The color of Orange

I was lucky enough to be around when the Milwaukee Road Little Joes were still running around Avery, Idaho and Montana. My first visit to Avery introduced me to Boxcabs and Little Joes ( named after Joe Stalin who was supposed to get them in 1948 but the Cold War put a stop to that ) in 1970 and lasted until June 8th, 1974, the last time I saw them run. My HO collection has 3 of them in inventory at the moment, 2 brass and 1 MTH brand.

Don't you just love the headlight glow? Its real.

My paint colors differ a little bit from MTH colors but so did the colors vary on the real ones, depending how much sun the engine got. The GN collection in the background in the Blue main yard reminds me of Hillyard, Washington when I arrived in Spokane in 1967. It was a different world back then.

GN's first diesels got the complete Empire Builder colors along with the yellow pin stripes. Later years (1964? ) they went to a simpler paint minus the stripes. In 1967 they switched to

the evil Big Sky Blue!

I got ambitious enough to put a number of locos in the Blue main yard for this overview of different power units  Someone asked me what my favorite railroad is and my answer ended with 6 railroad names.

The Spokane. Portland & Seattle was the smaller brother of the big guys around Spokane but it still had a warm spot in my heart as it had a lot of Alco power which made it different than the others. I am waiting the the Alco C-636 models promised last year and the wait goes on! In the meantime I will run the smaller C-424s and 425s as you see in this photo.  The RS-1 in the background does not count.

My final trivia message to all you modelers out there is to make your flat cars something special. This one has a commercial load I purchased at Sunset Junction and put on a 50 foot flat car. The deck is weathered, sure but without the chains holding the load in place it just didn't look right. I used CA glue to set the chain to the car and after it dried I took CA gel and went over the connection to better secure it the chain to the car. Regular CA does not have any shear strength except if you get it on your fingers! That switch in the background needs to get attention by the rust crew!

Remembering the Milwaukee Road

After waiting 3 hours on a hillside in Rosalia, Washington here comes an westbound over a very unique concrete bridge that still stands today but without rails or even a railroad. I remember it was cold and windy!

A  favorite photo of mine was shot by our pal Chuck Heimerdinger who came up here to Dawson, Montana from sunny California back in the 1960s. The formatting on this photo is terrific showing the 2 kinds of electric locomotives they were running back in the good old days. Is today going to be considered by some as the good old days in 20 years?

I don't remember who shot this photo but it wasn't me because I am in the shot with my pretty white pants in a railroad yard! The place was Deer Lodge, Montana a busy spot for the railroad back in the day.

Back in the day when I could climb hills without catching my breath,  my good friend Leon Callaway from California came up here to see the final days of Milwaukee Road electric operations. The date is May 15th, 1974 and the power will be shut off in exactly 1 month to go. 

One of my all time favorites was me catching these old Boxcab eclectics in helper service at East Portal, Montana, which is on the Montana/Idaho border and about ready to enter a long tunnel. First off I was lucky to have my 300mm lens on as I didn't know they were coming until I saw them. Second, if they didn't have empty flat cars in the front of the engines, then no shot would be possible. Third, there was still sufficient light to stop the action with not much time to decide focal length, speed of the camera and formatting the shot. Lucky seems to come to my mind at being in the right place at the right time. Remember these are 50 year old machines when I took these photos, not many locomotives are around that long! I was in a time warp!