the Little Joe's and electrification upgrades. Their best option would have been the Belgian NMBS/SNCB since by this time the Belgians are expanding their 3kv DC network and ask them for a SNCB Série 18 or freight capable SNCB Série 22 as basis for little Joe replacement
in 1979 the trucking company i was working for had a terminal in gary, in. right next to the south shore line and i was lucky enough to see one of their little joes. too bad i didn't have a camera. pictures and videos come close but seeing them in person is mind boggling. great video thanks
Magic. I love the old US electrified lines, from leaning wooden posts of the catenary to the box cabs, little Joe's, steeple cab shunters. Let alone the awesome landscape. Love that all electric freight at 4.00 with two Joe's up front and box cabs in mid train. Just wonderfull.!!! Can anyone please suggest where one can find footage of Great Northern W1's at work.? Peace and love from GB. Thankyou so much for sharing this Mr F M Nut.
@@844SteamFan And yet those ships still need trains to carry their loads inland. It takes less time to unload a container ship in LA and send its cargo on one of the transcontinental routes than it does to go through the Panama Canal or around the tip of South America.
Comme j'aurais boulu les voir fontionner a cette epoque quelle puissance un neau ruban orangecdu MILWAUKEE ROAD ..bravi mervîpiur ces nelles ilages rares en couleur dunpayrimoine ferroviaire US ..tàks a lot guys ,just amazing , for sure !!!❤️🤠❤️🤠☝️☝️☝️
I only got a look at the last two years of the Extension, from summer of 1978 until the embargo in the spring of 1980. All I can say is thanks for being there and recording some of this before it all fell apart. I still make a point to go up to the Vendome Loops and coast down the roadbed.
WOW! Fantastic footage. Never knew any video of the Little Joes in their earlier paint scheme even existed. Let alone them pulling the Hiawatha! Makes me sick that every last bit of this including the track is now mostly gone.
Those Little Joes could send the Olympian Hiawatha at 79 mph across the eastern end of the MILW's electrified zone back in the glory days of railroads. But sadly in the Milwaukee Road's last days in the Northwest, all those years of deferred maintenance brought down the top speed of the Pacific Extension to a pitiful 15-25 mph. What a total shame.
N American railroading would be so much more interesting if MILW had survived (with the motors of course). The GG1 aside, the Little Joes are coolest of all motors... IMHO
Unfortunately, Milwaukee's electrification and traction substations were weak for efficient operation of Little Joes. USSR has build a VL8 electric locomotive as a substitution for banned Joes. But 10 years later. :) Several remaining VL8's are still in operation in Ukraine.
@@chuckabbate5924, Milwaukee road's DC 3 kV electrification was one of several arguments for choosing 3 kV DC electrification for the first mountainous railway section in Caucasian mountains in USSR in 1930-s. With 6-axle boxcabs, ordered from GE and Italian subsidiary of Brown Bowery Corporation.
Nem is tudtam, hogy léteztek ezek a mozdonyok. Főleg a történetük volt ismeretlen. Itt Kelet Európában mélyen titokban tartották, hogy Sztálin nem kapta meg.😂 Köszönöm a feltöltést.
Green Frog has a nice DVD of the Milwaukee Road. It is a 3 disc set plus a bonus disc, Pacific Northwest Holiday. The old movie Danger Lights was filmed on the Milwaukee Road. Do this for Dan Thorn!
It was in the 70’s, but I’m so glad I got to see at least the Joes in action. I saw E-45 in Avery when it was still running, but it was parked by the engine house.
I have often pondered the plausibility of a restore of E70. I know the Illinois Rail Museum has a working Little Joe (CSS #803) that they still occasionally operate. I know that besides those two the only other Joe that is still around is CSS #802, which is inoperative like E70. I wonder if E70 could maybe be restored and sent to run at a museum. I know no more Joes really exist to get parts from (besides #802 but I would hate to canibalize it.) but maybe they could give E70 a new prime mover or something but keep the outside and controls authentic? Not likely, but a thought/fantasy I have thought of.
The end car at 2:02 looks like the "Cedar Rapids". It's been restored by private parties and is used for tours. It used to be stored at the (decommissioned) Midway Amtrak station in St. Paul. Got to walk thru it a few years back when it was on display. It's a beauty.
Not one of the "Rapids" series cars. Those four were parlor observations used on Chicago to Minneapolis trains only. There were about ten sleeper observations used on the Olympian Hiawathas.
My dad was a brakeman back then and I got to ride in the boxcabs several times. Between the gear lash, the wheel flange squeal and the very loud cooling blowers, they weren't as quiet as you'd think.
The Milwaukee Road’s dumbest decision was tearing down their catenary. Electric locomotives are so much more powerful, faster, and cheaper to operate than diesels. Today we could have seen the Empire Builder being pulled by ACS-64s and huge BNSF freight electrics!
The MILW electrification was life expired, and the company did not have the money to replace it. It was the only decision possible, not dumb but necessary. Plus it was an antiquated DC system that would never have supported the type of heavy operation you envision in your fantasies.
