The Orange railroads

My Milwaukee Road buddy Don Carnegie wanted to run one of my Little Joes at the club and the orange ice reefers made it a neat looking train.

 

Almost like it was 1972 again as the string of ice reefers comes out of the blue main tunnel.

 

The real Milwaukee Road had numerous tunnels in the west and I tried to catch it coming out of them. Say, those union guys as still painting that bridge support!

 

The Little Joe electrics, named after Joe Stalin during the 1948 cold war embargo so GE could not sell them to the Soviet Union, the Milwaukee got 12 of them  as a bargain price (1 million dollars? ) reset the wheels to 4' 81/2" and ran them for 25 years. At 5,000 hp in an era where 1500 hp was the norm for diesels, they didn't owe the railroad a dime when they were retired in June of 1974.

 

The other Orange railroad is the mighty Great Northern and new member Tom Kirk borrowed my F unit for a spin with his oil cans.