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I went to a train show today in Harrisburg. Found one of my favorite electric locomotives for practically ridiculous price. The Milwaukee Road "Little Joe" EF4:
Price was $175; with a 25% discount came to $130 what i paid for it. For comparison MTH model comes to about $600, maybe $550 if it can be found. This is an old Alco Models product and it runs surprisingly well, and it makes it all around my mainline track. Huge plus that it came in it's original box. 20 machines were built by General Electric back in 1947 for export to Soviet Russia. Do to rising tension between two countries, locomotives were embargoed. After some negotiations between GE and Milwaukee Road, 12 units ended up on Milwaukee. 5 machines went to Brazil and 3 to South Shore Line around Chicago area. My plan is to paint it in later Milwaukee Road scheme, which came out in 1960s. Picture from the Internet:
I went to a train show today in Harrisburg. Found one of my favorite electric locomotives for practically ridiculous price. The Milwaukee Road "Little Joe" EF4:
I'm always sad when I think of what the Milwaukee could have become if they had electrified the whole system, and financially made it to the BN merger. They definitely had the best route Seattle to Chicago.
I'm always sad when I think of what the Milwaukee could have become if they had electrified the whole system, and financially made it to the BN merger. They definitely had the best route Seattle to Chicago.
There's actually a debate about the Milwaukee Pacific Extension on how good it was. The railroad was the last transcontinental and because of that most modern. It had superior clearances especially do to it being electrified in two sections. But the downside was that compared to Northern Pacific and especially to Great Northern lines, it tackled more main mountain ranges than it's competitors. From what I've read the Milwaukee would be difficult to use by heavy mineral traffic, because of some sharp curvature and combined grades.
Today i went to another train show in Walnutport, right off of former Central Railroad of New Jersey line. Found more Lionel wheels for my machining project. I have also scored one of the books which i was looking for a while:
The book came out years ago and the prices were pretty high. I scored mine for a mere $20. Besides an incredible amount of quality pictures and description about the electric operations on Pacific Extension, book also contains sections about steam locomotives which were meant to be replaced by electric traction in the mountains.
Extra bonus is the color section towards the back of the book:
So as soon as my reading of Delaware and Hudson is done, Milwaukee Electrics are next.
There's one Little Joe on display in Deer Lodge, Montana. It sports an earlier paint scheme, which was designed to match the Milwaukee flag train; "Olimpian Hiawatha":
Standing next to it really brings the size of that beast into proper perspective.
Picture - below
About it - This is Lionel's most monster AC control system. As it is configured in this box it has 360 Watts of power. It can take an additional 360 for a whopping 720. If it were DC it could probably run all my HO locomotives at the same time. It is configured like the traditional Lionel foot ball controller. Two throttles on each side, and it is weighted so one doesn't have to fasten it down (unlike its wussy CW-180 counter part).
Reasons - I got it because I've been having trouble in the Christmas Forest with the larger trains. Especially the Polar Express. The other power units I have can power the sound tender, or drive the locomotive not both. Then add the 20 lighted and sounded cars and it just doesn't work. Likewise the Sleigh Bell Express has two sound and powered E units that will sit there and sometimes run and sometimes not. I got real lucky on show night that they started after only a couple attempts and I was able to keep them running the whole time. NOW, neither of those things should be an issue.
Will have to review it next Christmas forest.
I was in Kutztown at the train show today. Picked up this pair of custom built old style coaches in 0 gauge, 1:48 scale
I paid only $20 for both. Just finished sanding and painting the roofs, they were dark green just like the sides and the paint was peeling off. I prefer black roofs anyway. A few pieces are missing do to use, they were built probably long time ago and i like the vintage look about them. They will look good with the Rivarossi 4-6-0 that i have...now to build an 0 gauge layout.
Just received my Dapol OO scale GWR 517 #202. Took me by surprise as I had just sent the vendor emails on where it was at. Seems communications is poor with them.
Anyway, when I opened the box, I found that the dome had fallen off.
And found that the loco was not secure to the nice, thick stand. A little rock to the left, a little to the right. All that rocking. So far, I haven't noticed anything else loose. Dapol does this type of mount with all of their locos that I've bought so far. Just wish execution was better with this one.
Running on the rolling road in both directions is fine so far. Firebox glow works, but you can see each diode clearly as they are very close to the hole. Maybe some wax paper might help.
Stealth version. I also purchased a Tsunami, 21 pin, "Big Boy" sound decoder. However, I'm not a big fan of Tsunami and might go with a TCS decoder even though the Tsunami has sounds recorded from the original Big Boy that is on the rails today.
Kinda torn between Tsunami sounds verses TCS reliability.