Ruminating, I noticed that the MILWAUKEE was the largest carrier to never have never owned a ten coupled locomotive. Which is odd, because most of the carriers that had seasonal traffic peaks on light rail, tried out some form of ten coupled power to spread the weight and increase train size, at one point in time or another. It explains the popularity of Russian decapods on the Frisco for instance. There , the high tractive effort to weight ratio and low price tags on these surplus locos made them attractive. Regardless, of the idiosynchratic matter of the total absence of these locoforms, the road could certainly use a decent treatment of our steam power. Nothing like the Stauffer books, or recent Hundmann published Northern Pacific volume(s), exist for CMStP&P steam power. That too, is somewhat surprising, because lots of MILWAUKEE road fans exist, but somehow nothing to resemble Bernie Corbin's BURLINGTON steam book, Lloyd Stagner' s several works, even King on the DM&IR, and the recent FRISCO POWER by Joe Collias, has materialized for us. I know that there is an inprint recent volume on MILWAUKEE steam, but it is a woefully inadequate work that fails to notice some important things that I know about, and I do not consider myself an expert on the subject. It provides little or no specs for the locos, serves up largely dull broadside shots of locos in terminals, and somehow assumes that the renumbering of locos through the years is what a roster is all about. Too bad he didn't just take a loco roster from Sy Reich's RAILROAD magazine series. They have been used elsewhere with Carsten's permission, and would have given the meaningful data that tells one what locomotives were capable of doing. Maybe, the absence of information is a symptom of the evergrowing trend to fill a book with photos and think that is railroad history. Well, some people believe: " a picture is worth a thousand words", MAYBE ... the concommitant is that for this to be true, the viewer has to know what he is seeing. In the case where much is hidden in the internal workings of a machine, as a for instance, it is not going to happen. It also has resulted in outfits like Morning Sun, which has at least one error per page in their limited captioning efforts; to survive disseminating misinformation in massive doses editorially, as long as the colored pictures are pretty. Here's hoping we will soon get a book(s) out of the current series from the historical society, or from other sources, that will provide guys like myself with a comprehensive picture of the steam locos of the MILWAUKEE road. Good-Luck, PJB
I'm not aware of a steam book forthcoming from MRHA. But a diesel book is in the works. Milw probably didn't really need a ten coupled steamer. With electrification in mountains. Early purchases/building of many Mikes, and Mallets, culminating with the S class locos. Light railed branches. Then early dieselization. Am not certain where a 2-10-2, 2-10-4, would have been a benefit. Railroads all chose to go many different routes. NP went with their big Z class 4-6-6-4 fleet. Then early dieselization using FT sets. Boxcab E50
It is interesting. In Germany, Russia and China, ten-coupled engines were by far the dominant types of freight locomotive - but then, these were countries that didn't have so many articulateds. The only North American road I can think of which followed that pattern was PRR, whose most numerous large locomotive was the I1 2-10-0 and who disliked articulateds. The Mallet was the usual route for most US roads looking for bigger power. Not that ten-coupled engines weren't pretty widespread, but they weren't usually standard heavy power.
