Milwaukee fans - questions

The K Line passenger cars in this video would look nice behind your new engine.

In that black paint job the Bi-Polars would have only pulled heavyweight cars but in later years they routinely pulled the streamlined cars of the Olympian Hiawatha. In addition to the K-Line cars in Dan986's video take a look at the MTH Milwaukee passenger cars 30-69197/69198/69199. These are the ones I have and they are real nice.

Here are some pictures for discussion...

The version you have purchased is the original locomotive modeled after what was originally delivered to the Milwaukee Road. I know for a fact that some if not all bipolars were rebuilt and upgraded later in their careers and routinely pulled the Olympian Hiawatha through the electrified portions of the pacific extension. This version was modeled by k-line or Lionel somewhere around 2007 I believe. This rebuilt version also survives at the Transportation Museum in St.Louis. All the rebuilt bipolars were painted in the orange and/or yellow scheme, as were some (if not all) of the original bipolars later in their careers. If you're looking for a cool heavyweight consist to model behind your bipolar, the Milwaukee Road routinely ran ski resort trains in the busy tourist seasons behind black bipolars. I have a picture of such a train and will search for it later this evening. Fantastic model!

 Thanks guys

I did find photos of the black EP-2 pulling heavyweights and the maroon/orange/black ones pulling the streamliners with the sky top lounge.

JDaddy,

Photos 1&2 show plain-Jane green Pullmans behind the black EP-2s, photo 3 looks like the 1934 cars that Weaver made, but I'm not sure about the cars in photo 4.

I did a web search for the heavyweights:

Here is one of the K-line 72' cars:

Here are the Lionel cars from 2007:

Here are GGD 80' cars and Atlas 60' cars:

Lionel Stationsounds heavyweights is below at the bottom.

I could not not find any 72' MTH cars.

Bob

Notice on the cover of the Bill Marvel book, that the EP-2 is coupled to a Skytop observation.  Because of the Milwaukee Road entering and leaving Tacoma from the same direction (i.e., it did not pass through the station), the locomotive was run around the train during the Tacoma station stop.  The train was pulled backward between Seattle and Tacoma.

60' coaches & combines cars where used in Chicago for commuter operations.  Baggage and mail would of been used system wide though most Milw heavyweight baggage cars where full length not 60' cars.  Atlas 60' cars are based after the C&NW commuter cars.

Also the GGD cars are painted in a post 1952 paint scheme.  these could of been mixed in with streamlined cars.....  the correct paint scheme for the bi-puller you have is an orange body, maroon letter board & brown roof.   Also these cars would not have a maroon window stripe..... I believe Williams did this paint scheme on their Madison cars at one time.  To my knowledge milw never had green painted passenger cars

Lionel 2026 loco with Lionel 9500-series Milwaukee cars from 1973-74.

Mike Slater posted:

60' coaches & combines cars where used in Chicago for commuter operations.  Baggage and mail would of been used system wide though most Milw heavyweight baggage cars where full length not 60' cars.  Atlas 60' cars are based after the C&NW commuter cars.

 

Also the GGD cars are painted in a post 1952 paint scheme.  these could of been mixed in with streamlined cars.....  the correct paint scheme for the bi-puller you have is an orange body, maroon letter board & brown roof.   Also these cars would not have a maroon window stripe..... I believe Williams did this paint scheme on their Madison cars at one time.  To my knowledge milw never had green painted passenger cars

 

 

"orange body, maroon letter board & brown roof"

Like this?

Mike,

Who makes the cars you pictured?

Bob

With the black version I would only pull heavyweights. After the last rebuild they had problems and were not used as much. Most were scrapped. Don

You'll enjoy that engine!  One of the more fascinating features is watching it "snake" through "S" curves or through a crossover.  All three sections of the body seem to move in different directions at different times.

The original bi-polars (had nothing to do with psychological disorders!) were gearless motors with the armatures wound directly on their axles..  For this reason they were more comfortable with passenger trains and, except for special movements, were always used on passenger trains.  As Mike mentioned above, they were painted orange and maroon between 1946 and about 1951 and therefore would have only been at the head end of heavyweight trains.  Pre-war streamlined cars were only used between Chicago and Minneapolis and therefore would not be correct with Bi-Polars, which, up until their last rebuild were used only in the Washington division of the RR.

Of the five that were built only one remains and that is at the Museum of Transport in St. Louis.  It's interesting that even though the Milwaukee had three different classes of electric passenger engines, the most popular, the most famous and the one that the Milwaukee Road used in their publicity photos was far and above, one of the BiPolars.  Certainly were my favorites.

Paul Fischer

RRDOC posted:

Mike Slater posted:

60' coaches & combines cars where used in Chicago for commuter operations.  Baggage and mail would of been used system wide though most Milw heavyweight baggage cars where full length not 60' cars.  Atlas 60' cars are based after the C&NW commuter cars.

 

Also the GGD cars are painted in a post 1952 paint scheme.  these could of been mixed in with streamlined cars.....  the correct paint scheme for the bi-puller you have is an orange body, maroon letter board & brown roof.   Also these cars would not have a maroon window stripe..... I believe Williams did this paint scheme on their Madison cars at one time.  To my knowledge milw never had green painted passenger cars

 

 

"orange body, maroon letter board & brown roof"

Like this?

Mike,

Who makes the cars you pictured?

Bob

Yes like that..... The cars I pictured were a quick Google search...... unfortunally the picture I posted are a little small as they are "z" scale

Looking on Evil Bay.......  I see K-line made the cars without the maroon window ban, labeled Olympian in the letter board in 15" cars, however they have black roofs..... it also looks like MTH made 18" cars however thy have silver/grey roofs

K-line cars

MTH Car

Roof can easily be repainted,  I would go mth and repaint the roofs

Wow... these are nice... sad, seems like HO had the nicer scale models available...

Number 90 posted:

Notice on the cover of the Bill Marvel book, that the EP-2 is coupled to a Skytop observation.  Because of the Milwaukee Road entering and leaving Tacoma from the same direction (i.e., it did not pass through the station), the locomotive was run around the train during the Tacoma station stop.  The train was pulled backward between Seattle and Tacoma.

Yes, The Olympian Hiawatha (and Columbian as well) did run backwards from Seattle and Tacoma...  But itwas Seattle Union Station where the motors switched ends.  Westbound, the trains entered Seattle and were pulled backwards to Tacoma, their final destination.  Eastbound the process was reversed:  Pulled backwards Tacoma to Seattle.

Hiawatha1623 posted:

Number 90 posted:

Notice on the cover of the Bill Marvel book, that the EP-2 is coupled to a Skytop observation.  Because of the Milwaukee Road entering and leaving Tacoma from the same direction (i.e., it did not pass through the station), the locomotive was run around the train during the Tacoma station stop.  The train was pulled backward between Seattle and Tacoma.

Yes, The Olympian Hiawatha (and Columbian as well) did run backwards from Seattle and Tacoma...  But itwas Seattle Union Station where the motors switched ends.  Westbound, the trains entered Seattle and were pulled backwards to Tacoma, their final destination.  Eastbound the process was reversed:  Pulled backwards Tacoma to Seattle.

Yes...that is what I read too. Here is another shot of the Olympian Hiawatha run backwards:

RRDOC and JDaddy, the car pictured is a Aristo-Craft G model.

Notice on the pictures of the black version, the pantograph is the standard type. On the later version's the pantograph is the 'Milwaukee version' with the added supports.

Chuck Sartor posted:

RRDOC and JDaddy, the car pictured is a Aristo-Craft G model.

Thanks Chuck

You are right.  

It's a nicely done model. 

Bob