Milwaukee Road in the 21st Century

The paint that has been done, has, for the sake of discussion, been classified as:
Classic - The Black over Orange that the MILW actually operated with
P1 - The paint as seen on SD40-2 #3107
P2 - The paint as seen on the SD70MAC's, SD90MAC-H, C44-9W
Utility - The all gray as seen on SD40-2RC #9981

I'm looking at options for doing a paint that would be sort of a Milwaukee Road "Superfleet" (I'm leaning toward calling it the 'Olympian Scheme') that would use another update of the light-gray/maroon stripe/orange, but at the moment, I haven't thought about the scheme with the large maroon stripe. That might be an option for some more passenger equipment, though. It would look great on some F59PHi's. :tb-biggrin:

 

JKD,

I LOVE the SD90MAC

Is the Cab is from a SD80MAC? I guessing that's how you got the High Numberboards and Cab Headlights.

 

Yes, the cab is from an SD80. Everything else (SD70M, SD70MAC, C44-9W, AC4400CW, etc...) has the high number boards, so having the low numbers and headlights didn't make sense.

Plus, this way, we didn't just rip-off a UP locomotive, but have a locomotive type that the Milwaukee Road ordered. I'm making a real effort to run what I want to run within the context of the MILW, and not just painting my own colors onto a model of the UP or BNSF (or one of the other alphabet soup railroads).

 

Hey JKD, This is fun stuff! Any updates as to how the "Modern Milwaukee" is going?

 

Thanks. It was fun.

I say "was" because I've sold it all or sent it to friends for use on their layouts. Vision issues forced me out of N scale. I'm now working in HO, modeling a CA shortline in the 1930's.

 

Sorry to hear of your vision difficulties. I recently got back into model railroading after many years away from the hobby. I tried a little bit of N-scale, but it was just to small for my old eyes. I don't think you can get much further from a "Modern Milwaukee" to a California shortline based in the 1930s!

Thanks for the quick response.

 

NICE!!! I like the others as well, but this is cool--it's retro like the Herritage units but still modern. You gotta do one of these! And if you don't like it, send it to me!

 

OOPS!! Just saw your post JKD. Sorry about your eye problems and your switch to the "HOther scale". You had a cool idea going there and I remember bouncing some of your layout ideas back and forth.

Good luck with your present modelling path and we'll see you around the forums.

 

Wow, this is amazing. My hometown is on an old Milwaukee Road line (the mainline to Washington I believe) and the color scheme chosen here is really eye catching. Too bad you had to switch scales due to vision problems, this would have been amazing once all done. These are really good, makes me wish I had a few of these locos.

 

Guess I'm doomed to resurrect all the old threads. Too bad I can't resurrect the railroad. I like these ideas of 'what if' paint schemes. Not sure I agree with the ones using purple, though. I feel any heritage scheme reaching back to the Hiawatha era can only match the same original maroon that was used long ago.

Hopefully there are still enough people around to discuss this. I was just thinking of an extended diesel roster leading up to the mid 2000s: Mostly SDs, but i figured they might have grabbed some GP60s . I can post it later. I imagine they would most likely have stuck with EMD products due to the way the U-boats didn't appreciate Milwaukee maintenance practices. Although, if they had survived the 70's they probably would have had the money to keep the U-boats running, too. Still, I though, they would have stuck with EMD power.

I also figure they would have kept the same basic black and orange. There never was a better colour combination for locomotives. I think the final paint scheme with the Hiawatha would have basically become the new standard, and they would have maintained it. Aside from passenger schemes, the MILW never really appeared inclined to go for extravagant paint schemes. Like the UP, and the ATSF they may have resurrected their old schemes, but they would not necessarily have done anything to new, or outlandish.

 

Way back when I did up a set of RSDs in a fantasy scheme and gave them short hood steam generators for passenger protection power.I always have favored the Milw, gray and orange. Sadly these locos are no longer in my collection.

 

If the Milwaukee had survived I'd like to think that after Mr Nadrowski retired I would be in charge of the locomotive dept. By now I would have 30 years of servce. I would have bought mostly used locomotives, I know for a fact I would not have bought SD90H engines. I would have a fleet of SD60s and naturally I would have kept the 4 axle EMD fleet (GP40s-GP38s). The Milwaukee shops would have been kept busy upgrading existing engines.

If I had my way the Milwaukee would have been structured like the Wisconsin Central, WC would pick up used or damaged locomotives for a song and rework them.

As far as GE's I may have bought new or used C-39-8E, C-40-8s, and possibly the used LMX B-39-8s for the sprint trains.

Interesting to think about , I do know that I would have influenced the direction of the department had it stayed intact.

Randy

 

Too bad those locos aren't still around, or I'd be interested in them, too. That adheres much more to Milwaukee practice. I would still have chosen Hiawatha colours, though.

Actually I'm considering either a letter writing campaign to Congress to rebuild the entire Milw mainline out of the nation's best interests (too bad I live in Canada), or finding a really sentimental billionaire somewhere, and getting private financing to rebuild the railway.

This is what I was playing with in terms of updated motive power with some dream dates and quantities of various models.
[TABLE="width: 0"]
[TR]
[TD]SD45-2 (1974)
[/TD]
[TD]25
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]GP60 (1985-86)
[/TD]
[TD]46
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]SD60 (1988)
[/TD]
[TD]52
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]SD70 (Spartan Cab) (1993)
[/TD]
[TD]22
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]SD70m (1995)
[/TD]
[TD]12
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]SD75m (1996)
[/TD]
[TD]16
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]SD80MAC (1996)
[/TD]
[TD]8
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]SD70MAC (2004)
[/TD]
[TD]60
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]SD70ACE (2006-07)
[/TD]
[TD]60
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

I based it off of the Milwaukee's love of SD40-2s, and GP40's, hence some GP60's to augment the GP40's and SD60's to augment the SD40=2s. The SD45-2s and SD80MACs are based on the Milwaukee's tendency to purchase more unusual, rarer locomotive models .

As I said, I didn't fancy GE power for the Milwaukee after their U-boat issues, but we are also taking about a railroad that could have afforded to maintains its U-boats properly. Based on that, I suppose I could go with C-39-8 and C40-8, although I think that C40-8Ws would look better in Milw colours. We could also add some C44-9Ws, and then the logical evolution of that would lead us to a class of AC4400's.

As for used models, I would say that they might likely have purchased some of the ATSF B36-7s at the same time BCRail did for updated branchline power, as well as possibly B-39-8s. Now that should be one complete roster to handle all the transcontinental freight and intermodal traffic. Other things that might have needed to done to improve things could have been grade revisions in Pipestone Pass (or at least a ventilation system in Pipestone Pass Tunnel) and on the Boylston hill. St Paul Pass and Snoqualmie Pass should be easily manageable with modern motive power.

 

So what happened to all his loco's?