Milwaukee Passenger Unit Pooling with UP

[ljeppson]

When I was a kid in SLC in the late 1950's I always looked forward to the the westbound City of Los Angeles and the Challenger on the UP during the summertime. Of particular interest was the City of Los Angeles which was usually solid armour yellow except for the loco lashup, ABBA or ABA (E8's & E9's) with the trailing A unit being an orange and brown Milwaukee unit. I'll bet nobody would model the City of LA looking like that! It really stuck out like a sore thumb, but I always thought it quite exotic. As you may know, after breaking off their passenger pool with C&NW UP went with Milawaukee Road for a time. Did Milwaukee Road participate in power pools with anyone else?

[PRRGuy]

That sounds about right for the Milwaukee Road. Before 1955 all Union Pacific passenger trains to Chicago traveled via the CNW (Chicago- Omaha), in 1955 they moved over to the Milwaukee Road and thats when they went to the Identical yellow scheme to help blend in the equipment. No doubt that engine just hadn't been repainted yet.

Ryan

[westr]

I don't think Milwaukee was part of any other passenger pools besides those with UP from 1955 to 1970. There were other railroads involved with the UP though. Southern Pacific was part of the City of San Francisco pool with UP and MILW, and the SP cars assigned to it were painted UP yellow. PRR & NYC had through sleepers in the UP/MILW City of Los Angeles, and at least the PRR had a couple sleepers in UP colors. And, Wabash/N&W had a pool with UP for the City of St. Louis, with their cars in UP colors. UP was very particular about the consists for the city trains being in matching colors. The other railroads only painted the cars specifically assigned to the pool in UP colors; the MILW, apparently to make things easier, just repainted everything, but of course it took a while. I wouldn't be surprised if the Milwaukee heard from UP about that orange E in the COLA engine pool, which was probably taking the place of a yellow one.

[Tadman]

I heard MILW painted everything in Armour Yellow because it was either cheaper or more durable than the MILW standard orange.