MPC Era EP-5

I had a few of them and yes they were good runners, easy to work on and the graphics were much better than PW stuff  but the drive lines were not as robust as PW trains. Good basic trains, go for it.

Dave

The MPC EP-5 have the ZAMAC wheels with tire traction.
I like them just fine, but some folks seem to dislike them.

These engines have the same style 2-piece motor truck setup as their postwar counterparts. The main difference being the aforementioned wheels.

They also have a 3-position e-unit, but do not have a horn.

As mentioned above they have good motors. For best results, as with all single motor diesel's, run with motor in the rear.

At least one of the MPC EP-5's did have a horn - I think it was the Great Northern. The Milwaukee Road one did not. Unlike the postwar version, the MPC unit had correct Milwaukee Road graphics - maroon and orange rather than yellow. Of course, the Milwaukee never had an EP-5 - but hey, it's a toy.

I have am MPC PRR "EP-5."  It's a good runner (though not terribly powerful) and looks very nice as well.  As others have said, it has no horn, but there's plenty of room inside to mount one. No, I don't care for the traction tires.

One thing that's worth mentioning is that although Lionel called them "EP-5s," they're actually a sort of "Lionel version" of several vaguely similar prototypes. A real New Haven EP-5 had much larger 6-wheel trucks.  The PRR never had any EP-5s, but they did have the similar-appearing E2b type.  However, the E2b class wasn't double-ended, and used trucks that were much closer in appearance to Lionel's Alco trucks.  The Great Northern's Y1a class was double-ended, but was much different in profile and had a 1-C+C-1 wheel arrangement.  Even less like the Lionel version was the Milwaukee's "Little Joe" electric, with its 2-D+D-2 arrangement.

I bring all this up because some people are sticklers for scale and prototype.  If you are, these things might be important to you.  As for me, I'm a postwar semiscale operator, so the "EP-5" looks just fine to me.

The three MPC era cataloged EP-5  electrics, 8551 Pennsylvania, 8558 Milwaukee, and 8762 Great Northern, did not have horns.

The 1988 catalog (LTI era) shows a 18302 Great Northern Electric with an electronic horn.

I am not familar with this engine. Lionel does not have a service document for it.

However, the instruction manual is on line.

Not only does it have a horn, it has magnetraction too.

The instruction book is linked below:

http://www.lionel.com/media/se...ents/71-8302-250.pdf

The J.C. Pennys gold PRR version didn't have a horn, either.

Rusty

I have always liked MPC era trains.  The one EP-5 that I had was the 8551 Pennsylavania.  It was as stated above a good runner.  The only problem I had

with it was the E-Unit.  I replaced it with a electric E unit, never had a problem

after that. 

I gave this unit to my nephew a few years back when he built his first layout.  It is

still running well.  I have seen these EP-5's at many train meets during the last few

years.  The prices were from $150.00 to $200.00.  They are a good buy in my view.

If you feel this is a good buy, go for it.  You will like your purchase.

Many thanks,

Billy C  

I have the Milw & PRR versions & after a little cleaning, they both run great.  They look nice as well. While they don't pull as well as the 2 postwar versions I have, they are among the better running MPC engines

PRR - 

Milw - 

I'm crushed that Milwaukee Road didn't have an EP-5, where does that leave mine?   I have the K-Line dual-motor version with TMCC/RailSounds.  I installed the ERR Cruise Commander M in it and it's a nice running unit.  The dual motors seem to give it plenty of pulling power, it pulls the 7 passenger cars up a 3% grade without breaking a sweat.

I have had all them. If you don't want the scale MTH Little Joe I would go with the William's version over the MPC Lionel. It's closer to scale and has six wheel trucks Though it's still a EP-5. Don

Very easy to swap out dummy truck for a motored one, and enjoy dual Pullmors.

Well, sometimes you have to do some surgery on the frame to actually use the powered truck where the dummy is, the hole for something like the GP-9 is totally different for the powered truck.   I don't have a Pulmore powered EP-5 to look at, but hard to believe it won't be similar.

Add a second power truck to an EP-5?

As gunrunnerjohn wrote, the frame would need to have an opening cut for the motor truck.

Then one would need to cook up a solution for the pickup, which is normally on the dummy truck.

A couple of notes. Milwaukee DID have a couple of the 'Little Joe's" painted just like the Lionel 2351, yellow and maroon with "The Milwaukee Road" spelled out on the sides. Around '56-57.