@@fmnut Having done a reasonable amount of reading on it, GE had offered to recapitalize the electrification- MIL would have had to come up with less capital than it did to dieselize to rebuild the electrification with something like U28's with electric gear rather than diesels, and filling in the gap. However, the management at MIL was more concerned with asset stripping than with running a railway...
The US Government should have stopped this but they are clearly in oil lobby pockets. National security priority would demand electric traction from Grand Coulee dam electricity. No leadership from the top.
You are correct and there is a solution of Milwaukee Road keeping their 3kv DC system was that they should have enlisted the help of Italian State Railways FS that also uses 3kv DC under a 1.45m Copper strip since at the time of Milwaukee Road electrification ending they were building Rome to Florence High Speed line under 3kv DC. That way FS Italian State Railway engineers together with GE Milwaukee Road engineers would have modernized the 3kv DC System using modern components made in Italy by Ansaldo Breda and licensed produced in the US by GE for Milwaukee Road. For Milwaukee Road if they need a locomotive to replace Little Joe assuming Italian FS with GE help helps Modernized the 3kv DC system then a US Version of E656/E655 5,300hp locomotive will finish off the little Joe's. Present Day In this timeline Milwaukee Road ends up Piggybacking on Amtrak SEPTA ACS-64 locomotive with 3kv DC system derived from SNCB NMBS HLE18 Siemens ÖBB Baureihe 1216/1293 Vectron. Passenger services ALP-45DP ALP-46A ALP-46 using Italian E464 E412 & E483 Traxx derived 3KV DC System instead of the NJ Transit AMT Montreal AC system transformers.
Just have A question about the Milwaukee Road 3kv wire clearance are they like the Reading RR 11kv 16.7hz-25hz AC wire clearance where you can safely run double stacks on the Pennsylvania Railroad you cannot run them
Milwaukee Road had cat wire 22ft over the rail head hi Cube cars passed under all the time double stack containers never operated on the Pacific extension March of 1980 abandonment
I love seeing footage of old railroads. It's a shame most of them are gone. I know, I know, 'progress' and all that, but sometimes newer/faster/more efficient means abandoning cherished things, and more's the pity. I've traveled by various modes - plane, train, automobile, bus, even ships (USN, cruise lines, and worked on towboats for a couple of years). I can tell you that although air travel is faster, there's something inherently wrong with packing yourselves like sardines into a pressurized jet-powered aluminum tube. Although I don't travel much anymore, I still prefer a train or a Greyhound if at all possible. On an unrelated note, can you clue me in about what that music is at 6:20ish?
@jonnybeck6723 All of the different classes of MILW electrics have been done in brass in HO over the years. Also, MTH did a hybrid version of the Little Joe fairly recently. Not sure about other scales.
It absolutely did. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't understand the subject. The Hill lines were always stiff competition even in the days of plentiful traffic. In the malaise of the 70s and with deteriorating infrastructure, MILW had no chance.
At one time,the MILW had about 70% of the traffic coming out of the Port of Seattle. The MILW management was too stupid to take full advantage of this--- or--- just wanted to get out of the RR business.
🤔🤨💭➡ ~ At 8:47 I started "gandy dancing" then became a Switchman on the Local Tram, in the earlier 1970s, ~ up on the Anaconda Copper Co. smelter hill. Then in the later 1970s, during one summer I went "gandy dancing" for the Milwaukee R/R up Pipestone getting the track in good shape for (demonstration rides) to prospective buyers, when the Milwaukee was planning to sell out. Later in the 1970s, I was "gandy dancing" in the Berklie Pit waiting for the Switchman's job R. Puchenelly promised Me. Yup❕ G-G.
Why are most of the electrics running with their front pantographs up ? On the Pennsy, electrics ran with the rear pantograph. If it became damaged and a piece dislodged and flew off, it wouldn't damage the second pantograph.
Just came across this great video (thank you fmnut). Although a year after this comment was made, I too am curious (and I live in Sydney, so that's a bit sad). I was fortunate enough to see a GG1 in 1980 when travelling north from New York. I always thought that a broken front pantograph on a GG1 crashing through a cab window would be a concern and maybe a reason for using the rear panto. For most other electric loco types that use diamond pantographs it would not seem to matter which pantograph was up. The location of the pantograph raising equipment might have had an influence. This seemed to be the case with early electric locomotives in NSW.
@@robertscorse7399 One reason GG1s and most other electrics ran with the rear pantograph up was in case it was damaged, the front pan could be used. If the front pan is up and gets damaged, it could fly back and damage the rear pantograph. I'm still waiting for someone with knowledge of the Milwaukee Road to enlighten us.
Worked at the St. Paul roundhouse from 1974-79. The last bankruptcy made me decide maybe it’s time to try Burlington Northern. Sad to see the old Milwaukee Road vanish.
Interesting. I think electrification makes most sense it the Chicago to Milwaukee corridor though. It's a more dense route, and having electrified rail would lead to lower pollution in the urban region.
