This covers the actual electric operation as well and is pretty informative. The PCE electrification was more rubber bands and bailing wire than I originally thought. Interesting it was stressed with the Little Joes and that might explain why only one pantograph per loco, also explains why they blanked out one of the dual ended cabs…interesting video. Would have loved to have been the consultant they paid for years after retirement to keep the electric system running, that had to be a write your own paycheck position, consulting wise.
1 Like
I am one who subscribes to the electrification being an ‘insider job’ to extract some more profits. That explains the heavy copper double catenary – strung interurban/like from wood poles.
Multiple times the railroad was not allowed to shed the electrification stranded cost and other PCE debt through bankruptcy restructuring – again I agree with this being the Rockefeller interests involved. Had the gap been closed in the '20s, the use of the PCE as a dedicated bridge line might have been more effective, and some improvements made to the expedient shortcomings of the original construction.
Yeah that was unusual about Milwaukee Bankruptcies. Bond holders never got a haircut on valuation. Strange. It is up to the bankruptcy trustee and judge discretion but also trustee is these days politically appointed lawyer. Not sure about back then. Milwaukee post 1977 bankruptcy trustee… Richard B. Ogilvie, appointed 1979.
William John Quinn was behind the sell the electric wires for copper prices and make millions scheme and probably drove the company over the edge into bankruptcy (my guess because of his 7 year tenure and things getting worse over that time). He came from the CB&Q and that company wasn’t in the best of shape prior to merger into BN, I read somewhere NP wasn’t doing so well either. So at least two of the mergers into BN were not in the best of shape.
I really have no clue about Quinn just guessing because when he took over in 1970…man 7 years he had to turn the ship around and he didn’t, I can’t understand that myself. Granted though it was a period of rapid change. Offload of passenger service, rapid Midwest deindustrialization started, deep recession in 1974-75 from oil price shock in 1973, etc. So could very well be he tried. Beats me.
One of the things that helped the electrification last as long as it did was that the two electrified segments were essentially helper districts. There were three summits between Harlowton and Avery plus relatively stiff grades at each end of the coast electrification.
One hold-up in bridging “the gap” was passenger trains routed through Spokane with a long stretch of trackage rights on the UP, while the freights took a more direct route from The Columbia river to Idaho.
There were a couple of proposals from the power companies in the area, where the costs of electrifying the gap would be partially offset by selling the copper feeder and replacing it with aluminum. The M-G equipment would have been moved around to the sections with heavy grades and silicon rectifier substations would have been placed in the gap along with areas of low gradient. The existing locomotives would have been replaced with C-C’s using 750 motors with more modern insulation, giving the same CTE rating as the Joe’s. The C-C arrangement would have allowed max CTE at speeds of 8, 16 and 24 MPH versus the 6, 12 and 24 MPH on the Joe’s.
Going back to the late 1940’s, the Milw would have been well advised to buy all 20 of the Joe’s and later on buying all of the CUT’s 3MW M-G as opposed to the two bought after the CUT’s wires came down.
1 Like
I wouldn’t call the MILW heavy compared to Woodhead in the UK or the Western Electrification in NSW but then again they were 1500V DC based upon LNER ideas.
Interesting reading, though those who really want a lot of details on the PCE should visit Michael Sol’s website “Milwaukee Road Archives”.
1 Like
Pity we have probably lost most of the grand flame war between Michael Sol and Mark Meyer (VerMontanan)… both of them probably right, but convinced the other was wrong…
Some parts of the Milwaukee electrification could supply 4,000 amps to a train, so it definitely wasn’t a light duty electrification. I suspect the DL&W 3,000VDC electrification could supply even more current to a single train.
The Milwaukee was first to use the “twin trolley” where two contact conductors were hung from the messenger with staggered hangers. This provided more contact area for current collection and also greatly reduced hard spots. Tests conducted in 1923 at GE showed that up to 5,000 amps could be collected at speeds up to 60MPH.
I know the on the Blue Mountains the breakers are classic 6000A BTH types which I suspect were also used at Woodhead. It was quiet normal to see the overhead glow momentarily when you had 3 units in series-parallel drawing with the ammeters showing about 850 amps from both the later Comeng-Mitsubishi 85-86 class and the original Beyer-Peacock/Metropolitan-Vickers 46 class…
Noel Holley’s book The Milwaukee Electrics, has a story of an NP train crew seeing a bright flash a half mile away in the Milwaukee’s Tacoma yard. Turns out that a contact wire broke in two and the longer end grounded on the cab of the Milwaukee locomotive.
It would a really bad thing for a copper contact wire to get hot enough to glow dull red.