If you wanted a second motor, you would also have to change both motor trucks to a F-3 front powered truck with a single pick-up collector.

To the best of my knowledge, the Milwaukee Little Joe's were never painted yellow and maroon with the name spelled out along the flanks.  They were orange and maroon with the heralds similar to the MPC version shown earlier and this preserved locomotive:

Eventually, the maroon band disappeared but the orange remained:

Rusty

Forgot about the pickups, the K-Line has them on both trucks.

I think the New Haven was the only road that had actual EP-5s. Some of them went over to the PennCentral after the merger and were used there. The Lionel EP-5 was a simulated Little Joe for the Milwaukee, as stated above; so far as I know, the Great Northern and Pennsy never had any Little Joes, although they had other double-ended electrics, of course. The Milwaukee and the South Shore were the only owners of Little Joes, and a few went to Brazil, I think.

I have a Post War Celebration version of the Great Northern EP-5. Sharp paint job and a fine runner. It has TMCC, R/S, directional lighting, cab figures, magnetraction, electrocouplers, etc. so it's nicely equipped. With its diecast fuel tank, trucks and pilots, it has the weight to be a respectable puller. Even with a conventional layout, I might lean that direction. I know Lionel made a New Haven PWC version, not sure about others.

Yes, those are very nice engines. I have the NH version with ERR cruise added as well. These are full scale, so a good bit larger than the Lionel verson, with the six wheel trucks.

I had a Lionel EP-5 with the AC motor, but I unloaded it to get the K-Line one with DC motors so I could add cruise.

There was a Disney unit also!

This is what it should look like. Don

John, do you want a MTH dummy? Don

Only 20 built by GE for The Soviet Union

South Shore bought 3

Brazil 5

Milwaukee 12

Two of the Milwaukee originally were passenger motors, the rest freight.

Don

I stand corrected...

Rusty

Unless I'm missing something, I really wouldn't take that photo of the Little Joe as evidence of a yellow paint job on the Milwaukee engine. It's a very poor photo, with the color reproduction way off, and very faded. The true color of this engine probably was orange and not yellow. (The top photo of the model version looks like it was taken through a night vision scope.  

Sometimes there were painting errors made due to artistic license, and sometimes based upon bad lighting in photos used as guides. Supposedly, the famous Lionel black Santa Fe F-3s were produced due to a photo taken at such an angle and such light conditions that the silver sides reflected a color that appeared to the camera to be black. Several photos published have confirmed that this appearance can occur.

I'm giving Chuck the benefit of the doubt.  The image looks like a screen shot of a video off a TV.

Granted, colors will shift over time with early color film, but I'm also comparing the "yellow" against the orange of the reefer behind the locomotive.  There's a definite difference in hue.  This may have originally been the color as delivered from GE, I really don't know. 

I googled around trying to find a photo of a Joe with the side lettering, but was unable to locate one and my "In Color" book covering the Milwaukee electrifed west end had either Joe's with the two herald or simplified solid orange/black schemes.

Rusty

Joes were painted many times. After a wreck one even had GM F unit cabs installed. Of course the motor was painted new. I have found one picture with white lettering on the side of a Joe so I think some were painted like that for a very short time. Don

Found a good color picture of Joe E-77. "The Milwaukee Road" is on the side and it's the same color orange as the rest of the motor. Don

Here's a shot of E77, painted with the side lettering and no herald. Photo is undated but I am pretty sure this scheme was applied to Joes and Bi-Polars in the early to mid 1950's. MTH made a Bi-Polar painted in this scheme. This is a well-exposed, unfaded photo from "Under Milwaukee Wires" by Goodrich and Janssen (Morning Sun). It shows clearly that the base color is the usual Milwaukee orange. Chuck's photo appears to be badly faded and quite likely a movie frame. 

Yes it is from an old video. Only resorce I had with the yellow motors.  But it is clearly yellow. My eyes see yellow in your photo, not the Milwaukee orange. The orange version never had the roadname spelled out, only the plaques.

I'm going to stay away from you at stop lights, Chuck. I'm guessing those red lights look like yellow to you.

My favorite was the Great Northern. I use to run two of them together to increase pulling power. They were very attractive.

But who knows what color that car behind the engine really was in this picture? Given the picture's poor quality and severe fading, it could have been red.

Me too, Jim. They're sharp.

The front paint scheme and logo are complicated; with the MPC and LTI versons, as with PostWar, they had to use decals. Paint processes have come a long way, though. On the PWC version, everything is painted - no more decals.