The Little Joes are named after Stalin????

[u18b]

From the Milwaukee Road Archives.

http://milwaukeeroadarchives.com/Electrification/Hiawatha%20Trail%20Interpretive%20Displays/Little%20in%20Name%20Only%20%28medium%29.jpg

You Milw fans probably knew that.... but I had never heard this.

[trainforfun]

And when they decided to keep them in USA they had to regauge the wheels

[kornellred]

Joseph Stalin was a relatively diminutive fellow -  being 5'4" tall.  Hence, the term "Little Joe" was applied to the embargoed electric locomotives that were built for the Soviet Union.

[Rich_S]

Yes this is true, the phrase was coined by a Milwaukee railroader. I read in one of the Milwaukee books that, the very first Joe the Milwaukee tested still had all of the labeling in Russian. It also said the Milwaukee at first was not that impressed with the Little Joe's, but after the shops did a little upgrading like adding more weight to the unit and turning up the juice on the Catenary the Joe's became the best engines the Milwaukee ever owned.

 

[sirenwerks]

Now if only we could get Kato to make an N scale model, comrade.

BTW, the Brazilian's gave the Joe's a very snazzy paint scheme, reminiscent of the New Haven -

[nkalanaga]

Rich:  That's the way I read it too, in Noel Holley's "The Milwaukee Electrics".  The motors were built for the Trans-Siberian Railway, and were designed to have a light axle loading.  That was fine for passenger service in relatively flat Siberia, but not so good for freight service in the Rocky Mountains. 

Another problem was that the Soviets used a lower contact wire, and the original pantographs barely reached the MILW wires.  The MILW put the pans on steel boxes to raise them, and on the freight motors, filled the boxes with concrete.  The passenger motors didn't get the concrete, as the water tanks and boilers added almost as much weight.  What the railroad did when these were converted to freight service I don't know.  My guess would be put a concrete slab were the water tank had been, or maybe fill the tank with concrete.

The "Little" was actually a disparaging comment about the motors' size and pulling power.  As big as they are, they were the smallest motors on the railroad, except the steeple-cab switchers and the single unit Boxcabs used as switchers.  They weighed more than a Bipolar, but the Bipolar had more tractive effort, because of more weight on the drivers.  The Joes had more tractive effort than the Westinghouse motors, due to the smaller drivers, but the Westinghouses were longer and heavier.  The two-unit Boxcabs weighed very slightly less, but managed to get more of the weight on the drivers, in spite of having the same basic wheel arrangement, 2 idler axles, 8 driving axles, 2 more idlers.  And two Boxcabs were much longer than a Joe.  The Little Joes were designed for fast passenger service on gentle grades and wide curves.

[Nato]

       The Milwaukee had the chance to buy all the Joes, but hesitated so when they did decide to purchase them both Brazil and the South Shore in Indiana had purchased some of them. Yes every modeler and fanzee interested in electric railroading should purchase (own) a copy of Noel Holly's book. Nate Goodman (Nato).

[nkalanaga]

Nate:  If the Milwaukee management hadn't been determined to get rid of the electrics, they could have had even more freight motors.  In the late 50s the GN's Y and Z class motors were available, and were perfectly suited to Milwaukee's track and needs.  All they would have needed was to have the motor-generator sets changed.  Instead, the Zs were scrapped and the Pennsy bought the Ys, where they were only useful as helpers, being too slow for the Pennsy's mainline and too big for some of the clearances.

I doubt that even the Milwaukee would have wanted the GN's W class.  They were simply TOO big for most roads.

[Ian MacMillan]

Now if only we could get Kato to make an N scale model, comrade.

BTW, the Brazilian's gave the Joe's a very snazzy paint scheme, reminiscent of the New Haven -

Very McGinnisish... I like it

[MarcoTrix]

The General Electric EF4 as originally build, with buffers and Russian automatic couplers. In front the box to connect the cables for multiple drive. As far as I know, this was removed on the USA versions.



On the testtrack, with 1524 mm gauge bogies.



Black and white picture, which I have colourised.
(colours are speculative).

[nkalanaga]

The MILW kept the MU towers, but many of the units were converted to single-cab, with new circuit breakers in the other cab.  Those only had the tower on one end, since there was no need for one on the front.  MU'ed with diesels the electric had to be the lead unit, and MU'ed with each other they were run back-to-back.  Avery and Deer Lodge had turntables for reversing them.  I don't know whether Harlowton had a table or a wye.

[MarcoTrix]

For me as European, that's funny. The advantage of dual cab locomotives is that you don't need expensive turntables.

[peteski]

For me as European, that's funny. The advantage of dual cab locomotives is that you don't need expensive turntables.

True. Dual-cab diesel and electric locomotives are  (and have been all along) pretty much universal in Europe.  Also, multiple unit loco lash-ups are non-existent (or very rare) in Europe (or at least they were in Poland when I lived there in the '70s).

[wazzou]

I don't know whether Harlowton had a table or a wye.

Turntable.  Still there, last I visited, including the roundhouse.

[Dave V]