The Versatile Little Joe
THE 89-FOOT, 266-TON ELECTRICS WERE MORE THAN JUST BRAWNY FREIGHT HAULERS
The Milwaukee’s 89-foot, 266ton electrics were more than just brawny freight haulers
The word “versatile” seems an unusual description for an 89-foot electric locomotive, but for the Milwaukee Road’s 12 “Little Joe” electrics, it turned out to be fitting. During their years of service, they did everything from shepherding first-class passenger trains to switching cramped yards to hauling time freights over steep mountain passes. Most non-Milwaukee employees may remember them as strange but brawny machines that helped the railroad conquer St. Paul and Pipestone passes in Idaho and Montana with long freights behind them, but those more familiar with these “motors” saw them in a slightly different light.
Take Avery, Idaho, for example. The small town with its yard and engine facility was situated on the north bank of the St. Joe River. The yard had a limited number of tracks, with capacity for “blocking” cars for trains constrained by the river, which gave the right-of-way little room between its banks and the steep edge of the mountains. On a bright morning in July 1973, Dave Stanley and I found Little Joe E79 switching a cut of cars there.
According to Rob Leachman, a Union Pacific employee at the time who worked several joint Milwaukee-UP stations in Washington, “It was normal to call the crew for 262 early to switch 266’s train into station order. The crew would, of course, use the Joe for 262 to do the switching. That way, 266 . . . would have a much better chance of making it to Alberton, Mont., on hours of service.” Train 262 was a time freight, with a schedule to keep, while 266 was a “dead freight” (a Milwaukee Road term) carrying less time-sensitive traffic. An ex-Milwaukee Road employee is a bit more to the point when he says, “We used road power in Avery. There weren’t any switch engines there.” They simply made do with what they had.
Around 1957, Laurence Wylie, a Milwaukee Road electrical engineer, came up with his legendary “Wylie controller,” which enabled electrics with multiple-unit equipment and diesels to be equivalently throttled simultaneously. The Joes had 16 throttle notches compared to the diesels’ 8, and a locomotive engineer could choose whether to engage the controller or not, depending on whether his Joe was mated with diesels.
Not long after E79 had finished blocking cars for 266, it coupled onto the point of a second 262 train flush with potatoes from Moses Lake, Wash. Leachman states that when the Milwaukee inaugurated the 261/262 trains in 1963, “management tried running them all-diesel at first, but found they just couldn’t keep up with the expedited schedule, whereas they found they could make much better time with a Joe plus diesels. At the same time, it made sense to increase the horsepower per ton on the districts with heavy grades, i.e., the electrified Rocky Mountain Division.” The Joes developed 5,110 continuous horsepower and 75,700 pounds of tractive effort, and had there been long stretches of flat electrified territory, a single Joe certainly could’ve handled long trains on its own.
A year earlier at East Portal, Mont., I observed a 265 dead freight waiting on the main line with two Little Joes for power. According to Leachman, “In 1972, it was typical for 265 to pass
East Portal in the afternoon or evening hours, and it often got ‘stabbed’ for both 262 and 264 in the Bitterroots.”
One striking characteristic of these powerful machines was how quiet they were when idle, compared to the boisterous humming and hissing of a diesel. The only telltale that indicated they were actively waiting to press forward was the headlight of the lead Little Joe, which was at full brightness. It was some time before the train it was waiting on exited St. Paul Tunnel, and with the sun casting long shadows by mid-afternoon in these high mountains, a trainman closed the siding switch, and the train stopped only long enough to pick him up.
In my estimation, though, where the Little Joes really showed off their utility — and versatility — was working in tandem with diesels. I know of no other North American railroad other than the Milwaukee where electrics and diesels consistently worked together in the same consist with a single engineer.
During our 1973 trip, we witnessed the value of Laurence Wylie’s invention, observing time freights conquer the Bitterroots and maintain their schedule by using a Little Joe on the point. One such train was a 262 we observed between Saltese and St. Regis, Mont., with No. E70 in the lead. The long motor seemed to glide effortlessly through tight curves. Jim Russell, a Milwaukee Road operating employee who worked out of Three Forks, Mont., states, “We had a lot of 10-degree curves,” and this certainly comports with the twisting path of the track we saw on this part of the railroad.
In this territory along the St. Regis River, the railroad had stretches of 100-, 112-, and 132-pound rail. Jim recalls, “I had roadmasters tell me the Joes had generous flexibility in the suspension to the point they were easier on the track than the stiffer-sprung SD diesel locomotives.”
The Little Joes weighed in at a hefty 266 tons, including 20 tons of ballast the Milwaukee added to inhibit wheel slip. One might expect such a heavy locomotive to see only mainline use. But not so, as it turned out. Milwaukee’s operating and mechanical departments made the best of what they had to work with, and showed just how versatile a well-designed, 89-foot electric locomotive could be.
STEVE SCHMOLLINGER was a prolific Western railroad photographer and author. He submitted this, his only Classic Trains article, before his death in December 2020.