Ray, I am not sure why Milw called them Baltics, unless the Milw had a reputation, like the New York Central, for naming engines for their own territory. NYC named their 4-6-4's Hudsons, for the river, 4-8-2's Mohawks (when all others called them Mountains) for the river, and 4-8-4's Niagaras (Northerns) again for the river. HMMMM, The Balltic Sea is a long way from Milwaukee. I'm not 100% sure of the following facts about the 4-6-4's, but am quite sure that Milw had them under development, and on order, at about the same time the NYC did. At the time, this was a new and untried wheel arrangement. For some reason the Central got theirs first and the name Hudson kind of stuck with other roads. Milw engineering dept. did theirs quite differently from NYC, and maybe that's why the name was Baltic.
I seem to recall it was a progression from Atlantic (4-4-2) and Pacific (4-6-2) that was not used by anyone else.
Darned if I can remember the story behind the naming. I might have something. Somewhere. For the size of the roster, the Milwaukee didn't have a lot of 4-6-4 engines. Preference was the 4-6-2. Perhaps the most noted of their 4-6-4 group, were the F7 Class. The hand full of streamlined engines built by ALCo in 1938. Boxcab E50
The first 4-8-4 locomotives were built for the Grand Trunk in 1914 and called Baltic Tank engines. They were used in commuter service in Montreal. In 1925, the Milwaukee had a design on the drawing boards for a 4-6-4 that they called a Baltic as the GT had for this wheel arrangement. However the engines built to this F6 design were not delivered until 1929 and 1930. The New York Central had theirs built in 1927 and called it a Hudson after the river along their Water Level route out of New York City. For some reason most people adopted the NYC name over the Grand Trunk name.
Here is one of the first Baltics that were built in 1914. It is at Steamtown now. It had no separate tender so the trailing truck was under the tank. Design wise, it was more of a Ten Wheeler with a four wheel tender welded to the tail end of its frame. No super power fire box with a four wheel trailing truck to support it. Milwaukee could have called their design anything they wanted but choose to stick with Baltic. Had they build theirs before the NYC we would probably be calling them all Baltics. [ April 18, 2005, 08:12 PM: Message edited by: r_i_straw ]