Pennsy's Ten coupled locos TRIPLEX: Your observations about Penn Rd is germane, and their 500+ Class 'I' decapods in all versions(known as Hippos to the keystone fans), as well as the 'J-1' Texas types (copies of C&O 'T' class) were the largest groups of these types operated by any North American carrier. The latter, despite their being old designs at the time they were built were vastly more modern than the 'I-1s' were from a technological point of view. However, the situation on the Pennsy was strongly influenced by the Great Depression, and the need to recover the investment on electrifying their eastern mainlines. The lack of funds to modernize the non electric motive power, result- ed in their being a surplus of steam locomotives that could only be disposed of by scrapping, as the market for used locomotives of types run by shortlines and poor "Class-1" carriers dried up with the generalized economic depression that saw many railroads become bankrupt and pass into receivership. The Pennsy, did engage in superheating the Hippoes and attempting to upgrade their speed, but this had limited success. There were other decapods, specifically the WESTERN MARYLAND's class 'I-2' , and the L&NE copies of them that were light years removed from the Hippos performance , despite being 2-10-0s. The latter, were regarded by Fred Westing as the best freight locomotives he ever was on. Given Westing's authority and intimate association with the Pennsylvania RR (reflected in his several excellent books on their locos and operations), that is no small comment. The 'I-2s' could haul freight at 40-45 m.p.h. They didn't hunt or damage track at those speeds as did the Hippos, and virtually all the USRA 2-10-2 efforts. Locomotive purchases are often strange, from the point of view of observers. They were often made by railroads around the world from what can only be considered whimsical rationales. That is , if one assumes that the management was trying to maximze the provision of trans- portation, while minimizing the cost of providing same. Sometime this is serependiferous, as in the L&NE buying copies of these great WM designed locos, but that doesn't make much sense either. Since they were in the drag freight business ... of hauling coal and cement, at twenty miles an hour (less over the many grades enroute), and would have been better off buying some second hand Hippos from the Pennsy. Apparently, they had the money, and opted for a corporate statement of bravura , rather than a sound capitalist decision. Decapods, are interesting in another way to the history of U.S. steam motive power (they only were on N deM rosters if acquired with an absorbed industrial line, and only CP had any in Canada < several turned into 0-10-0s for hump work >): the decapods built to Russian designs, which were not delivered secondary to the defeat of Russia in the Great War and following revolutionary chaos, were bought into the US market by the USRA. These were excellent designs, having some of the highest TE to loco weight ratios found anywhere. They also were better than much of the branch line locos found on the trunk lines as well as some found on lighty built mainlines found on western prairie operators. Some carriers, notably JERSEY CENTRAL, had local managements that refused to operate them despite the need for locos at the time. Generally, the opposition was BS and reflected some holdovers from the days where locos had to have a personal stamp of the CMO in order to be sound. That attitude was changing, and the DE destroyed its vestiges after WW2. In any case carriers of diverse types like ERIE, FRISCO, READING, and even the WESTERN MARYLAND found good use for them. The READING, which operated the gargantuan 'K' class santa fes (2-10-2s) and the WESTERN MARYLAND, that had the already noted largest 'I-2' decapods, both found yeoman work on branchlines in local freight service for these regauged Russian refugees (they were 'I-1' class on WM). So, as both smaller locos of less than100 tons, and as the largest of their types extant, the 2-10-0 was a major role player on several fronts. The Pennsy 'J's were copied from the ranks of the original superpower designs of the Joint committee on Locomotive design created on the Van Swerigan owned railroads. At the time of their construction, the design was inferior to the latest ATSF 2-10-4 types, as was shown when they both shared the same tracks for a brief period at the end of the steam era,...but that is another story. They were, as far as the Pennsy was concerned, terrific locos, given the options available on that system. Good-Luck, PJB
Just curious if anyone has any info on the N3 mallets? I was ruminating how to maybe make a passable representation in N scale.
I know a spot where 10-coupled locos crossed a Milwaukee branch line - Taopi, MN. The CGW had the Texas types and the two railroads had a crossing there. Doug
I knew someone who was involved with creating the Overland brass HO version. Unfortunately he has since seemed to have disappeared.
The Bachmann 2-6-6-2 is actually a pretty believable representation... My major question was about the coffin feedwater heaters, because I know some of the N3's had the heaters removed later in their service life, and was curious what the technical reason might be for that. I'm also trying to figure out how to represent the feedwater heater to make it a little more accurate.
I would guess those items were removed as they wore out. Those engines were being downgraded in service uses. As they wore out completely, were simply retired. Removing would be a patch to keep them in use a little longer.
I gave gcav17 a book titled 'Milwaukee Steam' that has a lot of N3 photos and some good text about them.