Beautiful 2-D-D-2 electric godness on a rocky mountain top ...OLDIES but GOLDIES "LITTLE JOE"!!!!.....God bless America firvever ...TANKS a lot Josef Staline ☝️🤣🤠🤠🤠🤑🤑🤑😂🤣🤣merci pour cet embargo ferroviaire ...t'en aurais jamais construit de pareilles ...JFK forvever in our heart , GOD BLESS John Fitzgerald KENNEDY...
What locomotives do the soundclips of the traction motors come from? Are they recordings of actual Little Joes, EF-1 boxcabs, etc. Or from other locos?
Yes and no. Some of the sounds are from a Pentrex series on the MILW electrics. Others are from various videos I have shot personally in locations around the world. I tried to pick clips to match the action as closely as possible.
I never understood how it was economical to run hundreds of miles of catenary , towers and generators aa opposed to diesel s . I love this railroad I'm just saying it doesn't make sense
The economics made sense in the steam era. Not so much once diesels came along. However, by that time the capital costs had been written off so they were just milking it until maintenance expenses outweighed the benefits.
Sub stations , dams, transmission lines generation locations, power dispatch centers, maintenance crews with some big motor cars, transmission equipment and thousands of poles with the catanary.
Additional info: there were only six Skytop sleeper obs. built, one for each train set. All six were needed for full service. When a Skytop required shopping, a replacement was leased, usually from the PRR or sometimes the FEC.
A tragic railroad story. Penn Central was doomed from the start. There was no saving that hot mess. But, Milwaukee Road could have prevailed. The worst management team ever. A technological advantage squandered. If they took every management decision they made from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. And did the exact opposite. They’d be here today.
The electrification of the line dramatically reduced operating costs compared to what STEAM locomotives would have cost over the first few decades of electrification operation. But in the 1960s the wooden posts holding up the lines needed replacing, and electrification of the remaining 'gap' between the coastal division and the mountain division would have been very expensive, yet the cost savings of electric compared to the new efficient diesels was just not there to make it worthwhile to do the electrification. In addition to this, the old electric locomotives were wearing down to nothing and no replacement parts were to be found anywhere. Frames were cracking from heavy use and since no new electric locomotives were to be found at a price similar to what the diesels were being offered at, the choice to go all-diesel was just a simple economic best choice to make. The electrics could have been kept for a few years more if they were not in such bad shape at the time.
Have you done any research? GE, the provider of diesel engines, said that they should re-equip the range with electric, which would have been cheaper than dieselization...
I think you are confused by the nickname. The nickname "Little Joe" does indeed come from the dictator Stalin, but they were not built in Russia, but FOR Russia in the US at Erie, PA as part of a WWII recovery package that also included Alco RSD-1 hood units and Baldwin 1000 HP full body diesels. Soviet locomotive production facilities had been decimated by the war, and as allies they looked to the US to help recover their rail network. While they were under construction, politics changed and the Soviets were no longer considered allies due to the start of the Cold War. The US State Dept. banned their export. All 20 plus spares were offered to the Milwaukee, whose bid was near scrap price. The cash strapped MILW board of directors refused to release the funds. During the Korean War the MILW's cash position improved and they offered to buy them again but by that time 8 had been sold, 3 to the South Shore and 5 to Brazil. MILW then purchased the remaining 12.
Une belle PONTIAC pour bous suivre je connais bien aussi les voitures de ce pays ..TOUTES LES Marques....peunde francais saventbles distinguer ...il a fallu leur consacrer quelques heures d'études iconiques..surtout les gifties ou elles se trssemblaient beaucoup ailes chromes peinture deux ou trous tons ...un monde feerique que l'aleriquecetait magnifique a cette opulente peridevd'apres guerre aau litrecd'essence valant quelques dizaines de centimes americains ...le paradis energetiquecdu consommateur WAOUAHH quel pied ,quelle epoque ....on en est tres trestres tres loin aujourd'hui ...a des annees lumieres , les belles fusees de la NASA, ne nous ameneront jamais'plus sur cette planete paradisiaque ....cjetaitbla terre ,americains vius viviez au paradis sans le savoir ...vius autuez fy en profitervplus au lieu de fever des MARTIENS .....
Capitalism Savage destroyed the Electric Locomotives, USA prefers to build roads than keep Electric Locomotives Running.Americans Like to contaminate the environment with so many fuel and diesel vehicles instead using Electric Trains and vehicles, oil and dollars rule the world.
Free interchange. Any road's cars could be seen on any other road. A PRR car was probably loaded with manufactured goods from the east headed for sale somewhere in the Northwest.
The short version is: they spent too much money building and electrifying the Pacific Extension. The Panama Canal opened around the same time, and anticipated transcontinental traffic never materialized. What traffic there was was split between several other railroads, and there was little online industry to generate carloadings. The debt load was never able to be paid off, and the railroad went in and out of bankruptcy until its final demise.
