The Little Joes are named after Stalin????

[nkalanaga]

MarcoTrix:  The MILW single-ended there's because the needed room for new faster-acting circuit breakers.  The only practical place to put them was in one of the cabs, so that's where they went.  Since they already had the turntables it wasn't a problem. 

A Petski said, American railroads haven't used dual-cab locos much because we've usually had at least two units mainline trains, so can easily have a cab at each end of the consist anyway.  And, with most of our diesels, at least since the early 1950s, being hood units, they can be run facing either way if necessary.

[bigdawgks]

That's really only true of early diesels because they were not very powerful (look at the FT, usually operated as a permanently coupled pair). If you look at electric locomotives in the US almost all had dual cabs, and even those were often run in multiple for heavy freight. I think early cab units would need to be run in multiple to match the performance of a single electric unit. I suspect after that it simply came down to cost. Same reason why said electrics were ultimately abandoned. As soon as a cheaper solution was viable railroads would take it.

[nkalanaga]

Actually, the MILW's first electrics, the boxcabs, were designed to run in pairs - just like the FTs.  And, at 1500 Hp/unit, weren't much more powerful.  Like the FTs, they were single-cab units.  The MILW's Westinghouse and BiPolar motors were designed for single-unit operation on passenger trains.
 
In fact, the Boxcabs weren't even designed to MU with each other.  They could be combined into 3 and 4 unit sets, but they were still a single, semi-permanently coupled, locomotive.  Two sets couldn't MU with each other.   

Interestingly, the GN's Z-1 motors were also built as 3000 Hp, 2-unit locomotives, but they were designed with couplers and MU connections.  They could be run singly, as a 1500 Hp unit, or in 2, 3, or 4 unit sets, as desired.  They were dual cab units, but on an electric, the extra cab isn't nearly as complicated, or expensive, as on a diesel.  The GN's Y-1s (later PRR FF-2) were designed as single-unit passenger motors, so had dual cabs, but could MU with each other, and were often run in 2 or 3 unit sets on freights. 

Most of the "classic" PRR electrics were designed for single-unit operation, so had dual cabs.  The later hood units were designed to be operated much like diesels, and were built accordingly, with single cabs.

[MarcoTrix]

Thanks all, I learned a lot already.

[sirenwerks]

I'd be curious to see a comparison of the GN's W1 to the Joes. Maybe they seemed more massive because it tucked everything under the car body and had no porches but the W1s seemed considerably taller. The W1 were very similar to the Virginian's EL2b.

[nkalanaga]

Compared to the Joes, the W1 was considerably larger, both longer and taller, but had less horsepower.  Also, the Joe had 8 powered axles, all 12 of the W1's were powered.  Then W1 had more starting tractive effort, due to the heavier weight, but probably wasn't as fast.  I have no idea what its top speed was, but it was specifically designed for lugging tonnage over a mountain, so speed wasn't required.  An impressive design, but none too practical, which is probably why only two were ever built!

I've long thought that the MILW should have bought the GN's Ys and Zs.  Change the motor-generators to a DC-DC design and they'd have been right at home.

[learmoia]

I knew the story about them being Russian exports, and the name sake.. But I never knew they were single cabbed by Milwaukee...

All of the models I have seen showed depicted them as having two cabs (i.e. windows not blacked out / glass in both cabs.).

 

Looking forward to Scale Trains's release of these with the MTH Tooling..

~Ian

[peteski]

MTH tooling?  That's not N scale.  Bummer

[learmoia]

MTH tooling?  That's not N scale.  Bummer

Yeah sorry bud..

So, if I understood previous comments, Joes had to lead a diesel consist, but there were no MU stand (Capability?) on the cab end?

So how did this consist work?


Or this one?

[dem34]

The old Fashioned way. Men in the cab, eyes on the dials.

[Missaberoad]

The boxcabs were dead in tow. There was not enough power to run two joes and a boxcab set on the same section.

The first picture the joes are back to back and the diesels are controlled by a separate MU system. (It involved a second control stand, they came up with it in the early 1960s there are many articles about it)

As far as the subject line goes, as a milwaukee fan I was a little surprised this wasn't common knowledge.
My favorite little trivia related to that is when they first MUed the Joe's with diesels it was with a single gp9 because the geep was better at starting from a stop.

The gp9s were nicknamed sputniks!

[sd45elect2000]

The boxcabs were dead in tow. There was not enough power to run two joes and a boxcab set on the same section.

The first picture the joes are back to back and the diesels are controlled by a separate MU system. (It involved a second control stand, they came up with it in the early 1960s there are many articles about it)

As far as the subject line goes, as a milwaukee fan I was a little surprised this wasn't common knowledge.
My favorite little trivia related to that is when they first MUed the Joe's with diesels it was with a single gp9 because the geep was better at starting from a stop.

The gp9s were nicknamed sputniks!

I don’t think the boxcabs are dead in tow, the pantograph is up . I assume there are two engine crews.

[Missaberoad]

I don’t think the boxcabs are dead in tow, the pantograph is up . I assume there are two engine crews.

I did see that and it is odd...

One of the engines would have to be not operating afaik. The Milwaukee did not have enough power to run two joes and boxcab on the same section. I do stand to be corrected tho.
I wonder if it has something to do with the work equipment in tow. ~14 cars also seems like it wouldn't need that much power.

I'll do some digging to make sure I'm not mistaken.

[sd45elect2000]

I don’t think there are any work cars in that train either. I do see a steam generator car though.

The train is entirely the wrong color for Milwaukee MOW equipment , in addition I’ve never seen a work train with an open end observation. Circus train maybe ?Maybe a set of cars from the Pullman pool to sub for bad ordered Olympian Hiawatha cars?

I’m thinking the boxcab was added as a helper, you just don’t shove on the rear of a passenger train.

[Missaberoad]

Here is the original caption from the photo.

Milwaukee Road "Little Joes" and boxcabs have a steel gang train near Newcomb, Montana (just outside of Butte) during July of 1973. Bob Wilt photo

Those old passenger cars were pretty heavy but 18,000 horsepower seems a little excessive. I would love to know the whole story behind that picture.

https://groups.io/g/MILW/topic/4710606#12092
Based off this post by Michael Sol you could "short time" the system in places for 30 minutes so it is within the realm of possibility, especially if they aren't loading near capacity.

I still suspect another reason besides needing the extra power.